Mullin and St. John's

[billyjack]

Georgetown regularly gets home-and-homes with schools like Kansas, gets games against Michigan State, has been pestered for games for years by Maryland. St John's in recent years has gotten home-and-homes with Duke, gets games against UCLA, etc... these schools want to play Georgetown, and want to play SJU at MSG. Of course, Syracuse and UConn want to play Georgetown too. This is why I have each school on my list.

I don't have the old schedules in front of me this minute, but off the top of my head I can't think of Kansas or Kentucky or UCLA or Duke or UNC having had non-conference home-and-homes with Pitt. Or Clemson. Or Colorado. Florida State. Georgia Tech. Utah. Stanford. Cal. Wake. Miami. Maybe I'm missing some instance, not sure. My memory is bad.

I can't even name the coaches of Clemson or Colorado right now, or Ole Miss, or Stanford... Stanford just hired a guy in place of Dawkins and it created such little buzz I can't think of his name... Ole Miss, I only know that the guy looks like Bill Cowher. These are the middle range Big-6 conference schools that are not on the elite list I made. Pitt and Georgia Tech hired guys that were both going to get canned (at Vandy and Memphis). Clemson's most famous coach is Oliver Purnell, I mean c'mon. Southern Cal settled for the FGCU guy with the hot wife. Oklahoma State got the Stephen F Austin guy, so he's good but not a sizzling hire.

Each of us can easily name every one of the coaches of the 18 teams on my list on Page 2.

Any up-and-coming coach with any ambition is not going to want to hide out in Clemson SC, unless there's a wildcard situation like Rick Barnes moving closer to home... same with Jamie Dixon going home to TCU. Billy Donovan is not ever going to Clemson SC, but he'd at least think about going home to NYC and St John's.

[stever20]

the ONLY reason why St John's gets good home and homes is folks want to play in NYC. Period. And even now, St John's is struggling to get a lot of them, as teams are working around having to play St John's by all the neutral site games that take place at MSG. I mean, 2 weeks ago UConn and Syracuse played at MSG.

Just look at St John's last 10 years. They have 4 games at MSG with Duke, and 1 with UCLA. Outside of that- nothing.

[EMT]

billyjack,

Do you know BillyD personally? I ask to understand if there is a basis in fact to your statements or just speculation.

He left Long Island in 1983. I think I read that his parents relocated to Gainesville years ago.

Dixon went back to his Alma Mater.

[EMT]

the ONLY reason why St John's gets good home and homes is folks want to play in NYC. Period. And even now, St John's is struggling to get a lot of them, as teams are working around having to play St John's by all the neutral site games that take place at MSG. I mean, 2 weeks ago UConn and Syracuse played at MSG.

Just look at St John's last 10 years. They have 4 games at MSG with Duke, and 1 with UCLA. Outside of that- nothing.

You could argue the same with Gtown and the DC area recruiting hotbed.

[billyjack]

Hey guys,
No, unfortunately I never met Donovan. I brought his name up to consider pursuing in the event that Mullin moves on in several years. After mentioning Billy D's name, the idea was attacked by Stever as insane or something. So i explained in greater detail why i thought Donovan to SJU was absolutely plausible (in the other thread). I also explained how i think St John's is considered a top job (in this thread).

No worries if people disagree with me. What i said to me doesn't seem to be outrageous.

With Stever, he just said St John's is only important due to NYC and MSG. Well, yeah, that's the freakin point. They are the real "New York's Team", and they will always hold high value on that alone, even if they suck. That's a huge reason why they made my list of 18 teams. But man, if they can start winning, SJU would be a force, get a ton of press like they used to, and the sky's the limit. Any coach with any awareness of this would realize this, such as a NY'er like Billy D.

Stever downgrades everything about the Big East, so it was a reflex action for him to urInate on St John's... he doesn't respect them, doesn't respect the conference, loves ESPN, and wants us to snivel and accept our fate as the lap-dogs and servants of the football conferences and ESPN. He's shocked that anyone could resist against the ESPN and ACC overlords, and takes it as a personal affront that the Big East is charting its own freakin course, and that things are working out great for us.

So Stever dumping on St John's cuz all they have is MSG and NYC is like dumping on Rome by saying "Rome sucks and is a dump with too much traffic and would be nothing and get no interest without the Coliseum, the Vatican, great food and beautiful women..." To me, that's just a ridiculous way of thinking.

Gotta add... over the last several months i've specifically tried to avoid getting into pissing matches with Stever, but at a certain point i can't take listening to his shit.

[stever20]

but my point is teams are getting into NYC w/o having to play St John's- something that's been extremely different than 25 years ago. Used to be to play at MSG you pretty much had to play St John's. Not any more- and it's getting more and more each year with more teams able to play at MSG. That's a dynamic that has totally changed in the last 25-30 years.

[billyjack]

I've gone into great detail on this topic and i'm not sure what more i can add. I'm probably gonna move on to other threads now.

[stever20]

But the thing is, teams like Syracuse and UConn can play at MSG w/o playing St John's. look at UConn. They've played at MSG regular season now in the 4 years since leaving the Big East 4 games, along with a game each at Barclay's and Newark. That just wasn't possible 25 years ago, and it's hurting St John's. And, it's not changing.

And like I said, look at what St John's schedule has been like. Last 10 years- only major teams to play @ St John's are Duke and UCLA.

You just have to be realistic. I don't even think the most ardent St John's fans would say they're where they were 30 years ago in the scope of things.

[adoraz]

Not understanding the point Stever is trying to make here. He's acting like we need top OOC teams playing us at MSG for us to be relevant, when we already have the best team in the nation (Nova) and other Northeast tournament caliber teams coming every year (Providence, SHU, Georgetown).

Stever have you been to SJU games at MSG? Nova last year was a pretty big turnout, thanks mostly to the Nova fans. Bigger than what we get from Syracuse. That was despite us being on a long losing streak. Have to think this year will be a massive crowd.

Billy is 100% right here. Although some people dissed the Mullin hire, it was at the time seen as a big hire. He's an NBA HOFer who has potential to be here for a long time if we can win some.

Praying tonight was a turnaround and not just a massive fluke. We'll see. For now, enjoy Christmas Johnnies fans! Worst case scenario, even if we suck rest of the way, at least we ruined Cuse's season.

[stever20]

Not understanding the point Stever is trying to make here. He's acting like we need top OOC teams playing us at MSG for us to be relevant, when we already have the best team in the nation (Nova) and other Northeast tournament caliber teams coming every year (Providence, SHU, Georgetown).

Stever have you been to SJU games at MSG? Nova last year was a pretty big turnout, thanks mostly to the Nova fans. Bigger than what we get from Syracuse. That was despite us being on a long losing streak. Have to think this year will be a massive crowd.

Billy is 100% right here. Although some people dissed the Mullin hire, it was at the time seen as a big hire. He's an NBA HOFer who has potential to be here for a long time if we can win some.

Praying tonight was a turnaround and not just a massive fluke. We'll see. For now, enjoy Christmas Johnnies fans! Worst case scenario, even if we suck rest of the way, at least we ruined Cuse's season.

The thing is, he uses the OOC part as a reason why St John's is such a top job. That's where I disagree with- St John's hasn't had the best of OOC schedules recently by any stretch. Probably cost you guys a bid in 2014 even.

I'm thrilled you guys beat them. Nothing a better Christmas gift than seeing them getting absolutely punked. Next Thursday will be fascinating to watch you guys play Butler.