Good article, I would argue that SJU stayed relevant until the mid 90s. Their first losing season in 30 something years was 93-94. This might seem not picking but there is a perception that after Mullin left the program stayed irrelevant...in Reality the bottom fell out when Louie left.
Sorry, totally disagree...
The bottom fell out when Fr. Harrington made the unheard of move of firing a coach during the season.
The in season firing set off a series of events that would have never happened if Fr. Harrington had just waited until the end of that season.
+1 to PMG. SJU may have only made the NCAA tourney once with Felipe and Zendon, but to say they were not "relevant" during that time is pretty silly. Then they made the dance their senior year, 3 seed and Elite 8 the next year, 2 seed and 2nd round upset to the Zags the year after, Omar Cook mediocre year but got pub, Marcus Hatten #9 seed year, and then Marcus Hatten NIT title including an awesome end to the season and the memorable comeback win against Duke at MSG. We were relevant throughout that entire period. We may not have been as consistent a NCAA team as we were under Louie, but we were 100% absolutely relevant.
PMG is somewhat right that the first domino to fall that led us to irrelevance in the 2000s was firing Jarvis midseason. That said, blame must be placed on the players who partook in the Pitt incident and the coaching staff who didnt properly supervise them. Also Jarvis is to blame for some of the less than wholesome characters that he recruited...I think if we didnt have as much issues there (Grady Reynolds accusations, among other things), perhaps Fr. Harrington doesnt fire Jarvis midseason. That said, the firing should never have happened then and the domino effect of that doomed us through the end of the Norm era.
Honestly, the Duke win and NIT title probably doomed us (unintentionally). If not for that, gotta think Jarvis may have been canned that offseason. Why did you have to be so damn good Marcus!!
