The Holy Land of Hoops

The media already seems to be judging the Mullin tenure at St Johns and it doesn't seem like Ewing will have a long honeymoon at Georgetown.
Both Georgetown and St. Johns are the signature programs from the conference.
What is the general consensus around the conference on how they'll do at their alma maters?
The newer additions seem to be carrying a lot of the weight for the conference. They may not remember how huge Mullin and Ewing were for the original Big East in their day. Do they understand the significance of their hirings?
I happen to think that Ewing was a big get for the conference. We have some good coaches but the Big East we grew up on had distinctive personalities as coaches. I think the Ewing (and Mullin) hire bring the conference back to those days of the larger than life coach.
Nevertheless, there is still a stigma of hiring the prominent former athlete alum as Head Coach.
What do you think the impact of these two coaching staffs will be? As decent as the conference has been to this point, it could have been a lot better with a strong St. Johns and/or Georgetown do to their visibility.

I'd be 100 times more fearful of Wright/Mack/McDermott/Holtmann/Cooley than Mullin or Ewing. They may succeed. I think they have an uphill battle. There are a lot of great coaches in this league that have had recent success.

As was previously stated here are the recruiting ranking for next year:
X #9
PC #14
Butler #21
Creighton #23
Nova #26
Marquette #47
Hall #57
DePaul #66
Gtown #105
SJU unranked

Well, you have to give Mullin credit for really improving the Johnnies from year 1 to 2. Sure, they still weren't very good but the improvements were there. They pulled some nice upsets too. Got wins over Butler, Providence, Hall, and Marquette. Not to mention an epic 33 point win over Syracuse at the Dome. And it isn't even with Lavin leftovers. Other than Alibegovic, these are his own players.

I think Ewing will have a much better year 1 than Mullin did. Ewing's cupboard isn't nearly as bare as it was under Mullin. It'll be interesting to see how their careers develop. Hopefully for the better.

Crawfish,

We are ALL basketball people in this conference. As such, yes, the newbies KNOW who Mullin and Ewing are, their significance to the Big East, AND the hopes which are riding on their collective success' - both for the individual universities and the Big East Conference.

Having said that - No. Neither Mullin nor Ewing will be successful in their efforts to resuscitate St Johns or Georgetown. It is a Sisyphian task for both guys, they will give the good college try...but such a resurrection is much too tall an order and both will fail gloriously. "The struggle itself [...] is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy." It would be a huge task for Cal, Roy, K, or gtmo to pull off.

The newbies shall have to carry the Big East.

EMT wrote:I'd be 100 times more fearful of Wright/Mack/McDermott/Holtmann/Cooley than Mullin or Ewing. They may succeed. I think they have an uphill battle. There are a lot of great coaches in this league that have had recent success.

As was previously stated here are the recruiting ranking for next year:
X #9
PC #14
Butler #21
Creighton #23
Nova #26
Marquette #47
Hall #57
DePaul #66
Gtown #105
SJU unranked

Well we have 2 really good tranfers coming in for next year.
Simon a 5* that AZ got, and Clark a 4* that MSU got.
I'm good.

Back to the original question.....

The downside risk of hiring Mullin and Ewing is much greater than a coach with no ties to the program because they won't get fired for being mediocre, only bad and will probably need a few years of bad to get fired.

gtmoBlue wrote:
The newbies shall have to carry the Big East.

Amen to that gtmo... so glad the C6 gave Nova a call and asked them to join in with CU, Butler and X in this crazy new hoops only conference.

Well, I've been impressed buy the job Mullin has done so far, and on paper at least, big Pat is better prepared for the job than Mullin. Hmm, how about this front line for an "old-timers" game: Ewing at Center, Mullin at PF, and Mack on the wing? Or maybe McDermott on the wing and Mack at SG. How good were our other coaches as players; we need a point guard!

I think they both have a great chance to succeed and will bring more attention to the league for sure. I can only speak for Mullin and I think he has done a good job so far. He was left with nothing in year 1. No true point guard, no player who had logged more than five minutes per game in the season before, and a staff that had to put a team together quickly. He was able to bring in good players for this past season and although there was no post season, they played well. and played like the young team that they were. going from one league win to 6 was a good jump. I think they will jump into the top half of the league next season, but we will see. Here is where these two hires have the capacity to be huge. As to Mullin, he is one of the most beloved sports figures in NYC. He was the kid that could have gone anywhere. stayed home, played for a coach that was also beloved in the City, and made NYC a college town. On the day of his press conference, Michael Kay said on his show that he was listening to it on his radio in the car on the way to his show and had tears in his eyes. Mike Francessa told a caller that the thing about Chris Mullin is if he calls and wants to get on the show - he gets on - whenever he wants. The City and the media in the City are behind him and want him to succeed. The media liked Lavin, but he never belonged to NY. Mullin does, There is a different mindset and that helps. Ewing will ne the same at G'Town to some extent. It will be hard not to root for him to do well and that makes a difference.

GumbyDamnit! wrote:

gtmoBlue wrote:
The newbies shall have to carry the Big East.

Amen to that gtmo... so glad the C6 gave Nova a call and asked them to join in with CU, Butler and X in this crazy new hoops only conference.

Forgive me Gumby, as I had forgotten about Nova being the other "newbie"... Thanks for setting the record straight.
Now if we can figure out how to get the damned Oranges and TD Jesus' back?