Slice to join Chris Mullin at St. John's

[R Jay]

It's huge!

That's what she said. In all seriousness though, very good for SJU and very good for the league.

[falcon]

Recruiting is a lot about hard work and attention to detail. It's also about building relationships. Slice is known as a good guy, a straight shooter with no B/S, and someone who can be trusted. All of those are positives for him.

The other aspect of recruiting is player evaluation - especially when it comes to finding undervalued players. I have reservations about him in this regard. He was not successful in his years as head coach at Manhattan where coaches succeed by finding undervalued talent. I would have thought that with all his recruiting contacts in the city, he could have been a huge success there. But he wasn't. Both the coach before him (Bobby Gonzalez) and the coach after him (Masiello) achieved a great deal of success there, suggesting that it's not the school that was the problem. I don't know. Maybe it was his game management. Or maybe it was an inability to "coach them up" once they got there. But something didn't work there in a situation that seemed tailor made for someone with his background.

The usual scenario with the Manhattan coaches is they are successful with the Jaspers, get a Big East job, and then prove themselves incompetent and/or mentally unbalanced. Brian Mahoney was the only one I can recall who, like Rohrssen, failed at Manhattan. That said, Rohrssen is as close to a sure thing as possible, when hiring a top assistant. The Redmen are on the way back. I hope DePaul's new coach, with much less acclaim, will also turn things around for the Blue Demons. The Vincentian schools have suffered enough.

[Bill Marsh]

Recruiting is a lot about hard work and attention to detail. It's also about building relationships. Slice is known as a good guy, a straight shooter with no B/S, and someone who can be trusted. All of those are positives for him.

The other aspect of recruiting is player evaluation - especially when it comes to finding undervalued players. I have reservations about him in this regard. He was not successful in his years as head coach at Manhattan where coaches succeed by finding undervalued talent. I would have thought that with all his recruiting contacts in the city, he could have been a huge success there. But he wasn't. Both the coach before him (Bobby Gonzalez) and the coach after him (Masiello) achieved a great deal of success there, suggesting that it's not the school that was the problem. I don't know. Maybe it was his game management. Or maybe it was an inability to "coach them up" once they got there. But something didn't work there in a situation that seemed tailor made for someone with his background.

The usual scenario with the Manhattan coaches is they are successful with the Jaspers, get a Big East job, and then prove themselves incompetent and/or mentally unbalanced. Brian Mahoney was the only one I can recall who, like Rohrssen, failed at Manhattan. That said, Rohrssen is as close to a sure thing as possible, when hiring a top assistant. The Redmen are on the way back. I hope DePaul's new coach, with much less acclaim, will also turn things around for the Blue Demons. The Vincentian schools have suffered enough.

Uhh . . Lappas and Fraschilla were notH successful after they left Manhattan. But that's not the issue. The ral question is why was Rohrssen not successful there when so many others were? What does that experience tell is about him if anything?

[falcon]

Bill, I'm not sure what your initial point is. Fraschilla was fired after two years. He was a great recruiter and had SJU in the NCAA in his second year, but had a series of meltdowns with the team and athletic dept. staff, and was dismissed. Security had to be called to remove him from AD's office. Same problems at New Mexico. With Lappas, there was some some success, but Nova pushed him out in order to hire Jay Wright. He also was pushed out after mediocre results at Umass. He was the best of the ex-Jasper coaches. Both retired to commentator jobs. The Nova posters can better comment on Lappas.
As to why Rohrssen failed at Manhattan, I don't have an explanation. Most thought it was a perfect spot for him to break in as a head coach. He does get rave reviews from his work as an assistant - UNLV, Pitt and Kentucky, and that's what he'll be with the Redmen. Should he follow Mullin as head coach? Tough to say.

[XUFan09]

Adding Slice is probably the biggest piece of news so far in the Mullin regime. Very nice.

[Bill Marsh]

Bill, I'm not sure what your initial point is. Fraschilla was fired after two years. He was a great recruiter and had SJU in the NCAA in his second year, but had a series of meltdowns with the team and athletic dept. staff, and was dismissed. Security had to be called to remove him from AD's office. Same problems at New Mexico. With Lappas, there was some some success, but Nova pushed him out in order to hire Jay Wright. He also was pushed out after mediocre results at Umass. He was the best of the ex-Jasper coaches. Both retired to commentator jobs. The Nova posters can better comment on Lappas.
As to why Rohrssen failed at Manhattan, I don't have an explanation. Most thought it was a perfect spot for him to break in as a head coach. He does get rave reviews from his work as an assistant - UNLV, Pitt and Kentucky, and that's what he'll be with the Redmen. Should he follow Mullin as head coach? Tough to say.

My initial point was that the Manhattan experience creates doubts in my mind with regard to how good Rohrssen is at spotting undervalued talent with a big up side.

With regard to everything else about recruiting, I think the guy is Aces. Maybe in the Big East he won't need to find any diamonds in the rough.

[redmen9194]

Mullin, Slice and Matty are meeting with Diallo this weekend. 247 Sports Crystal Ball has moved the Johnnies slightly into the drivers seat. Let's see if they can wrap him up.

[Jet915]

Mullin, Slice and Matty are meeting with Diallo this weekend. 247 Sports Crystal Ball has moved the Johnnies slightly into the drivers seat. Let's see if they can wrap him up.

Get Diallo and Sampson and all of the sudden SJU is a top 25 team IMO.

[REDMEN1415]

Mullin, Slice and Matty are meeting with Diallo this weekend. 247 Sports Crystal Ball has moved the Johnnies slightly into the drivers seat. Let's see if they can wrap him up.

@NYPost_Brazille: St John's entire staff expected to not only meet with Cheick Diallo this weekend, but also Brandon Sampson, source says. #sjubb

Brandon cancelled the SMU meeting this weekend.

Getting a feeling we could have both the weekend

[NovaBall]

Bill, I'm not sure what your initial point is. Fraschilla was fired after two years. He was a great recruiter and had SJU in the NCAA in his second year, but had a series of meltdowns with the team and athletic dept. staff, and was dismissed. Security had to be called to remove him from AD's office. Same problems at New Mexico. With Lappas, there was some some success, but Nova pushed him out in order to hire Jay Wright. He also was pushed out after mediocre results at Umass. He was the best of the ex-Jasper coaches. Both retired to commentator jobs. The Nova posters can better comment on Lappas.
As to why Rohrssen failed at Manhattan, I don't have an explanation. Most thought it was a perfect spot for him to break in as a head coach. He does get rave reviews from his work as an assistant - UNLV, Pitt and Kentucky, and that's what he'll be with the Redmen. Should he follow Mullin as head coach? Tough to say.

My initial point was that the Manhattan experience creates doubts in my mind with regard to how good Rohrssen is at spotting undervalued talent with a big up side.

With regard to everything else about recruiting, I think the guy is Aces. Maybe in the Big East he won't need to find any diamonds in the rough.

Kappas wasn't bad at nova. He was there for 9 years, and 6 of his last 7 teams were rpi top 50. He had 3 teams that cracked the top 10 nationally.

If the tournament were a 68 team tournament in his last few years he would have danced in 6 of his last 7 years with protected seeds in half of those years.

Lap pas was better at nova than guys like lavin was at at john. Kappas wasn't a failure, it was just that nova had higher expectations and jay became available and had significant ties to the school so they jumped