[Game Discussion] Mercer

I assuming the mike anderson hate is coming from pro chris mullin guys.

I will say it again.  We all the love chris mullin.  He is st johns basketball.

He was also the worst gameday coach i have ever seen.  I was embarrassed watching games when he coached.

And thats not his fault because he is not a coach.  He took a stab at it but he was awful.  Its not easy to coach and just cause your a great player doesnt mean you know how to coach.

Is mike anderson coach k?  Of course not.  But st johns now has a professional coach which is something mullin never was.

There is no reason not to be on board with mike anderson.  We are lucky to have him all things considered.

Brian Mahoney and Norm Roberts were worse than Mullin. Mahoney is probably the worst coach in BE history if you consider the talent he recruited to play for him.

The general feeling in Carnesecca during the Mullin era had an air of arrogance to it. The lackadaisical coaching, poor shot selection, badgering of the refs, etc. It's like the building has hit a reset button with IMA, it just feels right. There is firm coaching, discipline, ball movement, effort, intensity and selflessness. The crowd was sparse but it didn't matter, the product on the court was very impressive.

I think the air of arrogance comes from supporters being New York sports fans.

But I’m glad you didn’t miss an opportunity to trash Mullin. You’ve reached impressive levels of Anti-Mullin standom

I think the air of arrogance comes from supporters being New York sports fans.

But I’m glad you didn’t miss an opportunity to trash Mullin. You’ve reached impressive levels of Anti-Mullin standom

Idk what the eff you're smoking fam. I defended Mullin for 3.5 years before the Big East regular season collapse last Winter.

I really don't think your feelings +/- on any past coach impact your feelings on current coach.

For me any frustrations are directed at school administration for lack of direction and overall decision making. I still think the way they handled Lavin was a mistake, hiring Mullin was a mistake, and the way relationship terminated with Mullin was a mistake, and hiring of Anderson was mistake.

With that all being said I do think Mike Anderson is a good player developer and coach. My concerns mostly fall under recruiting.

Mullin is different from any other coach, because he is Chris Mullin, the celebrated son that can do no wrong at Saint John’s.

The ceremony that took place to Coach Lou giving him a note, as a gesture of passing the torch to him. I have over a dozen family members that graduated (some with Mullin) or worked at Saint John’s and everyone knew that he became coach. Anyone who was around that school during that time has a Mullin story. I was a baby during that time and I have a Mullin story.

The way the school handled his exit, to rumors he was begging to get an extension. The way the season ended (check out this board for a view point). He did not exit gracefully. It could’ve been worse, but it should’ve been better. Do you think he will show up to any SJU events under the current President and AD (honest question)? SJU chased the favorite son off.

If Coach Anderson can have a good year and finally bring some kind of stability, balance, and most importantly winning to SJU, the sti f of the Mullin era will fade easier.

I do know right now, that most of my family who to be fair are casual watchers do not know who Coach Anderson is.

This isn’t a knock on Anderson, more of how much Mullin meant to the school.

St. John's Mercer recap: http://bigeastboards.com

The general feeling in Carnesecca during the Mullin era had an air of arrogance to it. The lackadaisical coaching, poor shot selection, badgering of the refs, etc. It's like the building has hit a reset button with IMA, it just feels right. There is firm coaching, discipline, ball movement, effort, intensity and selflessness. The crowd was sparse but it didn't matter, the product on the court was very impressive.

I meant numbers.

Mullin is different from any other coach, because he is Chris Mullin, the celebrated son that can do no wrong at Saint John’s.

The ceremony that took place to Coach Lou giving him a note, as a gesture of passing the torch to him. I have over a dozen family members that graduated (some with Mullin) or worked at Saint John’s and everyone knew that he became coach. Anyone who was around that school during that time has a Mullin story. I was a baby during that time and I have a Mullin story.

The way the school handled his exit, to rumors he was begging to get an extension. The way the season ended (check out this board for a view point). He did not exit gracefully. It could’ve been worse, but it should’ve been better. Do you think he will show up to any SJU events under the current President and AD (honest question)? SJU chased the favorite son off.

If Coach Anderson can have a good year and finally bring some kind of stability, balance, and most importantly winning to SJU, the sti f of the Mullin era will fade easier.

I do know right now, that most of my family who to be fair are casual watchers do not know who Coach Anderson is.

This isn’t a knock on Anderson, more of how much Mullin meant to the school.

How should coach Mullin been handled? You can’t make this shit up. Maybe coach Mullin could have tried to earn his job?

How should coach Mullin been handled? You can’t make this shit up. Maybe coach Mullin could have tried to earn his job?

So you are ok with the way things went down? Not talking about the end result of hiring Anderson, just the way Mullin’s last few weeks were.

So you are ok with the way things went down? Not talking about the end result of hiring Anderson, just the way Mullin’s last few weeks were.

Why shouldn’t we be ok with the way things went down? Do we know exactly how it went down?

Mike Cragg handled the Mullin exit like an amateur. It's time to move on though. Thankful to have witnessed some great moments last year...The Marquette game at Carnesecca was unbelievable, Seton Hall at the Garden, the crowds at both places were the best in decades. Also, happy to know that most of the bs spewed on these boards about Chris is just that. Only wish we could've kept the squad together with TO and even Hatten.

I like what I saw from the team last night. Ball movement was crisp, guys had nice spacing on the floor and they took good shots. Rutherford was rock solid. We will need him to play in control like this. I think the competition had something to do with it but a positive  and encouraging sign regardless. 
 
Guys played hard but the defense wasn't that good. Mercer missed a TON of open shots and put up 80 points. It's early though and guys are still learning roles and rotations. The rebounding will be an achilles. Need the guards to get in there and get dirty. With Steere and Dunn in the second semester the team could be formidable. LJ and Heron looked great and haven't skipped a beat.

So you are ok with the way things went down? Not talking about the end result of hiring Anderson, just the way Mullin’s last few weeks were.

Explain yourself. My perspective is mullin was arrogant man who thought he could do whatever he wanted to. He thought he was above just about everything. If he came back. He still Wouldn’t be coaching. Mitch and st. Jean would still be here. He still wouldn’t be recruiting. Someone else would be trying to do that. We would certainly be finishing in last place.

Ponds came to play for 2 hall of famers. That nonsense wasn’t going to work the second time around. No way we would have gotten players. Besides a few people on here it is obvious to the rest of the world what mullin is. Whatever he is he isn’t a coach.
How should a new AD treat a hero:  who doesn’t work hard? Who has no experience and isn’t a good coach? Who is so arrogant that he surrounds himself with assistants who aren’t qualified?

The mullin faithful made this happen. Instead of giving passes, changes should have been forced upon him. If he refused he should have been fired 3 years ago. The embarrassment of the first 3 years never had to happen. Our school isn’t cursed.
I would love to hear Mullin’s perspective. Is he just a fool or is he just that arrogant? Why didn’t he make changes?
Cragg goes to all the games. He was not happy watching mullin not coach and curse at people.

Mike Cragg handled the Mullin exit like an amateur. It's time to move on though. Thankful to have witnessed some great moments last year...The Marquette game at Carnesecca was unbelievable, Seton Hall at the Garden, the crowds at both places were the best in decades. Also, happy to know that most of the bs spewed on these boards about Chris is just that. Only wish we could've kept the squad together with TO and even Hatten.

I like what I saw from the team last night. Ball movement was crisp, guys had nice spacing on the floor and they took good shots. Rutherford was rock solid. We will need him to play in control like this. I think the competition had something to do with it but a positive  and encouraging sign regardless. 
 
Guys played hard but the defense wasn't that good. Mercer missed a TON of open shots and put up 80 points. It's early though and guys are still learning roles and rotations. The rebounding will be an achilles. Need the guards to get in there and get dirty. With Steere and Dunn in the second semester the team could be formidable. LJ and Heron looked great and haven't skipped a beat.

How do we know how Cragg really handled the Mullin firing/resignation?

I’m not defending him, but let’s take a step back before looking at what we know and agree that no matter when Mullin stopped coaching us, if it wasn’t to retire, it was never going to be pretty. We knew this 5 years ago.

Mercer is terrible. I agree that our defense could be tighter, but this was the first game. Rutherford destroyed whatever offense Mercer had because they couldn’t bring the ball up.

Brian Mahoney and Norm Roberts were worse than Mullin. Mahoney is probably the worst coach in BE history if you consider the talent he recruited to play for him.

Nobody can ever be worse than Norm Roberts. Recruiting is a massive part of the job description. Norm could have never gone 12-6 in conference like Mahoney did year one.

I was young at the time but I remember Tarik Turner being awful and there being a clear deficiency at PG compared to the rest of the conference. It’s hard to win with an awful PG.

He was so bad that he shaped the way I evaluate PGs and he’s a big reason why I hate tall PGs. One year Mahoney didn’t have a player under 6’5 on the roster! His guards were 6’5 Maurice Brown? 6’5 Tarik Turner Turner, and 6’5 Felipe Lopez. Meanwhile Providence was going to the Elite 8 with a pair of 5’11 wizards.

Nobody can ever be worse than Norm Roberts. Recruiting is a massive part of the job description. Norm could have never gone 12-6 in conference like Mahoney did year one.

I was young at the time but I remember Tarik Turner being awful and there being a clear deficiency at PG compared to the rest of the conference. It’s hard to win with an awful PG.

He was so bad that he shaped the way I evaluate PGs and he’s a big reason why I hate tall PGs. One year Mahoney didn’t have a player under 6’5 on the roster! His guards were 6’5 Maurice Brown? 6’5 Tarik Turner Turner, and 6’5 Felipe Lopez. Meanwhile Providence was going to the Elite 8 with a pair of 5’11 wizards.

If by Maurice Brown you mean the 5'8 Mo Brown who played for us while TT was here than no not everybody was at least 6'5.

Explain yourself. My perspective is mullin was arrogant man who thought he could do whatever he wanted to. He thought he was above just about everything. If he came back. He still Wouldn’t be coaching. Mitch and st. Jean would still be here. He still wouldn’t be recruiting. Someone else would be trying to do that. We would certainly be finishing in last place.

Ponds came to play for 2 hall of famers. That nonsense wasn’t going to work the second time around. No way we would have gotten players. Besides a few people on here it is obvious to the rest of the world what mullin is. Whatever he is he isn’t a coach.
How should a new AD treat a hero:  who doesn’t work hard? Who has no experience and isn’t a good coach? Who is so arrogant that he surrounds himself with assistants who aren’t qualified?

The mullin faithful made this happen. Instead of giving passes, changes should have been forced upon him. If he refused he should have been fired 3 years ago. The embarrassment of the first 3 years never had to happen. Our school isn’t cursed.
I would love to hear Mullin’s perspective. Is he just a fool or is he just that arrogant? Why didn’t he make changes?
Cragg goes to all the games. He was not happy watching mullin not coach and curse at people.

-I’m not arguing if Mullin should not have been relieved of his coaching g ditties. He is different from other coaches in recent SJU history because he is Chris Mullin.

-My point is that the most beloved player in SJU history is now estranged from the program. For how long, who knows.

-The way things went down and the rumors about his departure were not pretty. The AD saying that Mullin is SJU’s Coach, and within a week he resigned. Was the AD clueless, or is he being coy by being “surprised”.

Poison I also agree with you about the way that Mullin was hired. This was a high risk low reward situation. The gamble to hire him was not worth it. At least he did make the tournament, and improved every year. Mullin can hang his hat on that.

To bring back to Coach Anderson, the first game gave some optimism about his coaching, but he will it be fully embraced until he finds true success, and Mullin being the previous beach coach creates another hurdle to get over.

One more thing. As an eternal Johnny optimist, when SJU has had a Coach first Coach, they have done ok.

Fran, and Jarvis found success.
Lavin with Dunlap had a great year...The shame is when Kennedy blew out his knee and affected the seeding for SJU.

Mahoney and Lavin were primary recruiters and also had success.

If by Maurice Brown you mean the 5'8 Mo Brown who played for us while TT was here than no not everybody was at least 6'5.

https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/schools/st-johns-ny/1995.html

There is the roster. Maurice Brown is listed at 6’5. I have absolutely no recollection of him as a player so I don’t know if that is a mistake.

This is really all before my time but based on what posters say, David Cain came out of nowhere his senior year (averaged 7.1 assists) and led a rather untalented group to a surprising 12-6 Big East second place finish, a top 25 ranking in March, an 18-pt NCAA win over Texas Tech, and a ironically a very close loss to Arkansas round two.

When he graduated, the problems seemed to start in spite of the talent going up on paper from SG through center. The problems were immediately and dramatically corrected when Barkley arrived on campus after Turner.

Here are my contentions:  (1) There is no way in hell Norm Roberts could have coached that group to 12-6. He couldn’t lead ten juniors and a 5th year senior, Anthony Mason, to a record better than 6-12 his last season. He was also 6-12 the year before. He was an unmitigated disaster.

(2) The fatal flaw of those Mahoney teams after Cain graduated was lack of lack of PG play. Consider the PGs that roamed the conference with Tarik Turner (Allan Iverson, Shaheen Holloway, God Shamgod, etc.).

Maurice Brown was 5'8 not 6'5. If anyone on this board can WTFU please verify my response for Marillac.

Maurice Brown was 5'8 not 6'5. If anyone on this board can WTFU please verify my response for Marillac.

Mo Brown was 5’8, but he played 5’5.

Maurice Brown was 5'8 not 6'5. If anyone on this board can WTFU please verify my response for Marillac.

I believe you. He’s before my time. I’m was going off of the roster on sports reference.

I’d imagine he couldn’t have been very good if he was behind Turner.

I believe you. He’s before my time. I’m was going off of the roster on sports reference.

I’d imagine he couldn’t have been very good if he was behind Turner.

Had his moments but compared to what we thought we were getting out of HS he was a disappointment.