It's Deja vu all over agin

I'm not calling for Lavin's head, I'm just pointing out that he's a bad coach in danger of becoming a buffoon.  You're free to compare him to the greatest coach in any any sport that ever lived, but I think it's a silly. The argument that it took Wooden 15 years to win a national championship - he won ~ 100 games in his first 4 years at UCLA and lost 30 - could be made in favor of any coach, even one like Lavin who's about 50 wins and 60 losses with his own players since 2002. Perhaps he should temper our expectations further from the team might gel in February to the team might gel in 2024.

No if I was trying to compare them I would say Lavin's record at UCLA his seven years was 145-78, while Wooden's record his first seven years was 139-56. Yeah it's silly to think that the greatest coach of all time wasn't really that great until $am started getting him all time great players. Let's not be nieve. Six years prior to Wooden winning his first national championship his teams didn't even finish in the final top 25 rankings, he lost 59 games during that span. Then magically, he becomes "the wizard of westwood" and his teams can't be beat? You could call it great coaching, I call it what it is, $am. The Wizard was a regular Blue Chip off the old block.

We do need to temper our expectations. We are not UCLA, we don't win national championships. Heck we don't even make the NCAA tournament having only made it 5 times in the last 20 years! Sure there are better coaches than Lavin, but those coaches choose to go to better schools than SJU. I believe in time Lavin will get us the same type of talent he brought to UCLA and based off that talent he will have us in the NCAA tournament more times than not regardless of his, as you would say, buffoonery. Some years, we will be able to make a run and who knows what could happen. But it starts with the talent. We could bring in a assistant to help with the X's and O's. This isn't the 90's anymore. The landscape of college basketball isn't what it use to be. The reality is it's difficult to compete with the bigger programs. Unless we can bring in someone who is better for the program, I think we are lucky to have a coach with Lavin's pedigree.

We do need to temper our expectations. We are not UCLA, we don't win national championships. Heck we don't even make the NCAA tournament having only made it 5 times in the last 20 years! Sure there are better coaches than Lavin, but those coaches choose to go to better schools than SJU.

The reality is it's difficult to compete with the bigger programs. Unless we can bring in someone who is better for the program, I think we are lucky to have a coach with Lavin's pedigree.

"Temper expectations" !

Now i'm convinced youre Lavins agent. As you clearly care more about his career/bank acct than the success of the program.

St.Johns is not Seton Hall or Providence. Fans here have a tradition and are right to expect an elite caliber program.
And spare us the "Wooden took 15 yrs before winning a championship" bull. GIve lavin 115 years and he wont make a final-4, let alone win it all.

And as far as better coaches going somewhere else and lavin being the best STj can do..... this is flawed and i hear it too much on this & the other board. THere are two good young coaches in this metro area who are far superior to Lavin and will very soon go on to some major schools and become highly successful guys. It would be a shame if while waiting for lavin to become a good coach, we witness Hurley or Massielo  go on to do for some other school what Boeheim did for Cuse and 20 yrs from now is a living legend future hall of famer, while STJ struggles with coaching woes and mediocrity. And everyone posting then looks back to when the Johnnies passed up on the future legend in their own back yard waiting for Mr. slick to figure it out.
Because that is exactly what is going to happen if the AD fails to act swiftly and decisively this offseason in the LIKELY event lavin cant turn things around.

Quote from: SJUFAN on January 06, 2014, 06:02:48 PM

We do need to temper our expectations. We are not UCLA, we don't win national championships. Heck we don't even make the NCAA tournament having only made it 5 times in the last 20 years! Sure there are better coaches than Lavin, but those coaches choose to go to better schools than SJU.

The reality is it's difficult to compete with the bigger programs. Unless we can bring in someone who is better for the program, I think we are lucky to have a coach with Lavin's pedigree.

"Temper expectations" !

Now i'm convinced youre Lavins agent. As you clearly care more about his career/bank acct than the success of the program.

St.Johns is not Seton Hall or Providence. Fans here have a tradition and are right to expect an elite caliber program.
And spare us the "Wooden took 15 yrs before winning a championship" bull. GIve lavin 115 years and he wont make a final-4, let alone win it all.

And as far as better coaches going somewhere else and lavin being the best STj can do..... this is flawed and i hear it too much on this & the other board. THere are two good young coaches in this metro area who are far superior to Lavin and will very soon go on to some major schools and become highly successful guys. It would be a shame if while waiting for lavin to become a good coach, we witness Hurley or Massielo  go on to do for some other school what Boeheim did for Cuse and 20 yrs from now is a living legend future hall of famer, while STJ struggles with coaching woes and mediocrity. And everyone posting then looks back to when the Johnnies passed up on the future legend in their own back yard waiting for Mr. slick to figure it out.
Because that is exactly what is going to happen if the AD fails to act swiftly and decisively this offseason in the LIKELY event lavin cant turn things around.

Does the fact they signed up for the board in April 2010 tip you off

My intent was not to slam Wooden, I just get tired of hearing how amazing he was without any flaws, and UCLA fans should only expect that kind of greatness...clearly what Wooden did is amazing because he is the only coach to ever do that...Ironically today's UCLA would not keep him around for seven years.

I will say the same thing about Louie, he truest is a greatmam, a gentlemen, and a great ambassador  to the school. a lot of old timers do not want anybody to question his greatness, but it is fair to ask why he never made it to the finals, let alone to only one final four.

As of right now Lavin's job is not in jeapordy an honestly it should not be...if he fails to make the NCAAs this year he should be put on notice. If this year is a complete disaster then I hope their is extrodinary pressure put on him next.

It all start at the top and I am praying they bring in a president who gives a crap about the school's flagship sport.

"St.Johns is not Seton Hall or Providence."

Actually, we pretty much have been for the last 10 or so years..   Let's be honest

 The reality is it's difficult to compete with the bigger programs. Unless we can bring in someone who is better for the program, I think we are lucky to have a coach with Lavin's pedigree.

"We should get some kind of award for being the only team to make the tourney without a coach"-Baron Davis
That is part of his pedigree and he has done nothing to squash that notion since he has been here. In fact his actual game coaching might be worse than advertised. I had figured a lot of the negatives were based on spoiled UCLA fans. But as they say, where there is smoke there is fire.

"St.Johns is not Seton Hall or Providence."

Actually, we pretty much have been for the last 10 or so years..   Let's be honest

True but it still hurts

Quote from: SJUFAN on January 06, 2014, 06:02:48 PM

We do need to temper our expectations. We are not UCLA, we don't win national championships. Heck we don't even make the NCAA tournament having only made it 5 times in the last 20 years! Sure there are better coaches than Lavin, but those coaches choose to go to better schools than SJU.

The reality is it's difficult to compete with the bigger programs. Unless we can bring in someone who is better for the program, I think we are lucky to have a coach with Lavin's pedigree.

"Temper expectations" !

Now i'm convinced youre Lavins agent. As you clearly care more about his career/bank acct than the success of the program.

St.Johns is not Seton Hall or Providence. Fans here have a tradition and are right to expect an elite caliber program.
And spare us the "Wooden took 15 yrs before winning a championship" bull. GIve lavin 115 years and he wont make a final-4, let alone win it all.

I expect an elite caliber program as well, which to me is making the NCAA most years if not every year. Since the NCAA tournament inception, SJU has never won a NCAA tournament championship, we never made it to the championship game, we have been to the NCAA tournament 5 times in the last 20 years!....... that is the new tradition of SJU basketball to the current potential recruits.

We need a coach that will change that, and you do that by bringing in the top players. Is Hurley or Massielo better coaches, probably. But can they go into a top 20 recruit home and convince them that they can do better job than Pitino, Coach K, Billy D, etc, etc in getting them to the league? I don't think so. We can't take a flyer on a coach our program needs a proven commodity. I don't know if Lavin is the man, but I'm not going to say he isn't after only 4 years when he has shown the level of talent he is able to bring in improves each year.

I gave up on this "elite program" aspiration long ago. Would be quite happy with achieving "annually competitive" level with occasional bursts of greatness. Occasional lapses would be fine, so long as we don't go into the abyss ten years at a time. Marquette, Villanova, modern day Georgetown, Xavier, and perhaps Temple represent a respectable level of achievement. We will never be a Duke, North Carolina, Kansas type program, but let's just aspire to be a consistently respected program with a chance to make noise. I would sacrifice this top 20 elite recruit mentality any day. give me solid four year players, an occasional top 75 kid or two and a coach who can prepare a team, develop players and present a challenge to opposition on a regular basis. Being in the BE, playing at MSG & having access to solid players in metro area, I think we could be proud of our team.

No if I was trying to compare them I would say Lavin's record at UCLA his seven years was 145-78, while Wooden's record his first seven years was 139-56. Yeah it's silly to think that the greatest coach of all time wasn't really that great until $am started getting him all time great players. Let's not be nieve. Six years prior to Wooden winning his first national championship his teams didn't even finish in the final top 25 rankings, he lost 59 games during that span. Then magically, he becomes "the wizard of westwood" and his teams can't be beat? You could call it great coaching, I call it what it is, $am. The Wizard was a regular Blue Chip off the old block.

Yes well that explains alot, because that's a really stupid comparison. Wooden's first year at UCLA - 1948, three years after Wooden had done his part defeating Hitler - he rode the coat tails of Wilbur Johns, 93-120 over the previous 10 years. Wooden's first year he won 22 games, as opposed to Johns 12 the year before. Over the next 15 he won 285 and lost 125, and then after that he won 10 national championships. Whereas Steve Lavin rode Wooden's coat tails at UCLA until he was run out of town on a rail, and then he came to Saint John's, where his only success as a head coach nearly this century was riding Norm Roberts coat tails for god sake and where even his most ardent supporters now have their knives out and sharpened, except MCNPA, who seems to have committed suicide. So anyway I'll put you down in the Steve Lavin is greater than or equal to John Wooden camp and we'll agree to disagree.

We do need to temper our expectations. We are not UCLA, we don't win national championships. Heck we don't even make the NCAA tournament having only made it 5 times in the last 20 years! Sure there are better coaches than Lavin, but those coaches choose to go to better schools than SJU. I believe in time Lavin will get us the same type of talent he brought to UCLA and based off that talent he will have us in the NCAA tournament more times than not regardless of his, as you would say, buffoonery. Some years, we will be able to make a run and who knows what could happen. But it starts with the talent. We could bring in a assistant to help with the X's and O's. This isn't the 90's anymore. The landscape of college basketball isn't what it use to be. The reality is it's difficult to compete with the bigger programs. Unless we can bring in someone who is better for the program, I think we are lucky to have a coach with Lavin's pedigree.

Here otoh we can agree: Saint John's was never an elite program and never will be with Steve Lavin as its head coach. The best we can hope for is that either a better coach is hired or that Lavin brings in assistants who are knowledgeable enough to offset his deficiencies as a strategist, a teacher, and a human being. And even if that happens Saint John's will never again be a regular player on the national scene.

+1 for that photoshop work

Unless we can bring in someone who is better for the program, I think we are lucky to have a coach with Lavin's pedigree.

The program is only better off in-net if they were to hire a person that is better at the job of head coach than the person they currently have employed. 
How long were pondering that nugget of logic?

Quote from: SJUFAN on January 06, 2014, 06:02:48 PM

Unless we can bring in someone who is better for the program, I think we are lucky to have a coach with Lavin's pedigree.

The program is only better off in-net if they were to hire a person that is better at the job of head coach than the person they currently have employed. 
How long were pondering that nugget of logic?

What I meant was unless we can bring in someone with a proven track record of success at this level, a clear upgrade not just the coaching aspects of things, as opposed to a Hurley or Massielo. To make change just for the sake of it and take a flier on a coach would not be the right move imo. We have been down far to long.   

The Lavin/Wooden comparisons are ludicrous on many levels.

Wooden was a Hall of Fame player and a Hall of Fame coach who has the championship trophy named for him.  Lavin was apparently a good player, but not good enough for a major program.  He may morph into the next Looie if he can stomach it here for the next twenty or so years.  He'll never morph into Wooden, who was able to take advantage of circumstances that worked in his favor.

College basketball was weak out west compared to the east.  UCLA practically got byes into the final four until the NCAA wised up and started seeding teams.  Sam Gilbert began paying players all the way back to Lew Alcindor's freshman team.  Alcindor will admit it the day Barry Bonds admits he used PED's.  Whether Wooden knew about it is academic.

Not to disparage anyone's service in WWII, but Wooden did his part in the fight against Hitler by serving as a gym instruction in the navy...another circumstance that worked in his favor.

The Lavin/Wooden comparisons are ludicrous on many levels.

To be clear, I was simply trying to suggest giving Lavin more than four years before we throw him under a bus because it took the greatest of all time 15 years before he won his first National Championship.

Point being is it takes time. By no means was I suggesting Lavin may be comparable to Wooden given time. How could I, Lavin doesn't have a $am Gilbert in his back pocket, j.k. ofcourse.   

I agree.

Erased what I just wrote. Saturday is a big game . lavin better realize it. Let's see what he is made of.

Quote from: desco80 on January 07, 2014, 11:46:22 AM

Quote from: SJUFAN on January 06, 2014, 06:02:48 PM

Unless we can bring in someone who is better for the program, I think we are lucky to have a coach with Lavin's pedigree.

The program is only better off in-net if they were to hire a person that is better at the job of head coach than the person they currently have employed. 
How long were pondering that nugget of logic?

What I meant was unless we can bring in someone with a proven track record of success at this level, a clear upgrade not just the coaching aspects of things, as opposed to a Hurley or Massielo. To make change just for the sake of it and take a flier on a coach would not be the right move imo. We have been down far to long.   

I don't think we can replace Lavin's recruiting ability easily, but give me a coach over a recruiter any day. I love the guy at Stony Brook. Like the way they play. Just the fact that aren't a pushover anymore is reason enough to give that guy respect.

Quote from: SJUFAN on January 07, 2014, 03:01:50 PM

Quote from: desco80 on January 07, 2014, 11:46:22 AM

Quote from: SJUFAN on January 06, 2014, 06:02:48 PM

Unless we can bring in someone who is better for the program, I think we are lucky to have a coach with Lavin's pedigree.

The program is only better off in-net if they were to hire a person that is better at the job of head coach than the person they currently have employed. 
How long were pondering that nugget of logic?

What I meant was unless we can bring in someone with a proven track record of success at this level, a clear upgrade not just the coaching aspects of things, as opposed to a Hurley or Massielo. To make change just for the sake of it and take a flier on a coach would not be the right move imo. We have been down far to long.   

I don't think we can replace Lavin's recruiting ability easily, but give me a coach over a recruiter any day. I love the guy at Stony Brook. Like the way they play. Just the fact that aren't a pushover anymore is reason enough to give that guy respect.

Very solid coach.

This is a real question, say one of these coaches had this talent, where do you think we would be. For instance Masiello, or the Stony Brook coach your referring to.

I guess the real question I'm posing is, Is this team 100% on Lavin and his inability to coach, or do you think any coach might have trouble getting this group to be successful?