I liked Lavin when he arrived here, but I don't like how the 3 year plan suddenly became the 5 year plan.
Yeah, shame he didn't forsee his cancer diagnosis at his intro press conf.
3 to 5 is two years. I have never been critical of the extra time coach has needed to deal with his health and family matters. Why would you suggest that?
It is certainly fair to criticize a coach who has put together a poor season. Is it not?
Please wit the "fair to criticize." Y'all is off the rails, lookin fo evrytin to harp on to ridic levels.
Seems like evrybdy's become a whiney bitch the last few day. And that include a lotta this board's stalwarts.
Amen !!! It's becoming painful to read.
Between the whining and the horrible jokes beaten to death.... Johnny Bungle
A reality check for some.
Agreed you could argue not everything has gone as planned but quite frankly a realistic look at things from the perspective of when he took over, SJU/Lavin are basically on schedule for what he foresaw as building an eventual consistent NCAA team.
Year 1: Squeeze an NCAA bid out of the remaining Roberts team. ACCOMPLISHED.
Year 2: Develop a young team with some top recruits but clearly a transistion year with little if any hope of an NCAA bid. AND THAT IS BEFORE THE CANCER.
-Within this of course was the 3 kids deemed ineligible. Rise had little to do with it since they all needed work to try to get eligible. Without Rise almost everything happens the same ANYWAY. Sampson needs an extra year, Pelle never is eligible anyway and Garrett comes 2nd semester. How does going to Rise change that? Somehow Pelle doesn't go to summer school but then somehow becomes eligible at some point. How in the Hell does that happen? The kid is still not eligible.
-Cancer with Lavin and needs to sit a year. With some consequences as Gathers decommits which to me is still the no. 1 consequence of him sitting a year. But again no one could foresee this.
Year 3: Complete the roster overhaul by adding top recruits for 2012 with the 2011 class and begin to develop an identity. Also reasonable to expect a post-season, NCAA bubble or at least NIT. At 16-10 there were clearly headed for the NIT and were an NCAA bubble team. And that is without Sanchez. Clearly the Harrison suspension took some life out of the team as well as major perimter scoring. You want to say he could have coached them better the last 5 games, OK. But hardly an impeachable offense worthy of some of the nonsense being posted.
Year 4 (next year): New conference but clearly SJU should have the roster and the expectations to be among the best in the new conference and also be an NCAA team. And Lavin has stated as such. He said that this year is the "bridge year" to next year where the bar gets set to consistently be an NCAA team.
If you look at it that way what exactly could you argue in terms of being off schedule? You want to argue that the NCAA start should have happened in Year 3? OK. So Lavin is 1 year behind. Not to mention the fact he had this little thing called CANCER. But I would argue he is generally on schedule even if he doesn't get Cancer let alone the fact he got it.
Go look at Mark Turgeon at Maryland. First 2 years combined with Gary Williams last year and Maryland will be 3 straight years WITHOUT an NCAA bid. That is a top 10 job. Look at the recruits he has signed, big time. ACC does not even touch the BE in terms of depth either. Heck last year and Williams' last year Maryland didn't even make the NIT. That is 2 straight years without even a measly NIT bid. They should go to at least the NIT this year.
Sean Miller at Arizona first 3 years and only 1 of them resulted in an NCAA bid and 1 didn't even result in an NIT bid. Arizona is a tremendous job.