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2015 Basketball Coaching Carousel (Bo Ryan to retire in 2016)

Somebody's gotta do it.

They have a better coach.

Their past five coaches have been better.

They have less competition for second level recruits.

They've been better than St. John's for the past 15 years.

They have more geographic rivals in the conference, believe it or not.

Their campus isn't a shit hole.

It's not in Queens.

It's not in Jamaica, Queens (which is not rally all that nice of a place).

Good Coaches don't want to be at St. John's or see it as a stepping stone at best.
 
BiffTannen said:
Somebody's gotta do it.

They have a better coach.

Their past five coaches have been better.

They have less competition for second level recruits.

They've been better than St. John's for the past 15 years.

They have more geographic rivals in the conference, believe it or not.

Their campus isn't a shit hole.

It's not in Queens.

It's not in Jamaica, Queens (which is not rally all that nice of a place).

Good Coaches don't want to be at St. John's or see it as a stepping stone at best.
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Which is exactly my point. Lavin has had talent in the program over the last 5 years and did absolutely nothing with it. You know his talents and limitations as coach. Why not go out and try to get a young up and comer that can do more and maybe create his own coaching tree that takes over for it like Xavier has been able to do?

And I have never been to Xaviers campus but St. John's campus certainly isn't a shit hole. And its a short train ride into Manhattan which certainly gives a kid more to do than fn Cincinnati. How do they have less comp for 2nd level recruits when Cincy is in the same city, an extremely successful state school in Ohio State, when NY and NJ have shit in terms of CBB programs?

And Xavier is clearly viewed as a stepping stone job.
 
Well there must be some reason St. Johns hasn't been relevant for more than a year or so at a time for the past 30 years, and it's not all Steve Lavin's fault. But I think you understand that there's no glamour left in that program and that league.
 
BiffTannen said:
Somebody's gotta do it.

They have a better coach.

Their past five coaches have been better.

They have less competition for second level recruits.

They've been better than St. John's for the past 15 years.

They have more geographic rivals in the conference, believe it or not.

Their campus isn't a shit hole.

It's not in Queens.

It's not in Jamaica, Queens (which is not rally all that nice of a place).

Good Coaches don't want to be at St. John's or see it as a stepping stone at best.
Click to expand...

In general, you're right, but Jamaica Estates/Hills is not exactly Jamaica. St. John's has a pretty good setup relative to the rest of the city schools and the campus isn't actually a shithole.

There are a lot of reasons why St. John's isn't the most attractive set up for an established coach, but there are plenty of reasons why it could be a successful stop for an upwardly mobile low or mid-major coach.

Lavin just wasn't very good at coaching, but he did a pretty good job of bringing in local talent and selling the school to top-100 recruits.
 
BiffTannen said:
Well there must be some reason St. Johns hasn't been relevant for more than a year or so at a time for the past 30 years, and it's not all Steve Lavin's fault. But I think you understand that there's no glamour left in that program and that league.
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I agree it isn't the job it was when the Big East was booming or when Louie was coaching but its fan base should have expectations of competing for the NCAA's every year and having a team good enough to make a run from time to time. It isn't unreasonable. As someone who closely watched them play under Lavin, they were a very talented team that was very poorly coached.
 
St. John's had a housing stipend loophole during the Lou C. years that was equivalent to paying players. When they built-up on campus housing in shitty parts of the city, the NCAA cut them off. They haven't really been good since.
 
texasdeac said:
As somebody who grew up in Texas and watched a lot of UT basketball, this saddens me. His teams in the early 00's were fun to watch and they were pretty successful. What killed him was when he tried to be UK south and brought in one and dones like Avery Bradley, Tristan Thompson, Cory Joseph and others. Those guys just treated college basketball as NBA tryouts and were garbage.
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Those garbage players were a terrible 5 second call away from going to the sweet 16 and probably further.
 
texasdeac said:
As somebody who grew up in Texas and watched a lot of UT basketball, this saddens me. His teams in the early 00's were fun to watch and they were pretty successful. What killed him was when he tried to be UK south and brought in one and dones like Avery Bradley, Tristan Thompson, Cory Joseph and others. Those guys just treated college basketball as NBA tryouts and were garbage.
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This is an ignorant post. A better coaching staff could have easily leveraged that talent into sustained postseason success.

Barnes is a shit coach. That's all there is to it.

I don't think a single player markedly improved while playing under Barnes (in recent memory) and a lot of them got progressively worse. Hopefully, whoever comes in next can continue Barnes's recruiting prowess while actually developing and utilizing top-level talent.
 
TUA01576 said:
Please, Lavin sucks. My brother is an alum of SJU and Lavin is so fn overrated. First of all Norm Roberts inherited a shit storm left by Jarvis and cleaned up the program. He never won but he did all the cleaning up. Secondly Lavin took over and did a good job taking it to the next level. He had them in the NCAA's in 2 of the 4 (or 5 if you consider the year he left for cancer treatments). He did a great job recruiting there but never won shit with them. Never competed for a conference title, never even came close to winning a tourney game and his teams consistently got worse as the season went on. Ya he was decimated by early entries but the guy essentially set his recruiting sights on top 50 players and that was it. With that you are going to lose guys to early entries and the fact that he had a lot talent and never did shit with it is crazy. I mean next year that team is going to be the worst team in the Big East. It's better to try to rebuild it from the bottom then extending the guy and giving him a built in excuse for next year.

Also there is zero reason for present day St. Johns to not be similar to a Xavier. They've been in 14 of the last 15 NCAA's, occasional Sweet 16 app, and a rare elite 8 team. I mean They should have NYC recruiting to themselves as they have minimal competition in the city.
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So, Lavin sucks, but he did a great job recruiting and a good job taking the program to the next level. I think I see how that works.

I grew up an SJU fan. Had season tickets in 93 and 94. My dad and my mom are alums. So, I am aware of the history and I knew that Norm did the actual cleaning, but Lavin's efforts brought SJU back to the upper echelon of what's left of the Big East. (People shit on that conference, but currently it looks a lot more like it did in the 70's than it did 10 years ago when it decided to go after football money.) I think Lavin did a commendable job there (4 out of 5 years in a post season tournament), and agree that Xavier or something similar is a reachable goal for them...but it doesn't change the fact that it is a tough job as a coach, because the alumni want to relive the Chris Mullin days and those days are really hard to come by. Think NC State, but not in Raleigh.
 
ONW said:
St. John's had a housing stipend loophole during the Lou C. years that was equivalent to paying players. When they built-up on campus housing in shitty parts of the city, the NCAA cut them off. They haven't really been good since.
Click to expand...

That was about the same time as the Filepe Lopez fiasco.
 
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Strickland33 said:
This is an ignorant post. A better coaching staff could have easily leveraged that talent into sustained postseason success.

Barnes is a shit coach. That's all there is to it.

I don't think a single player markedly improved while playing under Barnes (in recent memory) and a lot of them got progressively worse. Hopefully, whoever comes in next can continue Barnes's recruiting prowess while actually developing and utilizing top-level talent.
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My thoughts on Barnes are that he is a great recruiter and did wonderful things for UT, making UT an actual contender in BBall and gettin the Horns to the NCAA tourney almost every year. Previously they rarely even made the tourney. That said, he hit a plateau and Texas is a place that can get over the hump. The right coach and take UT to the next level.
 
Texas would be a great spot for Gregg Marshall.
 
Seems like Barnes was, to some degree, a combination of Prosser's recruiting and Dino's coaching (Barnes's teams played some great d but also tended to peter out at the end of the season).
 
I have it in fairly good authority that Barnes was very interested in the Wake job last year.
 
Lavin didn't take St. John's "to the next level." You have to actually win a NCAA Tournament game to even approach doing that
 
SkinsNDeacs said:
I have it in fairly good authority that Barnes was very interested in the Wake job last year.
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Seriously (not doubting you, just can't see it)? Why? Shaka to Texas could be very similar to Donovan to Florida.
 
ONW said:
Seriously (not doubting you, just can't see it)? Why? Shaka to Texas could be very similar to Donovan to Florida.
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Yeah...I said so in the coaching search thread. I know someone who would know and he told me Barns wanted that job. My friend told me at the time it was for two reasons. 1) he was not thrilled at Texas (that appears to be true) and 2) he wanted to move back "home" and coach in the ACC.
 
SkinsNDeacs said:
Yeah...I said so in the coaching search thread. I know someone who would know and he told me Barns wanted that job. My friend told me at the time it was for two reasons. 1) he was not thrilled at Texas (that appears to be true) and 2) he wanted to move back "home" and coach in the ACC.
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feasible.

I wouldn't have minded him but his salary at Texas and his age probably put Wellman off on the idea. Would have been a big name hire tho.
 
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