Tourney Talk

Quote from: SJUFAN on April 03, 2018, 01:54:51 PM

I don't even think he's a Big East player .

Trimble is just the sort of four year player that every good program has and needs to be successful.

What sort of player has he demonstrated he is?

You people are delusional. This program hasn't won anything in 50 years and you're shitting on some poor kid because he has a little baby fat.

Delusional are those who believe Trimble is as good as DD. Pointing out how far from the truth that may be is not shitting on him, its bringing sanity to the world.

This program is lucky anyone comes here. St John's is a joke academically, the facilities suck, Jamaica is a shit hole and you people are the worst fans in all of sports. You should be taking Trimble to White Castle to thank him for coming here.

We are a program that is in one of the better conferences in America, most of our games are played on national television, we play in the biggest media market in the world, and lets not forget we play some of our games in the worlds most famous arena. During the Big East tournament they showed clips of coaches talking about playing at MSG and some mentioned how they use it as a recruiting tool.

I like to focus on what we do offer rather than what we do not. We have a lot to offer, there are not many programs that can offer the same. If we can put together a quality staff who are capable of leveraging what we offer, can demonstrate that we can develop players and play winning basketball, we can bring quality players here. 

Poison doesn't think Jamaica, Queens is a shit hole he thinks everywhere else is. 

Please be more respectful of Poison's condition and limitations. We're all cheering for you, Poison. Don't let Celtics11 bullying prevent you from posting.

The Mullin backers are hilarious. The old shtick of how do you expect SJU to be any good when they have sucked for 50 years? WRONG and completely untrue.

It's not an SJU problem. It's a coaching problem and a blind squirrel could see that. Schools with much less hoops history than SJU are currently better programs than ours. It's because they have coaches and admins committed to doing what it takes to build a program. Bottom line.

Also don't compare anyone on our team (besides Ponds) to Donte. Kid's a level above.

What sort of player has he demonstrated he is? 

He's demonstrated that he's a not bad freshman. He has a nice stroke, a nose for the ball, tries on defense and he's not scared of the moment: he made at least one big shot I recall. He was better as a freshman than was David Cain and any half a dozen other players who contributed as upper classmen. He's not a Kentucky recruit but SJU isn't Kentucky. SJU isn't even Western Kentucky.

Delusional are those who believe Trimble is as good as DD. Pointing out how far from the truth that may be is not shitting on him, its bringing sanity to the world.

I don't believe Trimble is as good as DDV. If you'd just said that I wouldn't have said anything. You didn't say that. You said BT was not a BE player and that clown music should play during his highlight reel. Which is as silly as anything Marillac said.

We are a program that is in one of the better conferences in America, most of our games are played on national television, we play in the biggest media market in the world, and lets not forget we play some of our games in the worlds most famous arena. During the Big East tournament they showed clips of coaches talking about playing at MSG and some mentioned how they use it as a recruiting tool.

Is this you bringing sanity to the world? Nearly everything you just said applies to DePaul. Not MSG, but a pretty nice place; not the biggest media market but a big one; and Chicago > Queens by a factor of ten.

I like to focus on what we do offer rather than what we do not. We have a lot to offer, there are not many programs that can offer the same. If we can put together a quality staff who are capable of leveraging what we offer, can demonstrate that we can develop players and play winning basketball, we can bring quality players here. 

You portray yourself as an optimist. You do not post like one. Anyway, what SJ cannot offer - or hasn't chosen to offer - are sneaker contracts, prostitutes, no show classes, nice weather, average academics and a winning tradition. That plus the negatives I mentioned: it's a shitty commuter school with antediluvian facilities and a shitty fan base. Except for MSG the positives you mention have nothing to do with SJ and everything to do with the circumstances in which SJ finds itself.  That anyone commits to SJ ever stuns me and I'm more stunned the more coveted they are.

The Mullin backers are hilarious. The old shtick of how do you expect SJU to be any good when they have sucked for 50 years? WRONG and completely untrue.

It's not an SJU problem. It's a coaching problem and a blind squirrel could see that. Schools with much less hoops history than SJU are currently better programs than ours. It's because they have coaches and admins committed to doing what it takes to build a program. Bottom line.

Also don't compare anyone on our team (besides Ponds) to Donte. Kid's a level above.

It's not a coaching problem it's a firing the coach problem. We have the worst fans in the country. No other school out there would be chanting to fire the coach while their team is on the bubble, a year after that coach made the tournament, two years after the coach had the #1 recruiting class in the country, three years after the coach won the Big East and had a top 10 team, and four years after the coach came within a shot from making the Final Four.

Lavin lands top recruiting classes, puts guys in the pros, and wins 20 almost every year and we forced him out too. We cannabilize our own program at the first sight of a problem and the fan forums make it impossible to recruit under those circumstances.

We need to let someone suffer the consequences of building a roster from scratch (taking chances on risky kids, etc), survive them, and learn from them. Simple as that. Mullin has thee years of coaching. Guess what? He's going to get better as a coach  each year.

Quote from: MCNPA on April 02, 2018, 09:58:40 PM

Funny how people dogged Divincenzo, but he's leading the charge for Nova in the national championship game...

Some on here dog him because Baldi likes him and he's white and apparently it is racist to like a white ball player.

All basketball players matter.

Quote from: Johnny23 on April 03, 2018, 03:32:01 PM

The Mullin backers are hilarious. The old shtick of how do you expect SJU to be any good when they have sucked for 50 years? WRONG and completely untrue.

It's not an SJU problem. It's a coaching problem and a blind squirrel could see that. Schools with much less hoops history than SJU are currently better programs than ours. It's because they have coaches and admins committed to doing what it takes to build a program. Bottom line.

Also don't compare anyone on our team (besides Ponds) to Donte. Kid's a level above.

It's not a coaching problem it's a firing the coach problem. We have the worst fans in the country. No other school out there would be chanting to fire the coach while their team is on the bubble, a year after that coach made the tournament, two years after the coach had the #1 recruiting class in the country, three years after the coach won the Big East and had a top 10 team, and four years after the coach came within a shot from making the Final Four.

Lavin lands top recruiting classes, puts guys in the pros, and wins 20 almost every year and we forced him out too. We cannabilize our own program at the first sight of a problem and the fan forums make it impossible to recruit under those circumstances. 

Jarvis deserved to be fired, if you ask me.  He was constantly bickering with administration (although, he probably had a point since the administration stinks), and he had basically stopped working and didn't seem to put much effort into recruiting.  Then, you have the Pittsburgh fiasco. 

Lavin had somewhat gotten a raw deal.  I can see why the powers that be decided to move on, but you had a few, too many insecure and envious people/fans when it came to Lavin, and that eventually did him in.  He missed out on Briscoe, and those types ratcheted up their dismay, and if he didn't at least make it to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament, then his fate was already sealed. 

We need to let someone suffer the consequences of building a roster from scratch (taking chances on risky kids, etc), survive them, and learn from them. Simple as that. Mullin has thee years of coaching. Guess what? He's going to get better as a coach  each year.

Suffer the consequences of building a roster is fine, but there doesn't seem like any rhyme or reason to what's going on.  Then, we have two staff members who don't recruit (one being the head coach) and one who barely recruits.  That's not a way to build anything long-term.  There's no sustainability to it.

There's nothing where it says a coach, whether it's Mullin or anyone else, will get better at their job because he or she is gaining experience on the sideline.  There's no guarantee one way or another.  Frankly, I haven't seen anything that lends me to believe he'll eventually get better.  Once, I see signs, then I'll believe it.  Otherwise, it's just blind faith. 

Quote from: Marillac on April 03, 2018, 04:21:36 PM

Quote from: Johnny23 on April 03, 2018, 03:32:01 PM

The Mullin backers are hilarious. The old shtick of how do you expect SJU to be any good when they have sucked for 50 years? WRONG and completely untrue.

It's not an SJU problem. It's a coaching problem and a blind squirrel could see that. Schools with much less hoops history than SJU are currently better programs than ours. It's because they have coaches and admins committed to doing what it takes to build a program. Bottom line.

Also don't compare anyone on our team (besides Ponds) to Donte. Kid's a level above.

It's not a coaching problem it's a firing the coach problem. We have the worst fans in the country. No other school out there would be chanting to fire the coach while their team is on the bubble, a year after that coach made the tournament, two years after the coach had the #1 recruiting class in the country, three years after the coach won the Big East and had a top 10 team, and four years after the coach came within a shot from making the Final Four.

Lavin lands top recruiting classes, puts guys in the pros, and wins 20 almost every year and we forced him out too. We cannabilize our own program at the first sight of a problem and the fan forums make it impossible to recruit under those circumstances. 

Jarvis deserved to be fired, if you ask me.  He was constantly bickering with administration (although, he probably had a point since the administration stinks), and he had basically stopped working and didn't seem to put much effort into recruiting.  Then, you have the Pittsburgh fiasco. 

Lavin had somewhat gotten a raw deal.  I can see why the powers that be decided to move on, but you had a few, too many insecure and envious people/fans when it came to Lavin, and that eventually did him in.  He missed out on Briscoe, and those types ratcheted up their dismay, and if he didn't at least make it to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament, then his fate was already sealed. 

Quote

We need to let someone suffer the consequences of building a roster from scratch (taking chances on risky kids, etc), survive them, and learn from them. Simple as that. Mullin has thee years of coaching. Guess what? He's going to get better as a coach  each year.

Suffer the consequences of building a roster is fine, but there doesn't seem like any rhyme or reason to what's going on.  Then, we have two staff members who don't recruit (one being the head coach) and one who barely recruits.  That's not a way to build anything long-term.  There's no sustainability to it.

There's nothing where it says a coach, whether it's Mullin or anyone else, will get better at their job because he or she is gaining experience on the sideline.  There's no guarantee one way or another.  Frankly, I haven't seen anything that lends me to believe he'll eventually get better.  Once, I see signs, then I'll believe it.  Otherwise, it's just blind faith. 

The Pittsburgh fiasco occurred after he was fired and almost certainly BECAUSE he was fired. All the players and managers were afraid of Jarvis and wouldn't have tried that with him at the helm. And our administration was a known disaster and hated by our fans well before Jarvis. Jarvis was fired because of the Jason Fraser rumor and the now standard "he doesn't try hard enough in recruiting" that we assign to everyone year 2-3.  He signed a 5* McDonalds All-American his last season and had several top 75 RSCI players plus Hatten, the JUCO player of the year. But We ARE...ST. JOHN'S d'ammit and we deserve better!!!!

If Jarvis stayed on and was extended and given the facility upgrades he fought for we would have averaged 20+ wins a year for the lat 15 seasons and avoided the soul-crushing Norm Roberts error. Jarvis would have done well in the one-and-done era.

A little more on Jarvis:

He was fired by DAVE WEGZYRN after losing at #6 Duke and then beating St. Francis with a record of 2-4 (also lost to top 25 Marquette in a close game). His best three players were young: soph McDonalds All-American Elijah Ingram, freshman top 25 recruit Daryl "Showtime" Hill and top 75 recruit Lamont Hamilton. Ingram went on to average 13.4 ppg for New New Mexico St. and shot 43% from three his senior year (38% as a junior) there when they were a 25-win tournament team. Both Hill and Hamilton went on to be selected all-conference.

Jarvis also had three other top 100 recruits in that roster ranging from RSCI #52 and #63 on up. He had told 25 RSCI and 5* recruit Lenny Cooke in his pocket too, but he disnt qualify. That may have been his undoing.

Jarvis had JUCOS Rodney Epperson and Jermaine Maybank signed for the following year and wa involved with a few other top JUCOs as well. Maybank went on to play 14 mpg for a 23-win Bob Huggins Kansas State team. Epperson was ruled ineligible after averaging 15 ppg in 7 games for us and scoring 26 his final game. An ex coach at his first JUCO messed with his and several other players' transcripts.

Showtime
Ingram
Maybank
JUCO
Hamilton

+Top 75 recruit or two and Phil Missere and Mo Diakate

That team wins 20+ and dances for two years and we don't go to Pittsburgh down two staff members wothba head coach who has no clue how to run an away trip and a DOBO who is considered a clown by the players.

I was too young to have any serious formative opinion of Jarvis at the time, but it seems to me that once he publicly tried to get the Wizards job and was rejected, it rubbed the fan base wrong in such a sour way (added with the fights with the administration) that it was hard for people to root for him after that.

I was too young to have any serious formative opinion of Jarvis at the time, but it seems to me that once he publicly tried to get the Wizards job and was rejected, it rubbed the fan base wrong in such a sour way (added with the fights with the administration) that it was hard for people to root for him after that.

Michael Jordan wanted to hire him. It fell through. Nobody holds that against any other college coach. Fans thought we were better than we were. Jarvis fought for a higher budget and better facilities and ended up getting the field house for his successor. Our facilities were a downright embarrassment during his tenure...worse than many high schools.

We didn't have adequate leadership. You don't fire a coach midseason and leave the staff two men short. People started to hate Jarvis because of a few recruiting rumors, namely that he was kicked out of Jason Fraser's home during a recruiting visit and banned from a local team gym. Nobody really understood how shady NYC coaches were back then. He last straw was Willie Shaw getting ticketed for smoking weed off campus. This is while Uconn was averaging one arrest/violation every six months. Trevon Bluiett was arrested for pot and his teammate was arrested for beating his gf but they both were welcome back to Xavier with no problem.

I have no doubt he would have excelled at St. John's in this transfer and one-and-done environment. He got pledges from Darius Miles and Omar Cook as well as regular adding 2-3 JUCO transfers per year like Hatten and Fordham.

Jarvis averaged over 20 wins a season at three programs over 18 seasons when we fired him. He made 9 NCAA tournaments (including an Elite Eight with us and a Sweet 16 with George Washington) and 5 NITs. He only had one losing conference record in 18 years and that was 7-9. He  averaged 22 wins a season with us and won at least 20 games four of his five seasons. He went 14-15 with a team of freshmen but that team had the hardest schedule in SJU history and managed to go 8-8 in the Big East. We refused to extend him which kills a coach's ability to recruit yet he was still able to bring in Showtime, Ingram, and Lamont Hamilton.

When our fans first started chanting "Fire Jarvis!"  we were 10-5 and coming off of two wins on the road @Georgetown and @ Virginia Tech which were preceded by a competitive loss to Villanova and a 15 point win @ Steve Lavin coached UCLA.

Our 5 losses by that point were:

- By 12 (much closer game than score indicates) @ 25-win Wake Forest led by senior and future
NBA all-star Josh Howard
-By 4 to #22 North Carolina
-By 7 to eventual MAAC champion Manhattan coached by Bobby G
-By 9 to Villanova who we beat later in the year
-By 4 to Ryan Gomes' Providence squad

That is when we started chanting to fire Jarvis while playing #11 Uconn in a close 6 point defeat. We closed the season winning 9 of the last 10 games including beating #6 Duke at the Garden. The only loss was  to BC in overtime due to terrible officiating  in the second round of the Big East Tournament after we beat #17 Notre Dame -- who went to the Sweet 16 that year -- in the first round.

And we've sucked ever since.

If Jarvis stayed on and was extended and given the facility upgrades he fought for we would have averaged 20+ wins a year for the lat 15 seasons and avoided the soul-crushing Norm Roberts error. Jarvis would have done well in the one-and-done era.

Revisionist nonsense. Jarvis was a pretty good mid major coach who inherited a top 10 program and transformed it into a pretty good mid major on NCAA probation. He deserved to be fired long before he was and if he'd stayed on the program would descended into anarchy and following the inevitable NCAA investigation been disbanded by Father Harrington, as he was threatening to do at the time, because in his eyes the program was an embarrassment to a Catholic university. And with good reason: St John's under Jarvis was short listed by Sports Illustrated as one of the most corrupt programs in the history of college basketball: to put that in perspective, it was 24th to Baylor's first and people were being murdered at Baylor. Without the malfeasance and corruption of the Jarvae years there would have been no Norm Roberts years. Because Jarvis begat Norm.

-By 7 to eventual MAAC champion Manhattan coached by Bobby G

Holy Captain Queeg Batman. Replying to your own posts to rehash preseason losses from 2002, I think you need a time out.

Quote from: Marillac on April 04, 2018, 04:00:04 AM

If Jarvis stayed on and was extended and given the facility upgrades he fought for we would have averaged 20+ wins a year for the lat 15 seasons and avoided the soul-crushing Norm Roberts error. Jarvis would have done well in the one-and-done era.

Revisionist nonsense. Jarvis was a pretty good mid major coach who inherited a top 10 program and transformed it into a pretty good mid major on NCAA probation. He deserved to be fired long before he was and if he'd stayed on the program would descended into anarchy and following the inevitable NCAA investigation been disbanded by Father Harrington, as he was threatening to do at the time, because in his eyes the program was an embarrassment to a Catholic university. And with good reason: St John's under Jarvis was short listed by Sports Illustrated as one of the most corrupt programs in the history of college basketball: to put that in perspective, it was 24th to Baylor's first and people were being murdered at Baylor. Without the malfeasance and corruption of the Jarvae years there would have been no Norm Roberts years. Because Jarvis begat Norm.

I was very close to the program and both Father Harrington and Jarvis through separate connections at that time.  Harrington would have NEVER disbanded the basketball program. We were also not a top ten team without Jarvis -- that is revisionist history. We hadn't won 20 games in a season since 1990-91. And Fran's 22-10 season prior to Jarvis taking over was preceded by four straight losing seasons in the Big East. After that 22-10 finish and first round exit, they lost two NBA draft picks and Tarik Turner. They also lost James Felton and Shannon Crooks. I don't know how you have any faith in them winning under anyone else when they squandered three years of Lopez and Hamilton, and Fran managing only 22 wins with 4 NBA players, a junior Tyrone Grant, and Shannon Crooks. Jarvis was the perfect coach for that group.how does a SR Lopez, SR Hamilton, JR Grant, So Postell, FR Artest, and SR Turner win only 22 games?

You let your hatred of him control your thinking.

Jarvis' corruption and malfeasance, as you put it, is  nothing compared to what we have since  learned (and always knew) was going on elsewhere at that time and would have never been uncovered if he wasn't fired midseason and the lack of supervision allowed the Pitt incident to unfold. St. John's wouldn't even make a top 100 most corrupt programs list for what happened then if it was published now.

If we had a real athletic director he would have received the budget he needed  (he picked one recruit up in a station wagon), the facilities would have been upgraded after the Elite Eight run, and he would have had his contract extended so he wouldn't have his hands tied in recruiting.

Quote from: SJUFAN on April 03, 2018, 01:54:51 PM

I don't even think he's a Big East player .

Trimble is just the sort of four year player that every good program has and needs to be successful. Is he better than DDV? No. Two years ago DDV wasn't better than DDV either. Two years ago Khyri Thomas was a three star recruit who averaged a point a game and shot 50 percent from the FT line. Now he's why can't we get guys like Khyri Thomas. As a freshman Trimble's already as good as stupid Phil Greene was a sophomore. If he was somewhere else in three years you'd be whining about how SJ never gets players like him.

You people are delusional. This program hasn't won anything in 50 years and you're shitting on some poor kid because he has a little baby fat.

This program is lucky anyone comes here. St John's is a joke academically, the facilities suck, Jamaica is a shit hole and you people are the worst fans in all of sports. You should be taking Trimble to White Castle to thank him for coming here.

At least someone got my original point. It’s not that Trimble is better than Donte, it’s you have to give freshman a chance to grow and develop.

I was very close to the program and both Father Harrington and Jarvis through separate connections at that time.  Harrington would have NEVER disbanded the basketball program.

Yes, you're very well connected. You're tttthhhhiiiissss close to Father Harrington and Mike Jarvis. Zzzzz.

Father Harrington said he was considering suspending the basketball program on multiple occasions in 2004. He said it on the telly and in the February 12th edition of the Daily News, where he said that if further embarassments occured "I would go to the board [of trustees] and say, It's my conviction we can't do it. The university's values and mission are too important."

Perhaps you and Don weren't as close as you thought.

We were also not a top ten team without Jarvis -- that is revisionist history.

No, that's you misquoting me, or as I like to call it, lying. I said Jarvis inherited a "top 10 program." I did not say "top ten team."

I'm no fan of strawmen but on the bright side I now get to <hose> your analysis of the Shannon Crooks years.

<analysis of the Shannon Crooks years hosed>

You let your hatred of him control your thinking.

Not for nothing but you're in no position to psychoanalyze anyone.

Jarvis' corruption and malfeasance, as you put it, is  nothing compared to what we have since  learned (and always knew) was going on elsewhere at that time and would have never been uncovered if he wasn't fired midseason and the lack of supervision allowed the Pitt incident to unfold.

So your defense of Jarvis that he was no worse than anyone else and if things had gone better for him he might not have been caught? High praise. I feel the same way about Pol Pot. Poor guy couldn't catch a break.

Mike Jarvis inherited from his predecessor a 20 win team with three NBA players and left a successor a 9 win team on NCAA probation. Those are facts and that's his legacy. Everything else if fanciful supposition based upon vague allusions to anecdotal evidence and ephemeral allegations.

St. John's wouldn't even make a top 100 most corrupt programs list for what happened then if it was published now.

You know this no doubt because you're tttthhhhiiiissss close to the editorial board at SI.

If we had a real athletic director he would have received the budget he needed  (he picked one recruit up in a station wagon), the facilities would have been upgraded after the Elite Eight run, and he would have had his contract extended so he wouldn't have his hands tied in recruiting.

Again, you need a time out. I'm not interested in the alleged particulars of Mike Jarvis, the Country Squire Years. What might have been if things hadn't been as they were are things that didn't happen. If Hitler had sold a few paintings as a tad there would have been no Dachau. Oh well. Jarvis sucked. He was a mediocre coach, a lazy recruiter, a delusional narcissist - the author of Skills for Life who left St John's better off than he found it - and a corrupt piece of shit besides. Absent that - if not for Jarvis - there would have been no Norm. If you don't believe me go ask your bosom buddy Father H, because he said much.