The Redmen Are Back- Thank you Rick

Big win against a hated rival. We likely punched our ticket to March. Tomorrow night against UConn is a house money game.

https://nypost.com/2024/03/14/sports/st-johns-beats-seton-hall-to-likely-punch-march-madness-ticket/

Little Ricky has got them cooking!

Let's keep the revenge tour going against UConn.

Thanks Rick, we're back.

In the NIT.

Thanks Rick, we're back.

In the NIT.

We actually turned down the NIT so we are actually heading to the transfer portal haha

We actually turned down the NIT so we are actually heading to the transfer portal

I'm old enough to remember when SJU turned down an invite to the NCAA tournament to play in the NIT.

I'm old enough to remember when SJU turned down an invite to the NCAA tournament to play in the NIT.

Which clearly makes you an Old Foadie.



For all you've witnessed, what is your take on Pitino's ability to maneuver through the portal and have the team improved beyond this year's team?

Which clearly makes you an Old Foadie.

Clearly. It was sometime in the 70s, I think during the McCoy years, but I can't be arsed to look. Al McGuire turned down the NCAAs in 1970, being uphappy with Marquette's seeding. MU beat SJU in the finals.

For all you've witnessed, what is your take on Pitino's ability to maneuver through the portal and have the team improved beyond this year's team?

I didn't sit through many entire games this year (except during that glorious losing streak) and am a better man for it so I can't comment on this years team. That said, on the one hand Pitino is one of the greatest coaches of his generation and if anyone can turn SJ around he's on the short list. On the other hand, for 24 years of his career he was paying his players - which 24 years accounts for 500 of his lifetime 700 wins (at Kentucky and Louisville, two of the most corrupt programs in CBB history). Which was a huge recruiting advantage. Except now everybody can pay their players. With payola off the table what's he got to sell that no one else has? Scenic Jamaica? Majestic Carnesecca Arena? Elite academics? He's got almost nothing: UConn's home court the Garden and the privilege of playing for a thin skinned geriatric HOF coach who may or may not have lost a few off his fastball.

I keep coming back to this: SJU is where coaching careers come to die. Look at this conga line of losers: Mahoney, Fran, Jarhead, Norm, Lavin, Mullins, Anderson. Thirty years of shit sandwich. Why should RAP be any different.

Clearly. It was sometime in the 70s, I think during the McCoy years, but I can't be arsed to look. Al McGuire turned down the NCAAs in 1970, being uphappy with Marquette's seeding. MU beat SJU in the finals.

I didn't sit through many entire games this year (except during that glorious losing streak) and am a better man for it so I can't comment on this years team. That said, on the one hand Pitino is one of the greatest coaches of his generation and if anyone can turn SJ around he's on the short list. On the other hand, for 24 years of his career he was paying his players - which 24 years accounts for 500 of his lifetime 700 wins (at Kentucky and Louisville, two of the most corrupt programs in CBB history). Which was a huge recruiting advantage. Except now everybody can pay their players. With payola off the table what's he got to sell that no one else has? Scenic Jamaica? Majestic Carnesecca Arena? Elite academics? He's got almost nothing: UConn's home court the Garden and the privilege of playing for a thin skinned geriatric HOF coach who may or may not have lost a few off his fastball.

I keep coming back to this: SJU is where coaching careers come to die. Look at this conga line of losers: Mahoney, Fran, Jarhead, Norm, Lavin, Mullins, Anderson. Thirty years of shit sandwich. Why should RAP be any different.

In fairness Foad, this time its different in the sense of the school has now made a commitment to improve its facilities and get into that realm. Even if we have a facility half as good as the Providence one that Fr. Shanley spearheaded there, that is progress and if they also renovate Carnessecca Arena we will be in a better position. As for your NIL point- its a good one BUT right now Repole is more involved again and he will help Rick do what he needs to, to win. This year was always going to be an uphill climb with recruiting almost an entire new team in a short amount of time out of the mediocre talent left to get.

In fairness Foad, this time its different in the sense of the school has now made a commitment to improve its facilities and get into that realm. Even if we have a facility half as good as the Providence one that Fr. Shanley spearheaded there, that is progress and if they also renovate Carnessecca Arena we will be in a better position. As for your NIL point- its a good one BUT right now Repole is more involved again and he will help Rick do what he needs to, to win. This year was always going to be an uphill climb with recruiting almost an entire new team in a short amount of time out of the mediocre talent left to get.

In fairness, you're very young and your dreams haven't yet been crushed by reality. Allow me to pour cold water on your dreams.

The facilities at SJU stink. STOP. They won't get better until at least 2027 (and probably later considering delays and cost over runs) when Pitino is 75. STOP. Carnesecca is a dump and likely always willl be. I mean sure, the new seat backs pushed SJ well into the nineteenth century and maybe someday they'll install air conditioning. Lipstick on a pig.

Re the players, Pitino picked them after jettisoning half a dozen players better than what he got back. Maybe skipping the NIT will propel him into out-recruiting teams that are not laughingstocks like Saint John's. Which you should be thanking your lucky stars every day for DePaul - which however just hired a young virile Chris Holtmann, a former coach of the year nationally and in the big east and in the big ten and in the big south. Talk about your sleeping giant.

Suffice it to say that I'm less than sanguine about all this, which makes me what passes for happy as I slide slowly into the grave.