I wonder who our next coach will be. It's becoming fairly obvious Mullin won't last past next year. He didn't even show up to Femi's visit because he was probably too busy playing HORSE with coach Mitch. The writing is on the wall, and I can't wait until he steps away. It may not solve all the problems currently at SJU, but I'd at least rather have a coach who actually cares about the program, and does his job. He obviously could care less about his job, and he sucks at it.
It was my belief that if he did not bring on another assistant this year, that he was going to ride out his contract and leave no matter what or walk away sooner. He has shown in 3 years, he can not recruit, coach, or know how to build a program, and he is not even getting better at any of them. This offseason is looking all too similar to last offseason, where staff is scrambling to find players to fill big holes. Losing TO was probably unexpected, (maybe) but this staff needed another big no matter what. Now that TO is gone, they need 2 bigs, who are not just serviceable, but impact players.
I am so tired of this nonsense...
This team was massively improved to start the year but you say the coach has not gotten better. The season went south when Lovett got hurt, that is it.
Last year, all people complained about (rightfully) was the defense, and the team comes out and plays the first 12 games as one of the best defensive teams in the country.
You think the coaching didn't get any better..? A weak coach/staff would not have an 0 - 11 team playing as hard as St. John's did. Injuries are something every coach deals with and adjust to but the Lovett injury was just too much for this group to get over quickly. If they had a full roster and flopped in league play, all of these criticisms would be on point but now it has just become noise.
I am in massive agreement that the staff needs a more experienced voice on the bench but to say the coaching has not improved overall shows a lack of understanding of the game.
I am not going to spend time talking about my understanding of the game, especially since I am around knowledgeable folks who have played or are coaching at the highest of levels right now. The common agreement is that this staff is completely clueless and not suited to succeed at the div 1 level.
Your basis on the staff improving, was that they started out the first 12 games with one of the best defenses in country. Really? The best win was against Nebraska at home. A team that won over 20 games and still was a 5 seed in the NIT. SJU played 7 games with Lovett, and the only team that was good was Mizzouri and SJU gave up 92 points and allowed them to shoot 51% from 3. Improvement? Lets look at the big east season. They lose 11 in a row, with some of the worst late game adjustments I have seen in a while, lack of ability to stop team from big runs late in game, and allow teams to make a high % of 3 pointers. Lovett was a big loss, no doubt, but a 11 game losing streak? Creighton lost one of their best players, did they lose 11 in a row? Where is the improvement??? You are telling me, that the loss of Lovett would of taken a good staff 11 games to figure out how to get over the hump? Fast forward to games 12-18 in conference. SJU gets big wins against Nova and Marq, and then when Ponds is not being Superman, the team goes 1-4 over last 5. You say they improved over course of season because the team played hard, well that is not what matters. Wins and losses does, and from my point of view against teams who meant something on schedule, I see 0-1 w/ Lovett and 4-15 w/out.