Welcome to The Holy Land of Hoops

I watch Big East basketball on Fox whenever possible. I may skip tonight. These two teams just have me pulling my hair out.

Every conference needs cellar dwellars. If these are our two bad teams, so be it. But they need to hold up their end of the bargain for out of conference play. They can't be losing to lafayette or fordham or st peters or illinois state or northwestern or mercer or rutgers or whoever. You can be our doormats, but please don't drag down the conference.

I really don't even know how these programs are so bad, or what they need to do to get better. They both have fan bases, but those fan bases are dormant right now due to years of failure and lack of interest in the program.

Seton Hall. Those who follow the big east know the problem here - lack of effort. Lack of institutional support, lack of direction from the athletic department, lack of promotion of the program. Just overall apathy right now. They had a good coach in louis orr, fired him for whatever reason, hired a headcase, fired him, and then proceeded to make kevin willard the lowest paid coach among major conference schools. Not usually a sign that a school cares about winning. Kevin willard might be a good coach one day, but there was nothing in summer of 2010 to make any reasonable person think that kevin willard was prepared to navigate big east waters. Nothing. He had a career losing record, and only had one winning conference record (as well as overall record) in his career. To this date he still only has one career conference winning record. And I don't think his recruits next year are on the high enough impact side to turn this thing around. Even the talented freshman can require time to develop, senior leadership, and good coaching. That's not going to be there for these kids next year. This mess is only going to get worse.
Seton hall should spend the money and steal an established coach from a bcs school. Make a statement they care and back it up. Might not work, but at least the perception wil change and interest might return to the program.

Depaul, they are almost the exact opposite. They made the effort and stol an established coach from an acc school. Oliver purnell had success in the midwest at dayton. He was a program builder at old dominion. He turned clemson into a tournament team and made 3 straight dances with them. They paid him big and made a splash. This is what seton hall should do.
But what the heck is going on with purnell? Is he mailing it in? Is he content with what his career has given him and his effort to rebuild is not there? Or is depaul just that hard to win at? The big east is tough, but a 6-50 conference record when you had over 25 home games in that span is ridiculously bad.
They seem to have some impact freshmen. I have no idea if he can turn the ship around. Unlike kevin willard, I am still willing to give purnell the benefit of the doubt, but I wouldn't mind hearing what others have to say.

If these two can get their acts together out of conference it doesn't matter if they combine for a 4-32 conference record on the year. But take care of the trash on your out of conference schedules please!

Friarfan2 wrote:I watch Big East basketball on Fox whenever possible. I may skip tonight. These two teams just have me pulling my hair out.

Every conference needs cellar dwellars. If these are our two bad teams, so be it. But they need to hold up their end of the bargain for out of conference play. They can't be losing to lafayette or fordham or st peters or illinois state or northwestern or mercer or rutgers or whoever. You can be our doormats, but please don't drag down the conference.

I really don't even know how these programs are so bad, or what they need to do to get better. They both have fan bases, but those fan bases are dormant right now due to years of failure and lack of interest in the program.

Seton Hall. Those who follow the big east know the problem here - lack of effort. Lack of institutional support, lack of direction from the athletic department, lack of promotion of the program. Just overall apathy right now. They had a good coach in louis orr, fired him for whatever reason, hired a headcase, fired him, and then proceeded to make kevin willard the lowest paid coach among major conference schools. Not usually a sign that a school cares about winning. Kevin willard might be a good coach one day, but there was nothing in summer of 2010 to make any reasonable person think that kevin willard was prepared to navigate big east waters. Nothing. He had a career losing record, and only had one winning conference record (as well as overall record) in his career. To this date he still only has one career conference winning record. And I don't think his recruits next year are on the high enough impact side to turn this thing around. Even the talented freshman can require time to develop, senior leadership, and good coaching. That's not going to be there for these kids next year. This mess is only going to get worse.
Seton hall should spend the money and steal an established coach from a bcs school. Make a statement they care and back it up. Might not work, but at least the perception wil change and interest might return to the program.

Depaul, they are almost the exact opposite. They made the effort and stol an established coach from an acc school. Oliver purnell had success in the midwest at dayton. He was a program builder at old dominion. He turned clemson into a tournament team and made 3 straight dances with them. They paid him big and made a splash. This is what seton hall should do.
But what the heck is going on with purnell? Is he mailing it in? Is he content with what his career has given him and his effort to rebuild is not there? Or is depaul just that hard to win at? The big east is tough, but a 6-50 conference record when you had over 25 home games in that span is ridiculously bad.
They seem to have some impact freshmen. I have no idea if he can turn the ship around. Unlike kevin willard, I am still willing to give purnell the benefit of the doubt, but I wouldn't mind hearing what others have to say.

If these two can get their acts together out of conference it doesn't matter if they combine for a 4-32 conference record on the year. But take care of the trash on your out of conference schedules please!

Don't worry cause I think the games are tomorrow. I hear ya though...

Providence ranks 8th in the league with a Pomeroy Rating of 71....

...glass houses and all that jazz.

Providence lost to kentucky and maryland, two national champions this century, two respected programs. Providence has beaten schools from other power conferences and the atlantic 10.

If that is our 3rd to last team, that's fine.

If depaul and seton hall would take care of business out of conference and not embarrass the league and rag down the rpi, that's fine.

Providence has not lost to illinois state or mercer or whever else these guys are losing to. So what was that about glass houses?

We have 8 teams that are trying, and then we have depaul and seton hall really screwing up.

Edrick wrote:Providence ranks 8th in the league with a Pomeroy Rating of 71....

...glass houses and all that jazz.

+1 to you.

Seton Hall was picked to be one of the worst teams in the league this year and when they perform that way everyone freaks out. Though there is talent on this team, it is not enough to compete with the top tier big east teams. Couple that with some key early injuries, and you are going to get bad loses. With that said I dont get why people think they cant turn it around. Willard's biggest question mark has been with recruiting and the school has invested a lot of money in hiring top assistants and revamping athletic facilities. Just look at whos coming in next year. There is no reason to think that he cant coach them or develop the players toward success. For example Edwin who was barely a 3 star recruit and is now one of the best players in the league. Gibbs also wasent highly ranked and is showing to be a quality big east guard. Yes SHU will probably finish between 8-10 this year, but they are trending upwards and will be a force in years to come.

This type of talk, although amusing, is irrelevant now. Conference play is upon us & the games will speak for themselves.

XnThe problem with seton hall is not that they were picked last and don't have the talent to compete with the top tier big east teams. Nobody is faulting them for that.

The problem is that they either don't have the talent (or the coaching) to compete with mercer or fdu or st peter's. And I don't care about the injuries, you shouldn't be losing to those 3 teams in a season. That is horrible.

Providence may finish in 8th place with a 5-13 conference record. If that happens, fine, our 8th place team is currently 10-2 with no bad losses, a few okay wins, and a chance to beat a ranked umass team. If that is our 8th place team, that is fine and plenty respectable.

Xavier might be our 8th place team, and as bad as they were in atlantis they haven't lost otherwise and picked up a couple decent wins. Same for st john's, it is not like that penn state loss compares to st peters, or mercer, or fdu. These teams have been acceptable out of conference.

Make all the excuses you want. Downplay the expectations entering the season. But there is no excuse for what these two schools are doing right now, and I really hope they pick it up. I am not rooting against either of them, but I am ashamed of both of them.

And fuquon edwin played 41 minutes in the hall's loss to mercer, and another 37 minutes in the hall's loss to fairley dickinson. He is not one of the best players in the league. Seriously, stop with the excuses. Have some expectations from your school.

And your loss to st peters had more to do with jaren sina going 0-7 from the field and mobley going 2-11 than it did with edwin being out.

I'm sorry our program isn't as good as almighty Providence, who's spent the past decade going to every NCAA Tournament and winning more BIG EAST Championships than they know what to do with!

It is hard to crawl out from the basement. It took my Johnnies over 10 years and we're still not out of the woods yet. I like what DePaul is doing, and I think we need to continue to give Purnell time. You don't get a team like DePaul out of the tailspin they've been in without a lot of time, patience, blood, sweat and tears. The team last year while finishing in last and only won a few games had three go to OT with the potential to win something like 6 conference games last year. The games weren't the blow outs they used to be. They are becoming competitive. I think they can become respectable in the next five years and once the new building gets up and running. That should really rejuvenate the fan base and get some more alumni out to support the school.

Seton Hall on the other hand is in a much bigger hole with a much bleaker outlook. They don't have the money like DePaul, they don't have the fan support of the Blue Demons and they aren't in the best area to attract kids. I think they are going to fall even farther soon, I think Willard is using some shady recruiting methods that are going to cost Seton Hall dearly. If they weren't already in the Big East I don't know if they get an invite to the league. Sorry guys, not hating just telling it like it is. I think Willard is fired in the next two years, and the NCAA starts investigating around that time as well. Unfortunately they have yet to hit rock bottom.