[quote="Class of 72" post=273942][quote="Logen" post=273933][quote="Class of 72" post=273434][quote="Logen" post=273414][quote="redmannorth" post=273242][quote="newsman13" post=273239]Geez...one loss to a good team on the road and he's back on the hot seat?[/quote]
Only in the minds of our delusional fan base who yearn for the glory years when we played one game in the tournament and got destroyed. Had players who did not play due to repeated drug use, had attempted murderers on the team who had checked out of class and a buffoon who left Coach Mullin AA, Felix and Christian Jones and zero recruits. Oh how I yearn for those days. I would much rather we have our staff picking up transcripts in deserted parking lots late at night and watch them dine on Instagram at every trendy restaurant in SOHO then fly to Louisiana and actually get a commit from a 3/4 star recruit.
Oh how I remember the good old days.
I have no desire to watch the MAAC freshman of the year step into Lovett’s shoes. I have no desire to watch 6 9 4* recruit Keita step into Bashir’s shoes.After all our recent transfers Owens, Simon and Clark have not improved one iota. I have no desire to watch 4* Greg Williams or 3* rising 6 10 Robert’s.[/quote]
Mostly because many of “our delusional fan base” (well said) couldn’t pick out a basketball in a bin of apples. For those that do understand the game and the reality of what Mullin and company inherited I don’t mean you. And especially pertinent today with the “payola” news, those with common sense and some street smarts, think about why Rohressen struck out with some (especially one) blue chipper(s) here he thought were “in the bag” (pun intended) and why he left so abruptly. Mullin has made mistakes, no doubt, and IMO thinking Rohressen could (or would) recruit without a boatload of money has been his biggest. For those of you who bought that Rohressen was brought here to coach, don’t bother burning the brain cells.[/quote]
I am trying to digest the innuendos and incomplete sentences but I'm having a difficult time with the following :
"Mullin has made mistakes, no doubt, and IMO thinking Rohressen could (or would) recruit without a boatload of money has been his biggest".
Slice brought in the only "serviceable" player on Mullin’s first team, Durand Johnson. You seem to be implying that the 5 star players Mullin had him recruit went elsewhere because Mullin didn't give him a blank check to "buy" the players. To imply Slice could only buy players shows your utter lack of knowledge about the situation . You seem to excuse our knucklehead coach for hiring him as his "associate head coach" at a head coach's salary as some kind of oversight. That Slice is still on payroll clearly points to the complexity of the issue.
Redmannorth wants to see only positives with the current staff, regardless of the mediocre results thus far. That is his prerogative as a fan. After 3 seasons some of us are withholding a long term endorsement until we actually return to the good old days of being in the conversation for a post season invitation whether we win or lose that first game. It is truly ironic that the real delusional fans are still using FOUR actual post season appearances as a negative comparison to the current shit show of losing seasons and last place finishes. Hate Lavin all you want but if the best you can do is complain he didn't go deeper into post season in comparison to finishing last and being out of consideration as we are now all I can assume is that Kool Aid was seriously spiked.[/quote]
Your praise of Lavin shows your complete ignorance of the situation. Lavin was fired long before the end if his last season because it was obvious to anyone with half a brain he had completely stopped working at his job; laid down, quit, so much so that he wasn’t even trying to hide it anymore, unlike his first couple of years when he hid it quite well. If the Lavin “program” is what you want, fine. I don’t. Do I want the Mullin program? I don’t know, ask me in two years. I am no Mullin apologist but I am intelligent enough to understand he inherited an unprecedented situation and was totally inexperienced so my expectations for short term success were considerably lower than yours. I have mixed feelings about his first two years but my mantra has been the same, it takes time. Plain and simple, like it or not, it takes time. As for Rohressen, his MO is as well known as Lavin’s laziness so spare me with Durand Johnson crap. However, to the one valid point you did make, I agree his hiring was a HUGE mistake.[/quote]
" I am no Mullin apologist".
What half of your brain said that???? Because when you say you are "intelligent enough to understand he inherited an unprecedented situation and was totally inexperienced so my expectations for short term success were considerably lower than yours" you are making the biggest excuse geniuses like yourself have been using since Brian Mahoney for the stench of mediocrity that permeates this basketball program.
It is the low expectations, long term "wait until 5 years from now", that has given the inept administrators that have run this shit show the reputation for making some of the most egregious hiring decisions in the Big East Conference. You, like a few others that fail to comprehend what I am saying because you think you are so much more intelligent than the other fans, don't look at the record but look at the personality behind the record to validate your detest for that individual.
Lavin was out of coaching for "years" when we hired him. I thought that was a mistake. However, he took Norm’s kids who were conditioned to being losers and made them into an NCAA team. He then recruited one of the highest rated classes in SJU history and all of you were coming in your pants over the possibility of success. Then, bam, he gets cancer and, showing the true colors as the scum bag fans we are, we turned on him. When he came back he went to three consecutive post seasons. That was not good enough. He didn't get to the final four. Something our "Hall of Fame", one and done coach who we named an arena after, did only once in his entire career. He struck out on a couple of recruits that could have impacted his success. A couple is all it took to brand him "lazy". Then, when most coaches with 3 consecutive post seasons normally are in conversations about contract extensions, St. John's management that included a low life AD and an outgoing corrupt President, have no conversations and no relationship with the basketball staff for the entire 4th year. Then, we fire the low life AD and we hire a bean counter with a zero track record running a major national university going to year four of Lavin's lazy career. Did Lavin become "DISINTERESTED" at that point? I sure the fck would have! His last year only signing his top recruits, Briscoe being one, would have saved his job because even that inept administration would have had a tough time justifying firing him at that point. Before the Sheed drama, the Obekpa drama, the die had been cast. They used a 90 year old ex-coach as bait and convinced a faltering NBA exec to come home and be the face of the program. They hired an "IMAGE", NOT A COACH. They went for the headline in the NY Daily News and it quickly faded after one year.
After three years, highly evolved, super intelligent fans such as yourself now rationalize that, after three losing and Normesque seasons we need two or three more years because we hired a cheerleader who looks over a twenty-something kid coach's shoulder as our vaulted leader into the new age of St. John's basketball.
While you all are making excuses for our knucklehead coach I am feeling the agony of defeat that our kids have been feeling. Winning and playing the game of basketball is all these kids really want while the grownups in the gym have secured their guaranteed 6 year contracts, regardless of past experience or qualifications.
Finally, some of you geniuses have to stop with the excuse that Mullin's record is a result of Lavin’s final year of recruiting that ended almost 4 years ago. If any former coach inherited a disaster it was Norm Roberts after the Pitt scandal. Even Steve Lavin, that lazy recruiter, had to replace 10 players after all of Norm’s kids left.
If you really want to imagine how bad things could be under Mullin image not having gotten Shamorie Ponds and losing Shamorie Ponds.
That said, I will root for our kids to win the last three games and will credit the staff if they guide them to those wins.[/quote]
Look, fans may have given Lavin a tougher time than he deserved, but lets not create this victim narrative where cancer destroyed his chances at being successful and the fans turned on him for no good reason. Yes, Lavin had cancer, but he came back healthy, and was able to successfully create the most talented St. John's basketball team I've ever seen.
Our roster was completely stacked. NBA player JaKarr Sampson, 2,000 point scorer D'Angelo Harrison, 5 star point guard Rysheed Jordan, and other experienced and highly ranked players (Pointer, Greene, Branch, Sanchez, etc)
And guess what? The team looked lost every game they played. There was no coaching, We had the talent to be a top 20 team in the country, but we would continuously lose against real coaches like Ed Cooley, Jay Wright, McDermott, Mack.
It made sense that Lavin got to finish his career with the guys that stuck around like DLo, Pointer, Phil, but lets be honest here, as soon as that 2013-14 team didn't make the tournament he should've been booted right off campus. So I dont really want to hear this Lavin-victim narrative, i don't care for it.
He did a horrible job coaching, and then he gave up recruiting. I think he knew he was never gonna have a better roster here than he had, and when he couldn't make the tournament, he gave up. Doesn't sound like a victim to me. With all this being said, the Lavin era was a fun time for me, thank you for recruiting D'Angelo Harrison.
As for Mullin, if you dig up threads from when he was hired, everyone was in agreement that the rebuild was going to take 3,4 maybe 5 years. But fans hate losing, makes them impatient, and here we are, with Mullin on the "hot seat".
My opinion, next year is 'judgement day". Have a breakthrough season or maybe it is time to part ways. This season has been a failure, but the truth is kids around the country don't know that that much, because we've gotten so much good press. When I talk to my friends who go to other schools, they are shocked when I mention how bad our record is, because all anyone hears about is Duke/Nova.
So yea, I'll say it right now, if we are not in the field of 68, 13 months from now, fire Chris Mullin
