I don't know that he really wanted to coach, but when we asked him, he felt he couldn't turn it down. He left the X's and O's and game management to Greg St Jean, recruiting to Abdelmassih. If he was a top-notch team CEO type, it didn't really show in terms of execution and consistency. He was going with an NBA type "get the talent, and don't worry about the rest" philosophy. But that really only works if you can bring in talent on a Duke/Kentucky level.

I think he realized what I know I realized towards the end of this season--next season is going to be rougher than this season. Even before we crapped out at the end of the season, we were a 7-10 seed. Is that our ceiling, a 7-10 seed every 3-4 years? I think, realistically, that WAS our ceiling under Mullin. But it would have been insanely tough to fire him, because he's Hall of Famer Chris Mullin and because we haven't done anything more in 20 years.

I think a huge determining factor in the decision was the sad and unfortunate passing of his brother due to cancer. His demeanor (and frankly that of the team) really took a step back the last two weeks of the season, and I'm sure that had something to do with it.

Mullin should still, unquestionably, be valued and appreciated for all that he has done for St. John's - as a player, alum and coach. I know it didn't work out as well as many hoped, but the team was better in year four than in year one, no question. The team improved each year, and managed to get to the tournament this past season. Will be interesting to see where he goes in his next pursuits (I'd imagine an NBA executive role of some type). Wish Coach Mullin well.

For St. John's, despite the roster being very empty at the moment, they have a tremendous opportunity to select an experienced head coach to lead the program for years to come. They are in an outstanding location for college basketball, and have the history of sustained success that can attract a proven, successful head coach. If it ends up being Bobby Hurley, it would be a huge home run for the school and conference. Whomever the next head coach ends up being, he will end up bringing some of his recruits/transfers along as well, so the roster can definitely be filled out pretty quickly - both in the near and long term.

I think it's probably close to a pipe dream for St John's to get Hurley. I mean, he's gotten to the tourney each of the last 2 years and they return most everyone next year. Also he's got what looks like a 3 million buy out. I could easily see him use St John's to get a big raise, simlar to what Calipari and Barnes did with UCLA.

Also for St John's, they might have the history, but since Mullin left the last time 34 seasons ago, St John's has exactly 14 NCAA appearances and only 11 NCAA tourney wins.. This is not St John's from 1-2 generations ago.

interesting-
https://watchstadium.com/news/predicting...4-10-2019/

Mike Rhoads from VCU is interesting. They saw him of course first hand in November in that excellent game at Barclay's.

sounds like St John's is talking with Cluess from Iona....

While Hurley would have been the sexy hire, I think Cluess may be the right hire.

Cluess has won everywhere he has coached. The only knock on him isn't that he isn't a "sexy" hire; it would be that he is already 60, IMO. It definitely would not be a long-term hire (at least not in the traditional sense). But, that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world either. St. John's needs a proven, successful head coach that knows recruiting. The last standing head coach that they hired was Mike Jarvis in 1998.

Hurley still has not been dismissed as the final candidate, which means talks are still on-going. Would not be shocked to see a hire in place by early next week.

thats a crazy factoid about St John's and standing coaches. And Jarvis was by far the most successful of coaches St John's has had since Louie left- only coach to win more than 1 NCAA tourney game in that period.

Hurley definitely not coming. Not a real shocker at all whatsoever. At this point, I don't think St John's can really afford to go on a situation like what happened at UCLA. They have to go get Cluess.

(04-11-2019 09:26 PM)stever20 Wrote:  Hurley definitely not coming. Not a real shocker at all whatsoever. At this point, I don't think St John's can really afford to go on a situation like what happened at UCLA. They have to go get Cluess.

I'm not very upset that we didn't get Hurley, frankly. MAybe he's better than Cluess for a few years, but he was always going to move on to the next job, and Hurley making a Sweet 16 with some national recruits isn't going to put St John's anywhere we aren't already.

The program has to seriously evaluate who and what we are at this point.

Right now, we're just another major-conference job--and our facilities aren't great, the campus is in the not-fashionable part of NYC, and we haven't won an NCAA tournament game since before today's recruits were born.

So if we act like we're just another big-conference program, we'll get big-conference coaches, and after a couple of years, they'll move on to a different big-conference job, much like Buzz Williams skedaddling out of Marquette to Virginia Tech and Virginia Tech to Texas A&M.

The world is changing, and we never really adapted to the AAU system, the reality of one-and-done players or just kids expecting to go pro in 2-3 years. Abdelmassih's strategy basically slaps band-aids on top of band-aids, replacing transfer-outs with transfer-ins.

But, with the FBI bringing the heat on Nike and Adidas, and the NBA ending the one-and-done rule, the world is changing again.

We. Are.
Saint Johns.

But who are we? We are New York City's local hometown college team. We haven't been lately, but that's who we are at our best, New York fans cheering at the Garden for NYC local kids, competing at a national level. We can't be that if more than half the rotation are national recruits, brought in by a hired-gun coach who's looking ahead to take a Michigan State or Oregon or Florida or UCLA job.

So Cluess is the way to go--rebuild the relationships with tri-state high schools, with a guy with local connections and roots. I know we tried that with Norm Roberts, and it didn't work. But the philosophy is the right one for who we are, and for the time. Get New York, New Jersey kids who play in a system and will stay 3-4 years.

That's the future, if St Johns' is going to be anything but a major conference school that was important once-upon-a-time.

I think it's funny as hell there are folks who actually think Billy Donovan would go to St John's. Sorry but a guy like Donovan isn't going to come back to college to coach anything less than a top 10-15 job. And St John's right now is far away from that. It's not a top 25 job even.

looking at twitter this morning, looks like SJU has really screwed things up.....

and from the NY Post-
https://nypost.com/2019/04/15/st-johns-c...ise-offer/

sounds like Cluess had too high of a buyout for some at St John's.

so Cluess dropped his pursuit today....

Man oh man, they're making UCLA look good. At least UCLA was able to get a pretty good guy in Cronin. Don't think St John's will be able to get anyone nearly as good as Cronin.

Think it's a really solid hire for St John's- something 24 hours ago never thought i'd say.... Think his style will play real well in NYC. Probably on a 5 star rating would give it like 4 stars....

It's funny both UCLA and St John's had dumpster fire searches, but both wound up with at least solid coaches at the end of the process.

(04-18-2019 10:36 PM)stever20 Wrote:  Think it's a really solid hire for St John's- something 24 hours ago never thought i'd say.... Think his style will play real well in NYC. Probably on a 5 star rating would give it like 4 stars....

It's funny both UCLA and St John's had dumpster fire searches, but both wound up with at least solid coaches at the end of the process.

5 stars based on what you'd expect from our dumpster fire search process, or 5 stars in general?

Richardson is a VORP major conference coach. It feels like a big win because, hiring that level coach is a big step up from getting turned down by coaches from Loyola-Chicago and Iona.

This is a treading water move. He'll make a tournament or two, and in five years he'll be gone one way or another, and we'll start over again.

(04-19-2019 08:49 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(04-18-2019 10:36 PM)stever20 Wrote:  Think it's a really solid hire for St John's- something 24 hours ago never thought i'd say.... Think his style will play real well in NYC. Probably on a 5 star rating would give it like 4 stars....

It's funny both UCLA and St John's had dumpster fire searches, but both wound up with at least solid coaches at the end of the process.

5 stars based on what you'd expect from our dumpster fire search process, or 5 stars in general?

Richardson is a VORP major conference coach. It feels like a big win because, hiring that level coach is a big step up from getting turned down by coaches from Loyola-Chicago and Iona.

This is a treading water move. He'll make a tournament or two, and in five years he'll be gone one way or another, and we'll start over again.

I'd say in general...

I don't give it 5 stars because it has a round hole/square peg kind of feel to it. But I think it's got a real chance to be a great hire as I think his style should play well in NYC. Look at how much success Providence has had in the league turning teams over and how they've faired in the conference in that period- last 5 years they've been no worse than 4th in defensive turnover % in conference play. And Anderson's Arkansas teams actually turned over teams more than Providence did.

I think it's going to be one of those that the results aren't going to be luke warm. It's either going to be really good or really bad.

(04-19-2019 09:08 AM)stever20 Wrote:  

(04-19-2019 08:49 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  

(04-18-2019 10:36 PM)stever20 Wrote:  Think it's a really solid hire for St John's- something 24 hours ago never thought i'd say.... Think his style will play real well in NYC. Probably on a 5 star rating would give it like 4 stars....

It's funny both UCLA and St John's had dumpster fire searches, but both wound up with at least solid coaches at the end of the process.

5 stars based on what you'd expect from our dumpster fire search process, or 5 stars in general?

Anderson is a VORP major conference coach. It feels like a big win because, hiring that level coach is a big step up from getting turned down by coaches from Loyola-Chicago and Iona.

This is a treading water move. He'll make a tournament or two, and in five years he'll be gone one way or another, and we'll start over again.

I'd say in general...

I don't give it 5 stars because it has a round hole/square peg kind of feel to it. But I think it's got a real chance to be a great hire as I think his style should play well in NYC. Look at how much success Providence has had in the league turning teams over and how they've faired in the conference in that period- last 5 years they've been no worse than 4th in defensive turnover % in conference play. And Anderson's Arkansas teams actually turned over teams more than Providence did.

I think it's going to be one of those that the results aren't going to be luke warm. It's either going to be really good or really bad.

It's grown on me a bit over the last hours.

I flipped through his Arkansas rosters, and there are always a lot of Arkansas (1/3 to 1/2), plus a couple from LA, TX, TN, MO. If he can find that many major-conference quality players in Arkansas, he can do that in the tri-state area.

And that's what sets us up for the future. That sets up recruiting relationships with the local schools. I'm not talking about the Shamarie Ponds types, I'm talking about your glue guys, your system guys. Those are the guys who stay four years, who become your veteran leadership. Those are the guys who keep you close to 20 wins in down years, and who set you up for serious tournament runs when you do have the NBA and near-NBA talent.

We've been eating our seed corn, living off past glory and our Big East status for a long time. If Anderson takes the same build-locally approach, AND puts in a system, THAT starts rebuilding the roots of the program. That's what puts us back in the tournament every year or every other year, instead of every 4 or 5 years.

EDIT: YEs, I've been calling him by Norm RIchardson's name.

it utterly amazes me how some folks(on the other site) think of a pressing style as a gimmick.

(04-19-2019 08:49 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  Richardson is a VORP major conference coach. It feels like a big win because, hiring that level coach is a big step up from getting turned down by coaches from Loyola-Chicago and Iona.

This is a treading water move. He'll make a tournament or two, and in five years he'll be gone one way or another, and we'll start over again.

I agree with this assessment.



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(07-12-2019 08:25 AM)redstorm Wrote:  

(04-19-2019 08:49 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  Richardson is a VORP major conference coach. It feels like a big win because, hiring that level coach is a big step up from getting turned down by coaches from Loyola-Chicago and Iona.

This is a treading water move. He'll make a tournament or two, and in five years he'll be gone one way or another, and we'll start over again.

I agree with this assessment.



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