I went to St. Mary's while Cluess was the coach there, and was on the freshman basketball team until I got hurt and decided to leave the team to focus on baseball (a decision I regret to this day). My dad knew Coach Cleuss through his older brother Kevin (who some of you might know from his days playing ball at SJU), so even though I didn't end up playing basketball at St. Mary's, I knew Coach Cleuss pretty well. He's an absolutely fantastic coach, and he gets the most out of his players. I haven't seen any CW Post games or any Suffolk CC games either, but at St. Mary's he used an up-tempo offense and high-pressure, often full-court press defense. They generated a lot of turnovers, and they always had kids who could shoot. Their overall style was similar to UConn in that sense. While he often had the most talented players in the league (Joel Suarez, Mamadou Diakate, and Danny Green were all legit college prospects, though Green's the only one who panned out), he also won in years when he didn't have superior athletes. I am fully confident that he will succeed at the D-I level, and would love to have him as the SJU coach (I'm actually in that facebook group).
All that said, I understand where SJU basketball is right now, and I know that they can't afford to take a chance on Cleuss right now - the next head coach has to be a slam dunk with immediate name recognition. If Pecora leaves Hofstra, I see Cleuss becoming their next head coach, where I think he will quickly establish himself as a contender to coach a major D-I program.