Today's Best Coach In The Big East

Coach Mack is making a case for himself. What he has done in the past 6 years through the A10 and BE has been fantastic. The guy's resume is really gaining steam, and he's definitely right within the elite young prospect conversation with the likes of Archie and Sean Miller, Mick Cronin, Tommy Amaker, Shaka Smart, Gregg Marshall, Tony Bennett, and Fred Hoiberg.

Wright, JT3, Lavs, Cooley...in your opinion who's holding the BE flag as premier coach in this conference as of this morning?

Mack's projected path could be legendary:

Record   134–70 (.657)

Championships
A-10 Regular Season Championship (2010, 2011)

Accomplishments
3 Sweet Sixteens (2010, 2012, 2015)
Awards
A-10 Coach of the Year (2011)

Coach Mack is making a case for himself. What he has done in the past 6 years through the A10 and BE has been fantastic. The guy's resume is really gaining steam, and he's definitely right within the elite young prospect conversation with the likes of Archie and Sean Miller, Mick Cronin, Tommy Amaker, Shaka Smart, Gregg Marshall, Tony Bennett, and Fred Hoiberg.

Wright, JT3, Lavs, Cooley...in your opinion who's holding the BE flag as premier coach in this conference as of this morning?

Mack's projected path could be legendary:

Record   134–70 (.657)

Championships
A-10 Regular Season Championship (2010, 2011)

Accomplishments
3 Sweet Sixteens (2010, 2012, 2015)
Awards
A-10 Coach of the Year (2011)

Jay Wright

I applaud their epic win over Georgia State. May we be so lucky one day. Other than that, big deal. He's fine. He's no Shaka Smart IMO.

Xavier is good every year, in the tourney always, and usually makes some noise. Would love to get to their level of consistency. And they've hit in the coaching hire every time someone leaves. Mack does a great job. Agree with Baldi though that Jay Wright is the cream of the crop in the big east. Mack is in the top 3 or 4 though

The BE bar none has the best young coaching crop in the country.

I applaud their epic win over Georgia State. May we be so lucky one day. Other than that, big deal. He's fine. He's no Shaka Smart IMO.

My point exactly earlier which is why bringing up post season wins is a bit problematic.  By definition you are saying that Xavier had a better year than Nova despite Nova doing 30 million more things this year than Xavier and beating Xavier 3 times this year.  Really?

Chris Mack is a terrific young coach but go look at his last 3 years.  They missed EVERYTHING in 2013 (last year in the A-10).  Went 10-8 and got a play in game and lost in the NCAA's last year.  And then went 9-9 before making the late run.  Keep in mind the late run this year started at Creighton with 2 free throws with 2.3 seconds left allowing them to escape with a 1 point win or they would have been swept by Creighton and finished 8-10 and probably be on the bubble.

Yet a win over Georgia St ( a gift they had nothing to do with) is what makes them the envy of SJU fans and why we have to get rid of Lavin? 

Guys you need to get off of this 1 game means the difference between being terrific and being lousy.  Last 3 years Lavin has gone to 2 NIT's and 1 NCAA.  Mack has gone to 2 NCAA's and nothing.  Their BE league records the last 2 years are Lavin: 20-16 and Mack:19-17.  They are 2-2 against each other each sweeping the home and home the last 2 years.

This is not to say that Lavin's run here has been great.  But close your eyes and remove the coaching names and tell me exactly what MONUMENTAL difference is their the last 3 years between the two.  Yet Mack is heralded as a great young coach (which he is) and Lavin is being run out of town.  See my point.

It’s absolutely mind boggling that we have posters who take short snippets and extrapolate them out to a full season in the BE and claim, “He would be a great hire.”

A good Poster says that he has watched little to nothing of Buffalo in the MAC.  But he did see Buffalo give UK problems in their game before conference play began so that is evidence enough the guy is a better coach then what we have.  By definition that means Kyle Smith of Columbia is the next Mike Krzyzewski because he led UK for about 29 minutes before losing 56-46.  Columbia did nothing in the Ivy but that is meaningless.

Masiello has never even won a regular season title in a BAD conference yet he beats Marist, St. Peter’s and Iona 3 days in March and he is the next Rick Pitino.

Meanwhile he was a pedestrian 13-7 in the regular season and did NOTHING in the pre-conference slate.  Losing to Rutgers in fact.

None of that matters.  Just watch them play decent ONCE and that is enough.

It is unbelievable.

Quote from: Poison on March 27, 2015, 10:20:57 AM

I applaud their epic win over Georgia State. May we be so lucky one day. Other than that, big deal. He's fine. He's no Shaka Smart IMO.

My point exactly earlier which is why bringing up post season wins is a bit problematic.  By definition you are saying that Xavier had a better year than Nova despite Nova doing 30 million more things this year than Xavier and beating Xavier 3 times this year.  Really?

Chris Mack is a terrific young coach but go look at his last 3 years.  They missed EVERYTHING in 2013 (last year in the A-10).  Went 10-8 and got a play in game and lost in the NCAA's last year.  And then went 9-9 before making the late run.  Keep in mind the late run this year started at Creighton with 2 free throws with 2.3 seconds left allowing them to escape with a 1 point win or they would have been swept by Creighton and finished 8-10 and probably be on the bubble.

Yet a win over Georgia St ( a gift they had nothing to do with) is what makes them the envy of SJU fans and why we have to get rid of Lavin? 

Guys you need to get off of this 1 game means the difference between being terrific and being lousy.  Last 3 years Lavin has gone to 2 NIT's and 1 NCAA.  Mack has gone to 2 NCAA's and nothing.  Their BE league records the last 2 years are Lavin: 20-16 and Mack:19-17.  They are 2-2 against each other each sweeping the home and home the last 2 years.

This is not to say that Lavin's run here has been great.  But close your eyes and remove the coaching names and tell me exactly what MONUMENTAL difference is their the last 3 years between the two.  Yet Mack is heralded as a great young coach (which he is) and Lavin is being run out of town.  See my point.

What makes them the enemy of St.John's fans is that we never do well in the post season. All Lavin has done since he's gotten here is fall apart at the end of every season. Jay wright lost in the second round. He also won the BE regular season, and the BE tournament.

And what has Lavin won with this #2 in the nation recruiting class? One NIT game. That's it.

This is not to say that Lavin's run here has been great.  But close your eyes and remove the coaching names and tell me exactly what MONUMENTAL difference is their the last 3 years between the two.  Yet Mack is heralded as a great young coach (which he is) and Lavin is being run out of town.  See my point.

Coach A has been at X for 6 years. He's made 5 NCAAs and three Sweet 16s.

Coach B has been at Y 5 years. He's made 2 NCAAs and not won a game.

Pick one. You can leave your eyes open, but remove the blinders.

I'm one of the biggest Lavin advocates out there Fordham. My point wasn't to make this a Lavin vs. Mack/Cooley/JT3 argument, but rather raise awareness as to the job Mack has been doing at X, and have a healthy conversation on how the conference is in great shape with our coaches.

Mack isn't where Wright is right now, that would be impossible. But it's very hard to deny his trajectory, regardless of getting lucky with a Georgia St. last week. Revisionist history is useless, Mack's resume is big time.

Quote from: fordham96 on March 27, 2015, 10:41:50 AM

This is not to say that Lavin's run here has been great.  But close your eyes and remove the coaching names and tell me exactly what MONUMENTAL difference is their the last 3 years between the two.  Yet Mack is heralded as a great young coach (which he is) and Lavin is being run out of town.  See my point.

Coach A has been at X for 6 years. He's made 5 NCAAs and three Sweet 16s.

Coach B has been at Y 5 years. He's made 2 NCAAs and not won a game.

Pick one. You can leave your eyes open, but remove the blinders.

And what was Xavier at PRIOR to Mack arriving?

Yeah they had Skip Prosser, Thad Matta and Sean Miller.  They moved on to Wake, OSU and Arizona where they had tons of success.  SJU had Jarvis and Norm prior tho this guy.

Furthermore the original psoter was talking about Xavier's run this year at 9-9 in the BE and I put that in perspective.  Furthermore even if you grant Mack is a better coach than Lavin, what are you saying SJU has to have a significantly better coach than Xavier each year or they fire him?  Really? OK.  So after a few years of the Hurley brothers not being as good as Chris Mack his first few years, you and others better be ready to can him?  Right?

Finally do you really want me to pull posts you made back in 2008 on a different SJU board(formally known as BEB) when it was announced that SJU was not only NOT firing Norm Roberts (this after 4 years in which his league record was a sterling 19-47) they were giving him an extension?  Where you not only did not accuse SJU of being idiots or the coach of being a nice person but instead ridiculed posters for predicting Norm's demise and also for calling out posters for actively rooting against Norm and SJU because they wanted to see him fired.

Go away guy.  You have been exposed.

Finally do you really want me to pull posts you made back in 2008 on a different SJU board(formally known as BEB) when it was announced that SJU was not only NOT firing Norm Roberts (this after 4 years in which his league record was a sterling 19-47) they were giving him an extension?  Where you not only did not accuse SJU of being idiots or the coach of being a nice person but instead ridiculed posters for predicting Norm's demise and also for calling out posters for actively rooting against Norm and SJU because they wanted to see him fired.

I would love to see you do that, yes. Should you not I'll assume you're talking out your ass, as usual.

<remainder hosed. they're called straw men because they lack brains>

Wright by far the best coach in the BE

I would rank the other nine as follows:

2 Mack
3 Cooley
4 Thompson
5 McDermott (he;'s had a solid career even though he had luxury of having a stud kid) 
6 Holtman (did a tremendous job this year, very impressive)
7 Wojo (not a big enough sample size yet)
8 Lavin
9  Willard (record is just terrible)
10 DePaul just cause we don't know

Lavin played wojo twice. Beat him twice.

Lavin also beat Mack twice.

Lavin also beat Mack twice.

I really don't look at the records, teams sometimes do more with less talent. True we had only 6-7 guys this year but Wojo had basically nothing and had his team playing close games all year (as did McDermott) Mack for sure should have had a better BE record but you can see that his team is playing good basketball 

Wright by far the best coach in the BE

I would rank the other nine as follows:

2 Mack
3 Cooley
4 Thompson
5 McDermott (he;'s had a solid career even though he had luxury of having a stud kid) 
6 Holtman (did a tremendous job this year, very impressive)
7 Wojo (not a big enough sample size yet)
8 Lavin
9  Willard (record is just terrible)
10 DePaul just cause we don't know

I can't follow Wojo over Lavin now. He had to do something other than have a terrible season. Lavin did that, too, but he's also had two very good years. We'll see how Wojo does with this new class.

Quote from: sju89tr on March 27, 2015, 12:25:25 PM

Wright by far the best coach in the BE

I would rank the other nine as follows:

2 Mack
3 Cooley
4 Thompson
5 McDermott (he;'s had a solid career even though he had luxury of having a stud kid) 
6 Holtman (did a tremendous job this year, very impressive)
7 Wojo (not a big enough sample size yet)
8 Lavin
9  Willard (record is just terrible)
10 DePaul just cause we don't know

I can't follow Wojo over Lavin now. He had to do something other than have a terrible season. Lavin did that, too, but he's also had two very good years. We'll see how Wojo does with this new class.

Lavin could be as high as 5
The rest due to inexperience and other factors defintely changes things

Quote from: Poison on March 27, 2015, 01:08:09 PM

Quote from: sju89tr on March 27, 2015, 12:25:25 PM

Wright by far the best coach in the BE

I would rank the other nine as follows:

2 Mack
3 Cooley
4 Thompson
5 McDermott (he;'s had a solid career even though he had luxury of having a stud kid) 
6 Holtman (did a tremendous job this year, very impressive)
7 Wojo (not a big enough sample size yet)
8 Lavin
9  Willard (record is just terrible)
10 DePaul just cause we don't know

I can't follow Wojo over Lavin now. He had to do something other than have a terrible season. Lavin did that, too, but he's also had two very good years. We'll see how Wojo does with this new class.

Lavin could be as high as 5
The rest due to inexperience and other factors defintely changes things

I'd probably put him at 5.

I'd put Lavin at #7 over Wojo only because he's had enough time on the job to have a track record. Wojo is way too early in to give a grade. However, Wojo has one of the top 5 recruiting classes in America coming in next year. I'd pick him as the highest potential riser in these rankings next year.