What did Mullin say to Fordham coach after Fordham game?

[ChestRockwell85]

At the St. John's game today at MSG, heard some SJU fans talking about how Mullin was upset at the Fordham coach after the Fordham game and said something along the lines of, "you are an a$$hole and we are going to beat your a$$ next year." Any truth to this?

[NovaNow]

haha...might be true. found the highlights of the game on youtube. check out the fordham coach's reaction to Mullins handshake after the game. fast forward to the 2:50 mark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMDv0rUvmqE

[DudeAnon]

Oh man, I hope that is true

[bleedxblue]

Wasn't it something to the effect that Mullin thought he left his starters in too long? If so, that's a rookie move by Mullin. Tuck your tail between your legs and move on. It was a beat down. It happens.

[ChestRockwell85]

The thing was it wasn't that much of a beat down, SJU only lost by 16 and Fordham and SJU both scored the same amount of points in the 2nd half. A few years ago, before Malcolm Grant transferred to Miami, Villanova was literally down to LSU by 21 with 3 minutes left and came back and won. With that being said, 16 points is not enough of a cushion to take out your starters and break out the champagne, especially when you are playing a city rival that beat you by a combined 60+ points the prior 2 years.

If Fordham was up by 30, I'd get the reaction, or at least sympathize with it a little more. Regardless, I like Mullin and think he is going to do well at St. John's but it was definitely an overreaction.

[SJHooper]

As a huge SJ/Mullin supporter I do think it was a bit of an overreaction as well. If they were up 30 or something then I get it. But they weren't totally drubbing us. It's very well known that Mullin HATES to lose at anything that he does. He's ultra competitive. It's much better though than Lavin smiling from ear to ear after losing awful games and being content never winning tourney games. I'm very confident in Mullin and I think we just don't have the horses right now. Ellison & Williams are out, plus LoVett is ineligible. We can barely field a team. Every game all the opponents have to do is trap Mussini because they know he's our best scorer/shooter. He often turns it over as well. It's too easy to defend us. Once we get Ellison back, then LoVett and Ponds next year, I think we will really see what we have come Big East play. Getting Owens next year is also huge...it will give us much more size. Mullin gets a 3 year grace period just have to be patient.

By the way, very quietly our women's basketball has been solid and might be ranked today...or at least on the very cusp. Beat #17 USF then just beat Kansas.

[stever20]

As a huge SJ/Mullin supporter I do think it was a bit of an overreaction as well. If they were up 30 or something then I get it. But they weren't totally drubbing us. It's very well known that Mullin HATES to lose at anything that he does. He's ultra competitive. It's much better though than Lavin smiling from ear to ear after losing awful games and being content never winning tourney games. I'm very confident in Mullin and I think we just don't have the horses right now. Ellison & Williams are out, plus LoVett is ineligible. We can barely field a team. Every game all the opponents have to do is trap Mussini because they know he's our best scorer/shooter. He often turns it over as well. It's too easy to defend us. Once we get Ellison back, then LoVett and Ponds next year, I think we will really see what we have come Big East play. Getting Owens next year is also huge...it will give us much more size. Mullin gets a 3 year grace period just have to be patient.

By the way, very quietly our women's basketball has been solid and might be ranked today...or at least on the very cusp. Beat #17 USF then just beat Kansas.

yeah, pretty quietly the Big East women's conference has gotten off to a pretty good start. (btw St John's was actually on the very cusp last week- they were #28 in AP/30 in coaches).

IMO, getting the women's conference strong is actually pretty important. 1 of the big things with UConn is their WBB program. I think any hope with getting UConn also would be Big Ten going with Fox.

[SJHooper]

As a huge SJ/Mullin supporter I do think it was a bit of an overreaction as well. If they were up 30 or something then I get it. But they weren't totally drubbing us. It's very well known that Mullin HATES to lose at anything that he does. He's ultra competitive. It's much better though than Lavin smiling from ear to ear after losing awful games and being content never winning tourney games. I'm very confident in Mullin and I think we just don't have the horses right now. Ellison & Williams are out, plus LoVett is ineligible. We can barely field a team. Every game all the opponents have to do is trap Mussini because they know he's our best scorer/shooter. He often turns it over as well. It's too easy to defend us. Once we get Ellison back, then LoVett and Ponds next year, I think we will really see what we have come Big East play. Getting Owens next year is also huge...it will give us much more size. Mullin gets a 3 year grace period just have to be patient.

By the way, very quietly our women's basketball has been solid and might be ranked today...or at least on the very cusp. Beat #17 USF then just beat Kansas.

yeah, pretty quietly the Big East women's conference has gotten off to a pretty good start. (btw St John's was actually on the very cusp last week- they were #28 in AP/30 in coaches).

IMO, getting the women's conference strong is actually pretty important. 1 of the big things with UConn is their WBB program. I think any hope with getting UConn also would be Big Ten going with Fox.

True power conferences are good at more than just men's basketball, so Big East women's hoops succeeding and being ranked is more evidence we are still a power conference. DePaul, Seton Hall, and SJ are consistently good. SJ about to be ranked and just made the Sweet 16 a few years back. Also beat UConn a few years ago which is the holy grail of women's hoops. I'm loving Mullin so far. I saw him on campus and while he's a celebrity, he walks down the street to get lunch, and talks to security guards on campus. He's just a regular guy from Brooklyn and it's kind of refreshing since Lavin seemed to be more of a diva going out in SoHo eating at 5 star restaurants instead of recruiting locally. He has that no nonsense approach and you just get the feeling that we will have much more fight and grit than our Lavin teams. Lavin seemed totally fine losing games even if we should have won them by 20. He'd bust out dumb quotes and was always smiling. In New York you can't do that. We value straight talk and competitiveness. I remember some opposing coaches even looking confused because Lavin would be laughing after a brutal loss at the handshake line. The perception seems to be he was just collecting a paycheck and enjoying his luxuries in his Manhattan apartment wining & dining instead of putting in the hard work and getting his hands dirty. Mullin is much more blue collar.

I saw his 60 minutes special and I thought this was very telling: he was asked why he would risk his legacy at SJ if he ends up failing as a coach. He responded, "What legacy? What would be tarnished? That was 30 years ago and if I was so worried about failing, I never would have played in the first place". He has that anything is possible with hard work and practice mindset. This is a guy who in his heart truly loves this program and will do anything and everything it takes to get us back in the top 25 again consistently and hopefully deep into the tourneys.

[BEhomer]

is it possible maybe mullin did that to rile up his players? let them know that losing is not acceptable? not sure if mullin is that savvy or calculated but it does seem odd he would display that kind of behavior especially being a rookie coach.

[billyfa]

He wasn't happy with the fact that the Fordham coach called a timeout with a minute left and didn't take out his starters after the timeout. If you are up 20 with a minute left you only call a timeout to get the bench players in. Fordham coach called a timeout, left starters in and they launched threes in the final minute. Mullin didn't have to react, but there is a way to win gracefully also. Karma will reward Fordham in the near future.