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There's been a lot of great stuff back and forth on SJU and Mullin in the Sunday games thread. I took the following statement from the thread because it was so matter of fact.

"St John's is absolutely considered a top job in college basketball despite what some people might want you to believe." - bilyjack

True or false?

Opine

There's a reason Chris Mullin is the coach.

Edrick wrote:There's a reason Chris Mullin is the coach.

Good point.

it may be a pretty good job, but it's absolutely in no way shape or form a top job. Just look at the last 2 hires. Mullin and then before Steve Lavin(who had been out of coaching for 8 years after getting fired at UCLA). Even before that Norm Roberts and Mike Jarvis. A whole bunch of meh. If it's such a top job, really NONE of those guys are ever even considered, let alone hired.

It has the potential to be a top job in the Big East. However, in its current form, it is not.

St. Johns, much like the DePaul job, is the potential to be one of the top 30 jobs in the country. Both are in absolute hot beds in terms of recruiting, and are both in the two top media markets in the nation. Both move around in terms of home gyms (DePaul - Allstate and McGrath-Phillips, St. Johns - MSG and CA), but have the potential to draw big crowds if they are winning. Unfortunately, both programs have officially made the NCAA tournament just three times in the past 15 years. At some point, a bad stretch turns into the reality of where a program is today (and as a Marquette fan, I am getting anxious with it being three years and counting since a tournament appearance). Right now, St. Johns is not.

Mullin was a boom or bust hire, and I believe we all said as much when it happened. He's an alumnus, a hall of famer, former NBA executive, and one of the most respective basketball players around - BUT, Mullin spent zero days as a coach before he was hired. The odd set-up where St. Jean is actually running plays in timeouts would be accepted if the team was competitive and winning. Having one of Mullin's top assistants (and close friends) leave after just one year was very alarming.

Mullin is not going to be fired this year (and I don't think he would be fired next year unless it was more losing and looking non-competitive on the court). The only was he leaves this year is if he comes to a realization that he is not a coach, and that he wants to pursue other opportunities.

A top job in all of college basketball? No. A potential sleeping giant in the biggest city and media market in America playing at the world's most famous arena? Yes.

You have to consider the untapped potential. This has been a dormant program for the better part of 30 years. What have we had 3-4 years we were truly relevant nationally in those years? That equates to being nationally relevant 10-13% of the time over those 30 years or irrelevant nationally 87-90% of the time. If a coach can come here and truly succeed and get this program to the state of a Butler, Xavier, Creighton, or dare I say Nova, this program would explode. Look around at the sports market locally. The Jets are terrible, the Islanders are terrible, the Knicks are terrible, the Mets though competitive always find a way to disappoint, the Yankees dynasty is over, the Giants and Rangers are the only 2 truly consistently good teams. The city wants to embrace a winner in the worst way. If St. John's became a consistent 20+ game winner consistently in the top 25 and making decent tournament runs (a few Sweet 16's or better here and there), we would be all over the media. Recruiting would be insane. The Garden would be sold out constantly. Carnesecca which is usually vacant would be rocking.

For coaches who want to come here, they will have to be attracted by the potential, not what is happening at this very moment. Go and watch the St. John's v. top 5 Pitt in 2011 at MSG. Listen to the crowd. That would be a typical crowd if we were Butler, Creighton, Xavier, or Nova. We already invest the most financially into our program than any other team in the Big East and many programs in the F5. It just has not worked out due to bad hires and a culture of losing. People will try to tell you the decision to build dorms led to ending the stipend and therefore killed the program. This is not true. Lavin succeeded here, he just didn't do enough given the talent he had and almost always lost tournament games. It's not a job for the faint of heart, but if we get someone passionate, patient, and demands accountability from players while developing them, we can be successful again and it will be a great job.

I suppose it depends on what your definition of top is. There are 351 D1 coaching jobs. Is it in the top 10 or 25 no. Is it top 50? Probably.

EMT wrote:There's been a lot of great stuff back and forth on SJU and Mullin in the Sunday games thread. I took the following statement from the thread because it was so matter of fact.

"St John's is absolutely considered a top job in college basketball despite what some people might want you to believe." - bilyjack

True or false?

Opine

Would Greg Marshall ever consider ST. John's?
Hell no

GoldenWarrior11 wrote:St. Johns, much like the DePaul job, is the potential to be one of the top 30 jobs in the country. Both are in absolute hot beds in terms of recruiting, and are both in the two top media markets in the nation. Both move around in terms of home gyms (DePaul - Allstate and McGrath-Phillips, St. Johns - MSG and CA), but have the potential to draw big crowds if they are winning. Unfortunately, both programs have officially made the NCAA tournament just three times in the past 15 years.

Both are absolute hot beds for recruiting and huge media markets...they are also huge professional sports markets. I wonder how much that impacts recruiting (being a big shot college basketball player in Durham, NC or Lexington, KY is different than being a big shot college basketball player in NYC or Chicago), ability to attract coaches, and fan interest. Regardless of how good SJ is there are two professional teams in all four major sports in NY.

Although Philly is a big pro sports down, it's also a huge "college town." NY and Chicago, not so much.