April Live Period

Quote from: goredmen on April 29, 2018, 05:41:18 PM

Quote from: fordham96 on April 29, 2018, 05:22:05 PM

I could care less what MB thinks because he's a clown, but a couple of things about this coming roster being better than than last 20 years.

1) That's not saying a lot and

2) Go player for player on Lavin's 1st, 4th and 5th year teams.  Where do you think this roster is better?  And trust me I am not suggesting those are great teams.  Ponds, Simon and Dixon are better than Harrison, Jordan and Greene.  Close.  Keita, LJ  and Clark are better than Obekpa, Sampson and Sanchez...not in my book. Coming off the bench who is as good as Dom Pointer??  Who is DJ Kennedy.

You and others are projecting a lot of production from players who for the most part have done little on this level.

You maybe right but you say it with certainty.   Go back and look at some if those teams again.

Yes those teams are close but Lavin’s year 4 and year 5 teams did not have the depth and lineup versatility that this roster currently has. Lavin’s year 4 team is not even close to this one as freshman Rysheed was wildly inefficient and Dom simply wasn’t good as a Jr. Branch was average at best and I was always anti-Obepka.

The year 5 team probably had better top end talent but only had 6 guys and not many lineup options.

A real argument can be made the 2011 roster was better and I won’t argue either way on that roster vs this one. Looking at the current roster on paper I don’t see any reason why this team can’t achieve what that 2011 team did. Unfortunately we don’t have a Mike Dunlap to direct the team here so it may not shake out like that. But the talent and depth is there

Do you honestly think Lavin would have chased the likes of Earlington and Trimble?
Be serious, he at least recruited kids who first team all-staters.
Don't even try to compare Lavin's teams with Mullin's.
Lavin hustled more battling cancer and a divorce than this entire staff.

I keep telling some folks the same, TIS.  He may have gone after Trimble in a similar scenario (based on how we landed him), but I doubt he would've targeted Earlington.

By the way, Dunlap and Lavin went hand-in-hand.  Lavin had plenty of input, in case he was attempting to take a dig at Lavin capabilities.  If not, then nevermind.

Here is the bottom line.  Even if it is true it is hardly an impressive statement to say the 18-19 roster is best in 20 years, and I don't think it is true.

You may think that is an impressive statement but it's not.

An impressive statement would be this roster will finish top 3 in BE and with impressive recruiting class challenge Nova in 19-20.  Because that is the goal.  Not to be the best roster in 20 years most of those years were utterly lousy teams.

This is the problem. We have not been able to compete at that level in 20 years and because we still can’t somehow that means the program is more of a mess now than it’s been in the past. Of course the goal is to be able to challenge the best but around here we currently overestimate our program’s standing in the college basketball landscape. If you go to DePaul’s message board and see them posting about challenging the best program in the nation in 2 years you’d think they are insane, and you’d be right to think that. The problem is we don’t realize just how close to DePaul we are ourselves.

Turning a program around doesn’t happen overnight. I know you would argue that this is taking longer than it should and I’d probably agree with that. But the fact is that we are approaching year 4 with a realistic chance to really take a step forward, which isn’t a terrible spot to be in considering what was inherited. If Ponds returns and this team finishes 7th and goes to the NIT then yeah the staff would be an absolute failure and I’d lose all hope that they’d turn it around. But if they have a decent season and go to the tournament even as a 8 or 9 seed then there is something to build on and the program isn’t a mess.

The point is for a program like us you have to be good before you become great. Villanova was good before they became great. People think it’s realistic to skip the good part and go straight to great when it’s not. This upcoming season has a realistic chance to be good. If it’s not then it’s likely we’ll never get to where we want to be with CM in charge. If it’s good then there’s at least some hope we can become really good and then great in the next 3-5 years

Quote from: goredmen on April 29, 2018, 05:41:18 PM

Quote from: fordham96 on April 29, 2018, 05:22:05 PM

I could care less what MB thinks because he's a clown, but a couple of things about this coming roster being better than than last 20 years.

1) That's not saying a lot and

2) Go player for player on Lavin's 1st, 4th and 5th year teams.  Where do you think this roster is better?  And trust me I am not suggesting those are great teams.  Ponds, Simon and Dixon are better than Harrison, Jordan and Greene.  Close.  Keita, LJ  and Clark are better than Obekpa, Sampson and Sanchez...not in my book. Coming off the bench who is as good as Dom Pointer??  Who is DJ Kennedy.

You and others are projecting a lot of production from players who for the most part have done little on this level.

You maybe right but you say it with certainty.   Go back and look at some if those teams again.

Yes those teams are close but Lavin’s year 4 and year 5 teams did not have the depth and lineup versatility that this roster currently has. Lavin’s year 4 team is not even close to this one as freshman Rysheed was wildly inefficient and Dom simply wasn’t good as a Jr. Branch was average at best and I was always anti-Obepka.

The year 5 team probably had better top end talent but only had 6 guys and not many lineup options.

A real argument can be made the 2011 roster was better and I won’t argue either way on that roster vs this one. Looking at the current roster on paper I don’t see any reason why this team can’t achieve what that 2011 team did. Unfortunately we don’t have a Mike Dunlap to direct the team here so it may not shake out like that. But the talent and depth is there

Do you honestly think Lavin would have chased the likes of Earlington and Trimble?
Be serious, he at least recruited kids who first team all-staters.
Don't even try to compare Lavin's teams with Mullin's.
Lavin hustled more battling cancer and a divorce than this entire staff.

Christian Jones, Amar Alibegovic, Felix Balamou, Joey De La Rosa, Marco Bourgault.

None of those guys were even close to Big East players. Doesn’t excuse whatever qualms you have with current staff but you can’t claim Lavin never recruited and brought in low quality players.

And the fact you mentioned Trimble there proves my point. Trimble was a 3 star recruit that played well in his role last year. Many here think if a recruit doesn't average 20 points a game in his freshman year then he's terrible and will never be good. That leads to idiots on twitter tweeting directly at him to transfer. Trimble has a chance to be a very good player in his time in college. Will he ever be an all-conference player? No, but that doesn't mean he can't be good and play a very important role here over the next 3 years.

Do you honestly think Lavin would have chased the likes of Earlington and Trimble?

Of course not stupid, Lavin was too fat to chase anyone. If he'd attempted running his man tits would have battered him into unconsciousness. What he did was travel to the Riviera on the university's dime to land euro-gems like Amar Alibegowitz and when he wasn't doing that he was sending his minions to darkened parking lots to exchange forged transcripts with soon to be convicted felons. In between he signed all americans like Max Hooper, Felix Balamou, Marco Bourgault, Nurideen  Lindsey and Christian Jones. I'm mean sure, rubes like you bought it, but you're an imbecile.

IMO both staff’s suck.  I like Lavin better because he was more interested and I loved his stories about boxing out and hitting players in the “chicklets”...at least until his cancer came about.  Mullin seemingly totally disinterested in recruiting nor even hiring somebody who is,  Both hired cronies instead of coaches and recruiters.  Honestly they’re more similar than different.  The common denominator is a doofus administration at SJU who is equally disinterested and lack any knowledge of what it takes to win in D 1 basketball.  It has spanned decades.  Our latest coach seemingly telling administration what to do...  It all starts at the top, or is it the bottom?  Seemingly we can never hire any coach that is young and hungry and hires a hard-working staff... oh wait, we did in Norm, who was the most interested yet least capable at the time...

Our roster is actually solid right now, and that is on Matt, regardless of whether he can work well with others or not.  It’s easy to work with Mullin on the road... he doesn’t go on the road.

Quote from: tominsimsbury on April 29, 2018, 06:09:01 PM

Do you honestly think Lavin would have chased the likes of Earlington and Trimble?

Of course not stupid, Lavin was too fat to chase anyone. If he'd attempted running his man tits would have battered him into unconsciousness. What he did was travel to the Riviera on the university's dime to land euro-gems like Amar Alibegowitz and when he wasn't doing that he was sending his minions to darkened parking lots to exchange forged transcripts with soon to be convicted felons. In between he signed all americans like Max Hooper, Felix Balamou, Marco Bourgault, Nurideen  Lindsey and Christian Jones. I'm mean sure, rubes like you bought it, but you're an imbecile.

Dude you have zero knowledge of anything.  You need to stop.  You know nothing about Lavin's recruitung.  You would not be able to tell me the rankings of any of our  recruits or his.  Your bias well known.  You ridiculed him from the day he was hired and then proclaimed the day Mullin was hired you may start rooting for SJU.  You're a fraud.

Yet in post after post you fail to mention how they wasted months on Zach Brown a felon who UCONN dropped.  Just imagine if Lavin had even attempted to do that. 

I love Mullin and want him to succeed in the worst way.  I don't root against anyone.  Your essentially Baldi but with an IQ.

Your essentially Baldi but with an IQ.

You're essentially Baldi but with a vagina.

Quote from: fordham96 on April 29, 2018, 06:34:02 PM

Here is the bottom line.  Even if it is true it is hardly an impressive statement to say the 18-19 roster is best in 20 years, and I don't think it is true.

You may think that is an impressive statement but it's not.

An impressive statement would be this roster will finish top 3 in BE and with impressive recruiting class challenge Nova in 19-20.  Because that is the goal.  Not to be the best roster in 20 years most of those years were utterly lousy teams.

This is the problem. We have not been able to compete at that level in 20 years and because we still can’t somehow that means the program is more of a mess now than it’s been in the past. Of course the goal is to be able to challenge the best but around here we currently overestimate our program’s standing in the college basketball landscape. If you go to DePaul’s message board and see them posting about challenging the best program in the nation in 2 years you’d think they are insane, and you’d be right to think that. The problem is we don’t realize just how close to DePaul we are ourselves.

Turning a program around doesn’t happen overnight. I know you would argue that this is taking longer than it should and I’d probably agree with that. But the fact is that we are approaching year 4 with a realistic chance to really take a step forward, which isn’t a terrible spot to be in considering what was inherited. If Ponds returns and this team finishes 7th and goes to the NIT then yeah the staff would be an absolute failure and I’d lose all hope that they’d turn it around. But if they have a decent season and go to the tournament even as a 8 or 9 seed then there is something to build on and the program isn’t a mess.

The point is for a program like us you have to be good before you become great. Villanova was good before they became great. People think it’s realistic to skip the good part and go straight to great when it’s not. This upcoming season has a realistic chance to be good. If it’s not then it’s likely we’ll never get to where we want to be with CM in charge. If it’s good then there’s at least some hope we can become really good and then great in the next 3-5 years

How do you figure that they have a realistic chance to take a huge step forward? We lost two key starters from last year in Owens and Ahmed. Even though Ahmed made me crazy with his play, he still was a key contributor on a second to last place big east team. We still don't have a legitimate big man, with no depth in sight at that position. Im a huge fan of ponds, clark, and simon, but the rest of the roster is pretty unproven. I do think dixon, williams,LJ, and Keita will contribute but they are still question marks IMO

Quote from: fordham96 on April 29, 2018, 08:15:31 PM

Your essentially Baldi but with an IQ.

You're essentially Baldi but with a vagina.

Thats hot

Quote from: Foad on April 29, 2018, 07:47:07 PM

Quote from: tominsimsbury on April 29, 2018, 06:09:01 PM

Do you honestly think Lavin would have chased the likes of Earlington and Trimble?

Of course not stupid, Lavin was too fat to chase anyone. If he'd attempted running his man tits would have battered him into unconsciousness. What he did was travel to the Riviera on the university's dime to land euro-gems like Amar Alibegowitz and when he wasn't doing that he was sending his minions to darkened parking lots to exchange forged transcripts with soon to be convicted felons. In between he signed all americans like Max Hooper, Felix Balamou, Marco Bourgault, Nurideen  Lindsey and Christian Jones. I'm mean sure, rubes like you bought it, but you're an imbecile.

Dude you have zero knowledge of anything.  You need to stop.  You know nothing about Lavin's recruitung.  You would not be able to tell me the rankings of any of our  recruits or his.  Your bias well known.  You ridiculed him from the day he was hired and then proclaimed the day Mullin was hired you may start rooting for SJU.  You're a fraud.

Yet in post after post you fail to mention how they wasted months on Zach Brown a felon who UCONN dropped.  Just imagine if Lavin had even attempted to do that. 

I love Mullin and want him to succeed in the worst way.  I don't root against anyone.  Your essentially Baldi but with an IQ.

+1000

Quote from: Foad on April 29, 2018, 08:26:27 PM

Quote from: fordham96 on April 29, 2018, 08:15:31 PM

Your essentially Baldi but with an IQ.

You're essentially Baldi but with a vagina.

Thats hot

Baldy.

Quote from: MCNPA on April 29, 2018, 03:19:32 PM

Quote from: colelatshaw2010 on April 29, 2018, 01:16:08 PM

Quote from: gonzalo on April 29, 2018, 01:11:27 PM

Marley Paul‏ @MarleyPaul22

In Indianapolis, St. John’s assistant @gstjean10 watched top targets Jalen Gaffney, Scottie Lewis, Aidan Igiehon, Precious Achiuwa @ UAA then Nike guys Kofi Cockburn, Nate Tabor, Posh Alexander, Jalen Hill today. #sjubb

Seems like Gsj has really been putting in a lot of effort chasing high rated hs prospects lately.  Had never really heard of him doing much recruiting in previous years.  Hopefully his hard work pays dividends.

It won’t.  He’s not a recruiter.  There are guys who do this.  If we lose Abdelmassih, our entire team recruiting would be utterly decimated.  Head coach won’t go on recruiting trips, Mitch just collecting paychecks.   Despite us landing some decent talent it is ALL Matt.  Outside of Matt we have zero connections to anybody on the recruiting trail.   This staff is extremely flawed right now, and we are teetering with how imbalanced our staff is.

+1

I don't get it. Does any of this make any sense. Why can't this place do anything right. There has to be some big prize waiting at the end of the rainbow or get the hell out.

FYI==anyone who saw Chris play at St. John's will remember that his family was always at the games.  It was interesting that God was on our side as Sister Mary Terrance, his aunt,  and some other Josephites were prominently in attendance.  The Mullin family was extremely close.  Last week Sister Mary Terrance passed away which could explain Mullin being MIA.  While recruiting is extremely important, family does come first.. 

Quote from: MCNPA on April 29, 2018, 04:26:09 PM

Quote from: colelatshaw2010 on April 29, 2018, 04:17:24 PM

Quote from: MCNPA on April 29, 2018, 03:48:51 PM

Quote from: colelatshaw2010 on April 29, 2018, 03:40:54 PM

Quote from: MCNPA on April 29, 2018, 03:19:32 PM

Quote from: colelatshaw2010 on April 29, 2018, 01:16:08 PM

Quote from: gonzalo on April 29, 2018, 01:11:27 PM

Marley Paul‏ @MarleyPaul22

In Indianapolis, St. John’s assistant @gstjean10 watched top targets Jalen Gaffney, Scottie Lewis, Aidan Igiehon, Precious Achiuwa @ UAA then Nike guys Kofi Cockburn, Nate Tabor, Posh Alexander, Jalen Hill today. #sjubb

Seems like Gsj has really been putting in a lot of effort chasing high rated hs prospects lately.  Had never really heard of him doing much recruiting in previous years.  Hopefully his hard work pays dividends.

It won’t.  He’s not a recruiter.  There are guys who do this.  If we lose Abdelmassih, our entire team recruiting would be utterly decimated.  Head coach won’t go on recruiting trips, Mitch just collecting paychecks.   Despite us landing some decent talent it is ALL Matt.  Outside of Matt we have zero connections to anybody on the recruiting trail.   This staff is extremely flawed right now, and we are teetering with how imbalanced our staff is.

While I agree with most of what you said my comment was in regards to HS prospects.  While I'm pleased with some of the transfer talent Matt has brought in I would argue we haven't brought in any hs players this cycle that move the needle for me.

Williams is a good prospect, Ponds of course needs not be commented on.  Sid was good but he submarines us.  How much time can Matt alone spend on all the high school prospects when he’s filled multiple rosters already with transfers etc.. by himself?  We need more sharks on the recruiting trail making connections and less guys with zero experience both coaching and recruiting.    We are extremely flawed and missing staff that hustles.  Like I said, outside of Matt, the rest of the staff would never make a recruiting trip if they had the choice about it, and none have any recruiting  connections.  This is getting ridiculous already..  a staff shouldn’t be built so if one recruiter leaves, not a single other person would have a clue what to do...

I said this recruiting cycle but you do bring up a good point that really outside of ponds I'm not thrilled by any of the hs players this staff has brought on.  Williams may be a good prospect but fact of the matter is all the services have him as a three star so that's not going to get my blood pumping especially considering this staff should've been recruiting like their jobs depended on it.  As far as your comment about not having another recruiter and no one knowing what they're doing outside of Matt,  that's the route we chose to take when we exiled slice.

Yes, but teams that wanna compete hire somebody else, and don’t just not hire somebody to replace their assistant head coach.   I don’t disagree we should be recruiting better high school players.  I’m just saying that if you look at the reason we probably are not is because we have one guy doing all the recruiting just to fill a revolving door to fill a roster, and it’s with some very good talent mind you. 

This is what Matt wanted, does not play well with other staff members. He has his hands all over the mess that is this program. Yet, he still gets a pass here

Are you saying our coach is not allowed to recruit as per Matt?

FYI==anyone who saw Chris play at St. John's will remember that his family was always at the games.  It was interesting that God was on our side as Sister Mary Terrance, his aunt,  and some other Josephites were prominently in attendance.  The Mullin family was extremely close.  Last week Sister Mary Terrance passed away which could explain Mullin being MIA.  While recruiting is extremely important, family does come first.. 

++++++ 1,000,000

Just proves my point even further about there being ZERO people who are "insiders" that post here but hey...  everyone knows everything on this board

Some guys subscribe to recruiting sites and think they have inside info.

If it isn't posted on Twitter then it never happened...

Quote from: redslope on April 30, 2018, 12:11:32 PM

FYI==anyone who saw Chris play at St. John's will remember that his family was always at the games.  It was interesting that God was on our side as Sister Mary Terrance, his aunt,  and some other Josephites were prominently in attendance.  The Mullin family was extremely close.  Last week Sister Mary Terrance passed away which could explain Mullin being MIA.  While recruiting is extremely important, family does come first.. 

++++++ 1,000,000

Just proves my point even further about there being ZERO people who are "insiders" that post here but hey...  everyone knows everything on this board

This isn’t true at all.  There are several people who have plenty of inside info.  I’m not one of them,  but there certainly are...

This isn’t true at all.  There are several people who have plenty of inside info.  I’m not one of them,  but there certainly are...

I was going to say no there aren't, but several means "more than two but not many." Which is exactly correct. I've been reading these boards for 10 years and have in that time run across exactly two people who've had access to inside information and at least one doesn't have access anymore. Nearly everyone else is a sad desperate for attention wank and FOS.

Quote from: MCNPA on April 30, 2018, 04:04:56 PM

This isn’t true at all.  There are several people who have plenty of inside info.  I’m not one of them,  but there certainly are...

I was going to say no there aren't, but several means "more than two but not many." Which is exactly correct. I've been reading these boards for 10 years and have in that time run across exactly two people who've had access to inside information and at least one doesn't have access anymore. Nearly everyone else is a sad desperate for attention wank and FOS.

Foad - we recruiting David Hogg? lol