-- It amazes me that a school like St Johns refuses or is unable to hire a big name coach...they are nickeling and diming there program to death

Jackson


7:46 AM, February 3, 2010 ι By MIKE VACCARO

By now, it has to be abundantly clear to the men who run St. John's basketball what needs to be done. Nobody wants to see Norm Roberts, a good man who rescued the program from the depths of shame and indignity, lose his job. Everyone would have liked to see him author a fairy tale story here, the Queens College kid who used to scrimmage against the great St. John's players of the '80s restoring the Red Storm to glory.

It would have made for a hell of a story.

But we're not getting that story. And it becomes clearer to everyone who cares about this program that under Norm, we're never getting that story. It's been almost six full years now, time for Roberts to get a full class and a half under his belt. If it was going to get turned around on his watch, it would be turned around by now.

Instead, what we get is what may well be the most dispiriting loss of Roberts entire tenure last night, an 84-72 schooling at Rutgers that confirms every pessimistic suspicion about the Johnnies, now 12-9 overall and 2-7 in the Big East: that their pre-Big East record -- though fortified by nice wins against Siena and Temple -- was mostly built on sand. And that right now, the only school in the entire league that the erstwhile Redmen can truly look down upon is their fellow Vincentians at DePaul -- which, by the way, has already fired its coach. When even Rutgers -- where the general assumption is that Freddy Hill is a fired coach walking -- can beat you, you know you've reached a genuine nadir.

There are larger issues at stake here than simply firing the coach at St. John's, of course. At the top of the list is the question of whether anyone can get it done on Utopia Parkway any longer, whether the appeal of New York and the Garden even exists anymore, if the very notion of elite big-time basketball is even possible at a school that lost its greatest recruiting advantage -- the housing stipend -- years ago. At some point, we're all going to have to stop blaming the reign of error of Mike Jarvis and wonder if the problems aren't too great for any one man to solve.

But first the men who run St. John's have to try and locate that one man. They simply cannot keep hoping that Roberts is the answer. His teams play very, very hard -- although a sure sign of a losing program is when the best thing you can say about it is that the players don't quit. He has made small recruiting inroads -- but, again, this is six years now. St. John's will never have to face the public scorn of having lost patience too quickly.

If anything, they've erred repeatedly on the side of patience. To the growing chagrin of the fans, alumni and local basketball junkies who used to follow this team as an extension of their own personal theologies. These are the people who've been all but shooed away as St. John's keeps bringing Norm back for more. It's beginning to border on athletic malpractice.

There will be no shortage of candidates to ponder. Some will call for Mark Jackson, short on experience but long on local roots. Jim Baron, a son of Brooklyn who's performed miracles at Rhode Island, was the best candidate when Roberts was hired and remains the best candidate still. Tom Pecora has been saddled with a maddening eligibility issue all year with one of his top recruits, which has probably kept Hofstra out of the CAA race, and he has a thousand local ties that would surely stabilize the listing ship. And whatever you may feel about the Ivy League, it's impossible to see what Steve Donahue has done at Cornell and not understand that someone is going to soon give him the chance to see if that transfers to a power conference. There are others.

Norm did what he was hired to do. He restored a measure of honor to St. John's, dissolved the dark clouds that for so long hovered over the program. He has some money coming to him, and a great reputation in the coaching community; he won't be out of work long. But the time has come for St. John's to tell him what saloon patrons have been told at closing time for years: you don't have to go home. But you can't stay here.

(02-07-2010 09:08 AM)Jackson1011 Wrote:  -- It amazes me that a school like St Johns refuses or is unable to hire a big name coach...they are nickeling and diming there program to death

I don't think St Johns today has the $$$$ for a big-name Coach.

While sometimes it takes $$$$ (investment) to make $$$$$, I just think St Johns hired the "wrong guy".

While Roberts was a "city" kid...most of his Coaching/Recruiting life was spent in the Midwest.

St Johns needs a coach who spent of their coaching/recruiting life in the NORTHEAST...and sometimes, that can be done, maybe without major $$$$$.

Strong evidence that Roberts can't recruit that well in Northeast High Schools is that at least 8 players on his team were transfers & JUCO players from other schools.

When a majority of your roster is filled with non-HS signees...that is a major sign of recruiting weakness.

This is a chance for St Johns to spend wisely and hire a coach that can bring it back to prominense. If Gtown and Nova can do it so can St Johns but they must be willing to not just settle for something cheap. A strong St Johns would be good for the Big East

I think the ruination of St. John's was when they put the dorms on the campus. That housing stipend was a big draw for local kids...

What St. Johns REALLY needs is to move A10. They could be more competitive and would have more in common with the other league schools.

Well, I think the answer to everyone's problems would be for the BE to spl...

(02-07-2010 11:59 AM)LETSGOMANIAC Wrote:  What St. Johns REALLY needs is to move A10. They could be more competitive and would have more in common with the other league schools.

And they can take DePaul along when they leave...

(02-07-2010 02:06 PM)KnightChris Wrote:  

(02-07-2010 11:27 AM)bitcruncher Wrote:  I think the ruination of St. John's was when they put the dorms on the campus. That housing stipend was a big draw for local kids...

That is EXACTLY why STJ sucks... well, actually I could list about a dozen other reasons, but that's one of the main ones. They essentially had a legal way to pay their players, and they took away that advantage.

That's also why St. John's is at a disadvantage trying to come back too. To most of those kids, life outside the inner city sounds pretty good, and St. John's can't give them anything they'd get elsewhere...

They need a splash hire.

you can have Mick Cronin....for free

I''ve heard Seth Greenberg's name being thrown around a couple of message boards and Fox talk radio.

Greenie would make sense as he is a NYC native and has always professed an interest in coaching in the BigEast. Which is ironic b/c shortly after bolting USF, the Bulls got invited to the BigEast. Nonetheless, he has grown as a coach since his USF days, he no longer lives-or-dies with the 1-3-1 100% of the time. He only utilizes that "junk defense" as Bob huggins once quipped only 90% of the time.

He has done okay for himself in the ACC, but he could be ready for a new challenge and be the guy to revitalize the St. Johns brand in NYC. Hiring Mark Jackson would be a mistake...

(02-07-2010 02:19 PM)bitcruncher Wrote:  

(02-07-2010 02:06 PM)KnightChris Wrote:  

(02-07-2010 11:27 AM)bitcruncher Wrote:  I think the ruination of St. John's was when they put the dorms on the campus. That housing stipend was a big draw for local kids...

That is EXACTLY why STJ sucks... well, actually I could list about a dozen other reasons, but that's one of the main ones. They essentially had a legal way to pay their players, and they took away that advantage.

That's also why St. John's is at a disadvantage trying to come back too. To most of those kids, life outside the inner city sounds pretty good, and St. John's can't give them anything they'd get elsewhere...

Unless St. John's targets the one-and-done players from the NYC metro area ala John Cal at UK, who recently said that he would be mad if Walls returned for his sophomore year.

Another issue to consider: St. John's is having a tougher time filling its class (it's the 2nd largest Catholic school in the US) and is diverting more money to merit aid to attract the non-athlete kids going to Hofstra, to Fordham, etc. St. John's has the money for a big coach but may not be able to allocate the money to do so, so paying out Roberts' contract may be more of a fiscal decision.

The merit vs. need issue is a big one in private school admissions circles. The top schools will support need based aid (in the Big East, Georgetown and ND) but the second tier will increasingly use merit aid to compete.

(02-08-2010 11:17 AM)CyberBull Wrote:  I''ve heard Seth Greenberg's name being thrown around a couple of message boards and Fox talk radio.

Greenie would make sense as he is a NYC native and has always professed an interest in coaching in the BigEast. Which is ironic b/c shortly after bolting USF, the Bulls got invited to the BigEast. Nonetheless, he has grown as a coach since his USF days, he no longer lives-or-dies with the 1-3-1 100% of the time. He only utilizes that "junk defense" as Bob huggins once quipped only 90% of the time.

He has done okay for himself in the ACC, but he could be ready for a new challenge and be the guy to revitalize the St. Johns brand in NYC. Hiring Mark Jackson would be a mistake...

Greenberg is probably the only guy who coached in C-USA, the Big East and the ACC in three consecutive seasons. He's a good coach who would be a good fit at St. Johns.

(02-08-2010 08:17 PM)MichaelSavage Wrote:  

(02-08-2010 11:17 AM)CyberBull Wrote:  I''ve heard Seth Greenberg's name being thrown around a couple of message boards and Fox talk radio.

Greenie would make sense as he is a NYC native and has always professed an interest in coaching in the BigEast. Which is ironic b/c shortly after bolting USF, the Bulls got invited to the BigEast. Nonetheless, he has grown as a coach since his USF days, he no longer lives-or-dies with the 1-3-1 100% of the time. He only utilizes that "junk defense" as Bob huggins once quipped only 90% of the time.

He has done okay for himself in the ACC, but he could be ready for a new challenge and be the guy to revitalize the St. Johns brand in NYC. Hiring Mark Jackson would be a mistake...

Greenberg is probably the only guy who coached in C-USA, the Big East and the ACC in three consecutive seasons. He's a good coach who would be a good fit at St. Johns.

All good pts above.

After all, he is getting kids to show up in lil Blacksburg, VA....imagine what this "Long Island Boy/Coach" could do if his locker room was located in NYC?

Right now, a majority of his roster are of kids from NC, VA and the DC/Baltimore area.

However, right "now", Va Tech is a much better paying job than St Johns...plus the $$$$ go a lot further...(A LOT FURTHER) around Blacksburg, VA compared to NYC.

True. 10 years ago, St. Johns was a much better job than Virginia Tech. Now...who knows?