I think I see why people think Patrick Ewing is going to be a great hire, if it weren't for his motivation Georgetown may have lost by 50 tonight.
I think what people said/think is, he's not as illogical a hire as Mullin because he has previous coaching experience, something many of us like in our coaches. And he started off better than Mullin by constructing a well rounded and experienced staff, given that he had never coached at the college level before, something you can not say about a staff that included Greg St. Jean. How that hire pans out, and even the Mullin hire though there's a bigger body of evidence to work with, is still TBD.
Obviously the results suck, but Mullin was getting flak on these boards in first season when was supposed to be in Honeymoon phase. Don't you think if he would have acted more ''coachy" from the beginning it might have delayed some of the vitriol?
That and not losing to Aquinas by 33
Yes results have been bad, but I think he didn't help himself with the "optics". Or if George Blaney or at least some guy that looked like one of the old guys from the Muppets instead of ST Jean had been using the the dry board.
I was at that game. St. John’s shirt and hat on. Sitting in same row as his family. I was excited and happy to see Chris Mullin. I took pictures of him and sent him to my friends. Bad optics is wearing an under armor sweatshirt under you suit jacket. Not taking charge and basically not doing anything with your team as they are getting smoked by a division 2 team is not bad oPtics. Slice and Matt sat as statues. Mullin socialized. The boy tried to coach but he was overwhelmed. Not a good 1st impression
Patrick seems to be trying his best. That is all a person can do. Was a huge Knick fan. I wish him well. Mullin in year 3 is better then day 1. Still don’t think he is capable or willing to put in the work to be a good coach. I have been done with this experiment for over 2 years. Our coach should have been more prepared and more self aware or he should have kept his mouth shut and we could have a real coach.
8-35. Lost the last 9 big east games.
Here is the one thing I will argue to the death. People who are hardworking throughout their whole life do not suddenly become lazy. Mullin was a self made basketball star. I doubt very much he took a job at the place that made him who he is and then decided to mail it in. He may not be able to coach and he certainly could have done things differently but I doubt any of this comes out of laziness.
I don't doubt how hardworking Mullin was his whole life to become the player that he was. However coaching is a totally different animal than any job Mullin ever had as a player or front office guy. It's especially hard to become a head coach at 50+ when you have never coached a day in your life especially at a high level like a Power 5 conf. I think Mullin may be lazy in the sense that as a high level head coach you need to be on the road recruiting and that's a real year round grind. He may have not really taken seriously how much of a commitment that was and it's just too much for him. Maybe, maybe not but this next 12 months will tell us a lot more in regards to how serious he is about this job.
B Mahoney was just not a competent basketball coach (record at Manhattan foretold this). FF was an up and coming hungry young coach who self destructed. Replaced by Jarvis who thought he could run the program from the race track. Norm followed and he was just not competent enough to be a head coach (record at Queens College foretold this). Followed by Hollywood Lavin who thought he could run the program from Europe during his vacations and from NYC 5* restaurants. Mullin comes in with zero coaching experience. Excepting Mullin because he is still coaching at SJU not one of those coaches went on to let alone bigger and better things not even anything equal to the job poor job they did at St. John's (FF did decent job at NM). For those that say it is SJU that makes it impossible for coaches to do well rather than we just made poor hiring choices the track record says otherwise. I realize it seems hard to fathom you can make 6 straight post hires but never underestimate the incompetency of the powers that be at SJU to make the wrong choice. Reserve judgement on Mully until after next year. Mullin shortcoming are lack of experience and just maybe not being willing to put in the tremendous amount of work that it takes to rebuild a high level D1 program. Doesn't mean he doesn't work hard relatively speaking but maybe just not hard enough for what this position requires (after all he is 54 years old with a highly successful career already behind him). I finished my career at a job where many came late in their careers because it didn't take the tremendous amount of work their previous positions required. In short if things don't work out for Mully would hope our next coach is a young, hungry up and comer willing to basically devote that time of his life to St. John's basketball. That is all. (My longest post ever LOL).
St.John’s conference wins in coach’s 3rd season:
Brian Mahoney - 7
Fran Fraschilla - 13 (2nd season)
Mike Jarvis - 8
Norm Roberts - 7
Steve Lavin - 7
Chris Mullin - 0
The head coach with the lowest conference win total outside of Mullin was Norm Roberts. By comparison, Norm was a better coach. Everyone should think about that when they suggest Mullin be given more time.
And you know, if Jarvis wasn’t fired, for the 2004-2005 season he would have had this line up:
Ingram - PG
Hill - SG
Epperson - SF
Hosley - SF/PF
Hamilton - C
Not imposing, but Hosley would have been a 2nd team all BE. For all the talk of him not being interested in recruiting, the guy brought in better talent than Mullin.