Coaching Changes: A Cautionary Tale

[Novachap]

Nice post Django. Let's go Marquette.

THIS is my kinda thread... Ordinarily, I'd go off on my Mac tirade. However, he just was a share of the BEAST, so I'm
reasonably happy (we wouldn't have gone far in the dance without Zeg...realisticly.

However, a repeat BEast championship will be nice and we need at least a SS this year...probably more as this Jays team is quite good.

Right on GTMO, and I'm not saying Creighton has "arrived" or even returned to where we were with Sutton but I also have hope in Mac and what he's been building on the Hilltop.

...and before Novachap gets all defensive, yes, Nova is now the Big Brother in the GT-Nova relationship (although I still like to live in 1985 sometimes too much!).

TBH it bums me out when I see the state of St. John's, GT and DePaul. Such awesome programs once upon a time, a time that gets farther away every year.

Ha Django---no defensiveness here. It absolutely is recent. Overall Georgetown leads the series 40-39. Since that glorious night in 1985 Nova is 33-29 with the Hoyas. Since 2010, 13-5 for the Cats... I really have mixed feelings on Georgetown's state of the union. Obviously, I enjoy the current run as a nova fan, but think for the long term it would be good for the conference for Georgetown to be relevant again (although not too relevant!).

[sju88grad]

History is on Anderson's side, he'll at least have StJ in the middle of the pack. Probably would have happened this year if Figueroa hadn't left.

I hope Patrick gets plenty of time at Georgetown. His teams play hard and look well-coached, but the roster has been a disaster so far. They would have been pretty good last year, even with behavior issues/dismissals/transfers, if McClung and Yurt hadn't gotten hurt. You'd think GT wouldn't be trigger happy with a legend.

Agree.

It’s so frustrating that people are already talking about replacing Anderson. Yes, there are things that need to improve but, in my opinion MA is the best hire since Fran Fraschilla. Sadly, Fran decided to drop his pants and expose himself, accusing the team of lacking a certain body part which, rightfully so, did not go over well with the Administration. I am a firm believer that continuity is crucial and Mike deserves more time. He is a fantastic representative of the University and the team is succeeding in the classroom as well. (Highest GPA in years).

I would love to see improvement in recruiting and he’s apparently repaired or revived a lot of the relationships with the NYC high school community, so hopefully, that can start to pay dividends moving forward.

[MullinMayhem]

I think many of us, myself included are willing to give Anderson plenty of time...maybe even 5-6 yrs to get things going. But in order to get things going, I think he needs to shake up the staff. We don't have any true ace recruiters like Marc Hsu or Matt A from the Mullin admin. I said a while ago we should hire Hsu and he wanted to come here. We chose not to, he goes to DePaul the only program more embarrassing than us, and kills it. Lack of recruiting is showing up in our results. We simply are not getting enough true Big East players. The only 2 players I am very confident in moving forward are Champ and Posh. Pinzon seems like nice add, but we have no idea what he looks like yet. Champ is the only player who would start on most Big East teams. We have a big talent issue. Cole was supposed to replace LJ who is a true F5 level starter on most teams. But Cole turned out to be a shooter off the bench who needs to catch and shoot only. Moore is decent but would also be a good bench piece.

[gtmoBlue]

Haven't been posting much as I just haven't really had the drive with Johnnies being irrelevant so regularly now. Just some thoughts for fans of teams who regularly make tourney or are at least in conversation for it on a regular basis....those mid pack type teams. Be careful what you wish for pushing coaching changes. I was on board with running Lavin out of town at the time he was let go. I thought that we could do better than barely making the tourney with loaded rosters. I thought we could do better than 20 win seasons and 10-8 conference records. I was wrong. We went from being right in the thick of things when realignment started (far from great, but not easily dismissed) to being a complete nonfactor thus far under Mullin and now Anderson. The last handful of years we are way below .500 in conference play and it feels like it's a race to the bottom between us and DePaul every yr now for past 5.

Why do I bring this up? A lot of the time you may not do better by making a switch and it can always get a lot worse. If we could do it again, I would have given Lavin an extension. Our recruiting went from tons of 4 star HS kids and even a 5 star with a few 3 star role players, to 2-3 star players exclusively and the best we can do is roll dice on good JUCO kids. So PC fans, Marquette fans and the like...be careful. Sometimes you simply reach your ceiling for your program and I think Lavin was our high water mark unfortunately. Just wish we realized that then.

Excellent post.

[MullinMayhem]

Marquette: I do think relative to talent you guys have had recently, Wojo was a bit underwhelming, but again maybe this is the ceiling for Marquette post-Buzz era. I still see you guys as rock solid at worst. You should be in the tourney conversation all season I would think.

Creighton: I know fans were getting tired of coach, but the truth is you guys have had about the worst luck possible not only with injuries, but their severity, and the timing all at once. If Watson didn't go down that year, Creighton could've made it to the Elite 8 or better. They were that good. Then think it was last year, Zeg does down. Now this year another big name goes down. Just by law of averages, I expect things to finally align for Creighton. I think you're seeing now that your coach is pretty good.

DePaul: I think they are one case where they can probably do better without Letaio, but then they probably lose Marc Hsu who recruits for them like they are Nova minus all the wins. Just don't see Letaio as a good enough coach even with stud recruits. See Lavin.

Seton Hall: Honestly it seems like yesterday that Willard was firmly on hotseat. Then he went all out to get Whitehead and the rest is history. You guys are one example that makes our fans think we should give Anderson a while. I was skeptical especially after Hall lost Powell, but they appear to be a top 4-5 team still even without Aiken. Impressive and will give him his due.

It's a hard decision unless you're always in the basement every year with firing a coach or not renewing contract, but just remember we went from getting 4-5 star kids one of which (Harkless) is getting a real NBA career, Sampson seeing real NBA minutes at times, etc. to getting 2-3 star kids with top JUCO kids being our high water mark now. You see the results. Champ was a nice find and Posh was a value, but other than that we have a bunch of fringe role players.

[Hall2012]

Seton Hall: Honestly it seems like yesterday that Willard was firmly on hotseat. Then he went all out to get Whitehead and the rest is history. You guys are one example that makes our fans think we should give Anderson a while. I was skeptical especially after Hall lost Powell, but they appear to be a top 4-5 team still even without Aiken. Impressive and will give him his due.

Gotta wonder how different things would be right now if Lavin just bit the bullet and gave Tiny Morton the job he wanted. It wouldn't have violated any NCAA rules (as it didn't for Willard) but it gives you the anchor of an underqualified coach and somewhat shady character on staff. Of course, Lavin also had the ethical dillemma of needing to get rid of another assistant to clear space for him while I believe Willard had an assistant position available. That puts Whitehead on SJU and maybe Desi Rodriguez follows him? I believe he was only a 2* recruit, so not sure if the Johnnies would have been interested. Is Lavin still around in that case? And where does he have the Johnnies? Is Willard gone? Heck, maybe that 2014-15 SHU team doesn't melt down, goes to the NCAA Tournament (as they started on pace for) and Sterling Gibbs doesn't transfer to UConn.

[MullinMayhem]

I know this prob sounds crazy, but if Anderson doesn't work out within the next 3 yrs or so, no one will want this job. We'd have to roll dice with a hungry, young mid major guy. Honestly I would rather just offer Lavin the job again and let him go for 10 yrs. See what happens. He clearly understood what it took to get real talent here. His development sucks and he is not a good game coach which is why we never really broke out even in solid seasons. But if he surrounded himself with a top notch staff, I think we could at worst get back to 20 win seasons every so often.

[Django]

I know this prob sounds crazy, but if Anderson doesn't work out within the next 3 yrs or so, no one will want this job. We'd have to roll dice with a hungry, young mid major guy. Honestly I would rather just offer Lavin the job again and let him go for 10 yrs. See what happens. He clearly understood what it took to get real talent here. His development sucks and he is not a good game coach which is why we never really broke out even in solid seasons. But if he surrounded himself with a top notch staff, I think we could at worst get back to 20 win seasons every so often.

It doesn’t sound crazy, IT IS CRAZY

It’s St. John’s. New York’s team. In the Big East. Recruiting hotbed. Every game on National TV. The big apple. MSG. It’s a dream job.

[MullinMayhem]

Did you not see our national disaster of a coaching interview process? We set our sites on Bobby Hurley and he laughed at us. Porter Moser a mid major coach of an irrelevant program that had 1 cinderella year laughed when we offered him the job. Tim Cluess took himself out of the running (didn't want him anyway too old). We had our chance to get a bonafide HOF coach in Rick Pitino for the rest of his career without fear of him leaving. New York guy, knows the area, knows how to recruit to truly win big and be a top 25 team. We got scared of our PR and did not hire him. We settled for CMA, who is by all accounts a gentleman and has great work ethic. Unfortunately, so far he has picked up where we left off before him: a Big East bottom feeder. I still want to see what he can do in 3 yrs or so, but not looking good.

[Hall2012]

Did you not see our national disaster of a coaching interview process? We set our sites on Bobby Hurley and he laughed at us. Porter Moser a mid major coach of an irrelevant program that had 1 cinderella year laughed when we offered him the job. Tim Cluess took himself out of the running (didn't want him anyway too old). We had our chance to get a bonafide HOF coach in Rick Pitino for the rest of his career without fear of him leaving. New York guy, knows the area, knows how to recruit to truly win big and be a top 25 team. We got scared of our PR and did not hire him. We settled for CMA, who is by all accounts a gentleman and has great work ethic. Unfortunately, so far he has picked up where we left off before him: a Big East bottom feeder. I still want to see what he can do in 3 yrs or so, but not looking good.

The real disaster was the search before that. Dan Hurley was interested and 100% would have taken the job, but SJU turned him down for Mullin.

As for where they are now, who they can get simply depends on how much they're willing to pay.