I don't know what to say guys?

 top 5 in the new BE?    OK, but not sure what being considered a "top job"  means in  relation to basketball success..    Maybe I'm misunderstanding.

top 5 in the new BE?    OK, but not sure what being considered a "top job"  means in  relation to basketball success..    Maybe I'm misunderstanding.

I'm referring to all teams that are basketball only.  Not D1A football.  So BE jobs, Gonzaga, VCU, Wichita, etc.  Yes we have sucked for over a decade but I just don't see how it can easily be said that we can never be a perennial team again.  Like those schools I mentioned.

 Anything is possible, but the fact remains we haven't won an NCAA tournament game in 14 years..   Gonzaga, WSU, and VCU have recently been to Final Fours...  So , if that is perennial, we are nowhere even close.


 I always confuse Gonzaga w/ Butler for some reason...  But my point stays the same.

 The Mets will win a Wold Series before STJ makes another Final Four.

Anything is possible, but the fact remains we haven't won an NCAA tournament game in 14 years..   Gonzaga, WSU, and VCU have recently been to Final Fours...  So , if that is perennial, we are nowhere even close.


 I always confuse Gonzaga w/ Butler for some reason...  But my point stays the same.

 The Mets will win a Wold Series before STJ makes another Final Four.

While I agree on the lousy program for the last decade part, I can't agree that it's not fixable.  What people either don't understand don't recall, are too young or want to jake believe us that the demise of the program began in Looies later years.  There were 5 or 6 years in a row where Looie lost in the first round of the BE tourney.  Many at the time yelled that the game passed Looie by, as I believe to be te case. So who takes over, Mahoney, as a favor to Looie.  Mahoney as a head coach was like 5-81 at Manhattan as a head coach. Then came Frannie the fraud, a showboat like Lavin only a little better coach. He tried to use the job as a site stepping  stone in moving up.  Then there was Jarvis, you can thank Looie for that one. Then Norm another coach who was something like 6-60 when he was a head coach.  And now Lavin.  My point is that they Were All Bad Choices. 

Think of how history would have been different if Looie allowed Calipari to get the job, or a solid coach like Bob McKillip, who knows how to coach.  My point is while things stink now, with the right guy at the helm, this crap is reversible.  I'm not talking National Championship better, but a power in the conference better.  Of course that all hinges on the people who make the coaching decision, as those duds took 7 years to get rid of Stormin Normin.

Boo 3 Wrote: The Mets will win a Wold Series before STJ makes another Final Four.

This statement fascinates me! As a long suffering fan of both of these teams it made me think. Of course neither appears likely to happen soon and hopefully I will live long enough to celebrate with either team again in a position of glory.

From a pure statistical standpoint the odds of a team winning a world series is a much easier feat to achieve than a D1 college team making a final four. Over the last thirty years, since 1984, eighteen of the thirty MLB teams have won at least one world series or 60 % of all of the MLB teams.

 In the same period of time forty one different NCAA D1 teams have made the final four out of more than three hundred D1 programs (less than 14%). Now you could argue that many lower D1 teams have no chance and should not be counted. Even with that being the case I would argue that there are about 100 major and mid-major D1 teams that with the right circumstances could achieve a final four. This still makes it a harder feat to do.

That being said St. John's since making the final four in 1985 has come within one game of returning to the final four twice. First losing To Duke in 1991 in the regional final and again in 1999 losing to Ohio State when they struggled to match up with their center Ken Johnson.

The Mets on the other hand have gotten that close only once since their 1986 World Series victory and that is when they lost the 2000 series to the dreaded Yankees. They did get within one game of making the series in both 1988 and 2006 losing in game seven of the NLCS to both the Dodgers and Cardinals respectively. In fact It could be argued that they were closer then they were in 2000 since both LA and St. Louis  went on to win the World Series.

Going forward I believe it is not the brightest time for either of my beloved teams. However despite the disappointing season I feel that St. John's is trying to return to the summit. I believe everyone has underestimated what Louie achieved here and how difficult it is to do on the square.  I think we are in better shape than we were under Norm but there is much work to do.

I am not as convinced of the good intentions of money ball Sandy and team Fred and Jeff. They're good intentions are not clear to me. That being said in baseball there are rewards for being bad (higher draft picks etc.) In college basketball there is nothing positive about being bad. It just makes everything harder.

I really like the Bruce Pearl idea overall. 

First off, this roster we have here is built a LOT like the rosters Pearl had at Tennessee.  Did they play particularly structured basketball?? No. But ya know what, they had an identity, played to it, and got a number of top 25 rankings.

Pearl is also a good national recruiter, has a lot of energy and would be great in NYC. 

Obviously there is "baggage" there in terms of his show-cause and it's really only an obstacle if SJU administration makes it one. 

Bruce Pearl ratted out other programs all the while cheating himself and was caught twice. sure he is a good coach but NO THANKS! Have some standards!

Reality is Lavin will be the coach next year.  However, if the school did make it change, I am 100% certain Pearl wouldn't even be discussed.

Anything is possible, but the fact remains we haven't won an NCAA tournament game in 14 years..   Gonzaga, WSU, and VCU have recently been to Final Fours...  So , if that is perennial, we are nowhere even close.


 I always confuse Gonzaga w/ Butler for some reason...  But my point stays the same.

 The Mets will win a Wold Series before STJ makes another Final Four.

30 teams vs 200+. Not really a fair comparison. I dont think St John's is that far off to being big time

Quote from: fordham96 on January 16, 2014, 10:11:21 PM

I admit it I bought the hype.  I thought they would be good to potentially real good.

To go from nearly beating Syracuse to starting 0-5 and losing to DePaul and Providence in the same week and losing 10 straight regular season BE games in a row is just mind boggling.  I honestly have no words to describe this.

Every negative thing said about Lavin and the team right now is 100% deserving.  It is totally on him.  This season is turning into a complete disaster and he does not seem to have a clue on how to fix it.  They are dreadfully bad defensively, cannot get stops in key spots, Obekpa has completely disappeared as a defensive force.  Their defensive rebounding is a joke.  They cannot execute in the last 2 minutes of a game.  Totally idiotic substitution patterns. 

I have no energy left to defend him.  Because of the expectations I had for this team this is honestly the WORST I have ever felt about a SJU team that I can remember.  Even the end of the Jarvis years and the beginning of the Roberts years I never expected anything so I never got invested in the losses because I knew they stunk.

In a MILLION years I would not have guessed they would be 0-5 at this point.  IN A MILLION YEARS.

I am just speechless.

How could you not see this coming?  How could anyone not see it?  The writing on the wall has been there for the past two years with one BS  excuse after another.   Last year with the "youngest team in the country", expression, the unusual red shirt of Gods Gift ( which would have let anyone with half a brain realize that recruiting was not going well), the suspension of Harrison who I truly believed was used as last years scapegoat to justify losing all the games we would have lost anyway. And now this year with an experienced talented team and a pre season trip to Europe, being told it will take till FEBUARY before this team is jelling? ,and you didn't see this coming? Not to mention the lack of player development this year, this past year etc.

Lavins greatest asset is his gift of gab, or as we like to say , all style, no substance.  However, when anyone like myself dared to question the almighty Lavin, you were one of the first to call people names and resort to nasty sarcasm.  If anything perhaps you may gain a bit of humility from all this.

I just feel bad for these kids whose whole lives revolve around their basketball skills.  They were obviously sold a bill of goods and seem quite devastated.

Linda, did the kids seem devastated tonight?

Quote from: Linda Mirabella on January 17, 2014, 12:42:40 PM

Quote from: fordham96 on January 16, 2014, 10:11:21 PM

I admit it I bought the hype.  I thought they would be good to potentially real good.

To go from nearly beating Syracuse to starting 0-5 and losing to DePaul and Providence in the same week and losing 10 straight regular season BE games in a row is just mind boggling.  I honestly have no words to describe this.

Every negative thing said about Lavin and the team right now is 100% deserving.  It is totally on him.  This season is turning into a complete disaster and he does not seem to have a clue on how to fix it.  They are dreadfully bad defensively, cannot get stops in key spots, Obekpa has completely disappeared as a defensive force.  Their defensive rebounding is a joke.  They cannot execute in the last 2 minutes of a game.  Totally idiotic substitution patterns. 

I have no energy left to defend him.  Because of the expectations I had for this team this is honestly the WORST I have ever felt about a SJU team that I can remember.  Even the end of the Jarvis years and the beginning of the Roberts years I never expected anything so I never got invested in the losses because I knew they stunk.

In a MILLION years I would not have guessed they would be 0-5 at this point.  IN A MILLION YEARS.

I am just speechless.

How could you not see this coming?  How could anyone not see it?  The writing on the wall has been there for the past two years with one BS  excuse after another.   Last year with the "youngest team in the country", expression, the unusual red shirt of Gods Gift ( which would have let anyone with half a brain realize that recruiting was not going well), the suspension of Harrison who I truly believed was used as last years scapegoat to justify losing all the games we would have lost anyway. And now this year with an experienced talented team and a pre season trip to Europe, being told it will take till FEBUARY before this team is jelling? ,and you didn't see this coming? Not to mention the lack of player development this year, this past year etc.

Lavins greatest asset is his gift of gab, or as we like to say , all style, no substance.  However, when anyone like myself dared to question the almighty Lavin, you were one of the first to call people names and resort to nasty sarcasm.  If anything perhaps you may gain a bit of humility from all this.

I just feel bad for these kids whose whole lives revolve around their basketball skills.  They were obviously sold a bill of goods and seem quite devastated.

Linda, did the kids seem devastated tonight?

You won't get a response from him until our next loss.