Accountability at St. John's

[Bill Marsh]

I think you'd be hard pressed to group Hoiberg and Ollie as "Ex-NBA stars." Ollie was a career backup and Hoiberg's career was even less impressive than Ollie's. I think of people like Isiah Thomas, Magic, Bird, Jordan and their attempts to coach when I look at Mullin. I think the biggest flaw of having a true NBA legend try to coach is that for many of them the game came easy. It's hard for someone like that to understand why lesser talents can't see the game on the floor or react in the game like they used to.

Wait a minute. The criticism of Mullin that was first raised in this thread was his lack of prior coaching experience, not that he's a former star. Let's not get off on a tangent. What Mullin has in common with Hoinerg and Ollie is that all 3 were given head coaching jobs at big time colleges with their experience as former NBA players seeming to be their main credential.

When were Isiah, Magic, Bird, and Jordan ever given big time college coaching jobs, which is what's at issue here? If we're talking about success or failure as an NBA coach, then Bird was a very successful NBA coach. The idea that the game came easily to those guys is a myth. They were all tremendously hard workers. Heck, Jordan was cut from his high school team and was not an instant success.

[NJRedman]

Does it exist for us? I had to sit here through the Lavin and now Mullin years constantly told that we were a year or two away. We are in a perpetual cycle of "just wait!", "we are young!", "well, we had some injuries", "we had bad luck", "we played a great team", "this conference is tough", "give it time", "hammer to rock", "trust the process", "we were in some of the games". I've heard every excuse in the book and not nearly enough straight talk regarding results and the lack of accountability. At times I honestly feel like I'm one of the very few SJ fans that demands results at the end of the day. Syracuse felt great, Butler felt great. DePaul is DePaul, we were supposed to beat them. But to act like those 2 wins made up for this dumpster fire of a season is outrageous. People seem to forget the expectations coming into this season. There was chatter of an NIT berth and even a possible dark horse NCAA berth. Reading Redmen I even saw some predicting 21+ wins. Maybe one poster predicted 15 and that was the extreme low end but this is what I believed was doable. We brought in some good recruits and we knew we would likely struggle some games but figured we would be able to take care of business against the LIU/Delaware State/Penn State's of the world. We figured we could snag at least 1 game in the Atlantis tournament but could not even beat ODU.

I wrote to our Athletic Director and I urge you to do the same. I urged him to install accountability and separate emotions from results. We all love Mullin, but it's clear he is not the answer. He got a little break from the pitchforks and torches when we won those 2 big games, but any real college hoops fan knows 2 games is nothing in an entire season. I used to get the feeling under Lavin that he was an awful coach and the only reason they won 20 games a few times and went to the tourney was because of their talent alone. I get the sense that no matter who is coaching this team, we can beat Cuse/Butler on rare occasion just based on talent and red-hot shooting. Our season is akin to failing 10 tests miserably then getting 90's on the next 2 before getting 3 more failing grades. Those two 90's don't even come close to washing away all the failing grades and your final grade will still be very low. So I ask, is anyone else on board? I know most of you are way more optimistic than me (I think to a fault...it goes both ways), so for that crowd, what exactly will it take to get you to realize we are on a train with no conductor?

I'm not a St. Johns guy (Nova alum) but IMO Mullin has neither the passion, enthusiasm nor the coaching intellect to be a successful head coach at St. Johns, or anywhere else for that matter. From what I've seen so far, all too often he seems either disinterested or totally lost on the sideline, especially during a timeout when instruction, criticism, and enthusiasm are needed! No matter how many good players he recruits, I believe Mullin will almost always be at a coaching disadvantage---------and in my mind thats really the issue. To me he just doesnt seem to want it bad enough, nor does he seem to have the interest or desire to even "learn" how to be an effective and knowledgeable head coach-----and thats a shame!! I think St. Johns can do better------and hopefully they will because in my mind the Big East really needs St. Johns to be a good upper tier program going forward because its been far too long since they've even been relevant in this sport, let alone this conference!! I'd love to see them return to the glory days when Mullin was a great player, but unfortunately I personally dont think they'll ever get there with Mullin as their coach!!
Just my humble opinion as an ""outside" observer!

Oh really? It's like we didn't finish in 3rd place just a few years ago and been to 2 NCAA's the last five years. Been too long since we've been relevant huh? Okay guy. Maybe you should try and pay attention.

[Bill Marsh]

Does it exist for us? I had to sit here through the Lavin and now Mullin years constantly told that we were a year or two away. We are in a perpetual cycle of "just wait!", "we are young!", "well, we had some injuries", "we had bad luck", "we played a great team", "this conference is tough", "give it time", "hammer to rock", "trust the process", "we were in some of the games". I've heard every excuse in the book and not nearly enough straight talk regarding results and the lack of accountability. At times I honestly feel like I'm one of the very few SJ fans that demands results at the end of the day. Syracuse felt great, Butler felt great. DePaul is DePaul, we were supposed to beat them. But to act like those 2 wins made up for this dumpster fire of a season is outrageous. People seem to forget the expectations coming into this season. There was chatter of an NIT berth and even a possible dark horse NCAA berth. Reading Redmen I even saw some predicting 21+ wins. Maybe one poster predicted 15 and that was the extreme low end but this is what I believed was doable. We brought in some good recruits and we knew we would likely struggle some games but figured we would be able to take care of business against the LIU/Delaware State/Penn State's of the world. We figured we could snag at least 1 game in the Atlantis tournament but could not even beat ODU.

I wrote to our Athletic Director and I urge you to do the same. I urged him to install accountability and separate emotions from results. We all love Mullin, but it's clear he is not the answer. He got a little break from the pitchforks and torches when we won those 2 big games, but any real college hoops fan knows 2 games is nothing in an entire season. I used to get the feeling under Lavin that he was an awful coach and the only reason they won 20 games a few times and went to the tourney was because of their talent alone. I get the sense that no matter who is coaching this team, we can beat Cuse/Butler on rare occasion just based on talent and red-hot shooting. Our season is akin to failing 10 tests miserably then getting 90's on the next 2 before getting 3 more failing grades. Those two 90's don't even come close to washing away all the failing grades and your final grade will still be very low. So I ask, is anyone else on board? I know most of you are way more optimistic than me (I think to a fault...it goes both ways), so for that crowd, what exactly will it take to get you to realize we are on a train with no conductor?

Hooper, what in the world are you talking about???

You want accountability? What does that mean? That you wanted Mullin fired at the end of last season? Today? At the end of this season?

Your main criticism of Mullin here is that "he's clearly not the answer" and that there have been some bad losses along the way this year. Well, that's nowhere to start if you want accountability. You need to be more specific and offer more substance. In other posts you've said that you don't like his body language. Huh? You want his accountability to be based on posture?

In any industry, accountability is based on results, on achieving performance goals, not on fan reactions or body language. Throughout your diatribes against Mullin, you seem to set unrealistic goals. But that's just my opinion. And you're entitled to yours. In the real world his accountability is not going to be based on either of our opinions, it's going to be based on the goals that his employers set for him.

Claiming that there's no accountability because they haven't done anything to publicly a knowledge your opinion that he's not up to the job seems extraordinarily self-centered. For all we know, they completely agree with you and plan to fire him at the end of the season. If that were the plan, would you expect them to announce that now?

OTOH, they may have a different opinion than you about his job performance. Having a different opinion than you doesn't mean there's a lack of accountability. It simply says that they're measuring his job performance differently than you are.

If Mullin's unfitness for the job were as obvious as you say it is, everyone here would be agreeing with you. But they're not. So, it seems that this is a subject about which reasonable minds can disagree. Again, we're back to different points of view, not lack of accountability.

[SJHooper]

Using Ollie as an example of a new coach who succeeded is really stupid. Sometimes it doesn't matter who the coach is when you already have a ton of talent on the team who were already coached up by a HOFer (Calhoun). If Ollie was such a great coach, it would show even without Calhoun leaving him great players. In a year totally disconnected from Calhoun or their old Big East era, they are terrible in a terrible conference. Same can be said for the Yankees of the late 90's through 2000. I could have been the manager and they still would have won. Look at Steve Kerr...is he really a genius? Or did he inherit an NBA All Star team? You could make Tiger Woods the coach and he'd still win with that talent. Ollie was an obvious case of inheriting talent that was going win anyway, not because of him.

I also truly think some will never give up on Mullin even if he can't win more than 8-9 games each year of his tenure. There will always be excuses i.e. injuries, youth, good recruits that just didn't pan out, new coach, just give him more time, etc. Mullin is what he is, the best player we've ever had, an NBA HOFer, but he is not a good coach and some will never accept that.

[Bill Marsh]

Using Ollie as an example of a new coach who succeeded is really stupid. Sometimes it doesn't matter who the coach is when you already have a ton of talent on the team who were already coached up by a HOFer (Calhoun). If Ollie was such a great coach, it would show even without Calhoun leaving him great players. In a year totally disconnected from Calhoun or their old Big East era, they are terrible in a terrible conference. Same can be said for the Yankees of the late 90's through 2000. I could have been the manager and they still would have won. Look at Steve Kerr...is he really a genius? Or did he inherit an NBA All Star team? You could make Tiger Woods the coach and he'd still win with that talent. Ollie was an obvious case of inheriting talent that was going win anyway, not because of him.

I also truly think some will never give up on Mullin even if he can't win more than 8-9 games each year of his tenure. There will always be excuses i.e. injuries, youth, good recruits that just didn't pan out, new coach, just give him more time, etc. Mullin is what he is, the best player we've ever had, an NBA HOFer, but he is not a good coach and some will never accept that.

Hooper, I hope you feel better today after yesterday's win. You're a good guy and I love your enthusiasm, but you obviously know nothing about the UConn program. You should do your homework before coming out with a statement like the one you just made.

1. Calhoun left the team on probation with 4 starters leaving the program.
2. It was Ollie who recruited the "Calhoun players" whom he inherited.
3. Except for Napier, most of the "Calhoun players" got very little playing time under Calhoun.
4. The players on Ollie's championship team, including Shabazz, saw at least as much coasching time under Ollie as under Calhoun. Most got more under Ollie. He developed them.
5. Calhoun did not leave Ollie a championship roster loaded with former McD All Americans and future NBA players. He did not. That's simply a fact. This was not Tubby Smith inheriting a championship roster from Rick Pitino.
5. Ollie did not win that championship because he had better players. He beat Kentucky and Florida, teams that were loaded with superior talent to what he had.
6. Anyone who watched UConn's run through the tournament that year saw one of the great coaching jobs in tournament history. UConn won because of Ollie's coaching, not because he had Calhoun's players.

[SJHooper]

Using Ollie as an example of a new coach who succeeded is really stupid. Sometimes it doesn't matter who the coach is when you already have a ton of talent on the team who were already coached up by a HOFer (Calhoun). If Ollie was such a great coach, it would show even without Calhoun leaving him great players. In a year totally disconnected from Calhoun or their old Big East era, they are terrible in a terrible conference. Same can be said for the Yankees of the late 90's through 2000. I could have been the manager and they still would have won. Look at Steve Kerr...is he really a genius? Or did he inherit an NBA All Star team? You could make Tiger Woods the coach and he'd still win with that talent. Ollie was an obvious case of inheriting talent that was going win anyway, not because of him.

I also truly think some will never give up on Mullin even if he can't win more than 8-9 games each year of his tenure. There will always be excuses i.e. injuries, youth, good recruits that just didn't pan out, new coach, just give him more time, etc. Mullin is what he is, the best player we've ever had, an NBA HOFer, but he is not a good coach and some will never accept that.

Hooper, I hope you feel better today after yesterday's win. You're a good guy and I love your enthusiasm, but you obviously know nothing about the UConn program. You should do your homework before coming out with a statement like the one you just made.

1. Calhoun left the team on probation with 4 starters leaving the program.
2. It was Ollie who recruited the "Calhoun players" whom he inherited.
3. Except for Napier, most of the "Calhoun players" got very little playing time under Calhoun.
4. The players on Ollie's championship team, including Shabazz, saw at least as much coasching time under Ollie as under Calhoun. Most got more under Ollie. He developed them.
5. Calhoun did not leave Ollie a championship roster loaded with former McD All Americans and future NBA players. He did not. That's simply a fact. This was not Tubby Smith inheriting a championship roster from Rick Pitino.
5. Ollie did not win that championship because he had better players. He beat Kentucky and Florida, teams that were loaded with superior talent to what he had.
6. Anyone who watched UConn's run through the tournament that year saw one of the great coaching jobs in tournament history. UConn won because of Ollie's coaching, not because he had Calhoun's players.

So Calhoun left him Napier...who literally threw the team on his back en route to the championship. How does Ollie get credit for that? Even UConn fans agree that he was riding Calhoun's coat tails. It's not just the specific players I'm talking about, the credit you give to Ollie really belongs to Calhoun...you can't tell me all those great recruits would be going to UConn without Calhoun's major success winning lots of rings. He was the reason it was a winning program that got them those recruits to commit. By the time Ollie took over, he already had the prestige of the program and recent rings thanks to Calhoun, to sell to recruits. Essentially, the program sold itself. It's like Gucci...everyone wants it, it's prestigious already. It's easier to walk into a top position at Gucci than it is some startup clothing brand. Imagine a new guy walking into the CEO spot at Gucci and after a year on the job, people are raving giving him all the credit for the brand's success that had been built up to that point. Once Calhoun left and the Big East era was in their rearview, they struggled. Again, UConn fans notice this. The more we see Ollie by himself with no help from Calhoun (even if he just left Napier he was 95% of the reason they won the ring) or the old Big East, the more he struggles. IMO that is not by accident. UConn is a mess.

But not to get too far off topic, of course I'm very happy we won last night. We must also keep in mind that 2 of our 3 wins in conference play so far are vs. DePaul. The only other conference win was the shocker against #13 Butler (great win). I had said before the season started that 15 wins is very reasonable and I stand behind that. Many others move the goalpost after making initial expectations, however I don't want to let them off easy. They clearly have the talent to win 15. If they do not, I see it as a disappointing year and I'm happy with the progress but we have to admit it was slower than expected. Hopefully we can win some vs. PC/Marquette/SHU.

[SJHooper]

Another game where our opponent seems to get an easy bucket almost every possession in the paint. Another game that proves we should steer clear of OSNA bigs...skinny and unskilled even close to being a JR so youth not the issue. We are reaching that time of year now where the youth excuse cannot be used nor can the "wait until later in the season". Many of our players are closer to being JR's than Soph's. That improvement has been extremely slight, however slight improvement after our worst year ever is very concerning. We were projected to be one of the most improved teams in college hoops going from 8 to likely 15 wins, however we are stuck at 9 late in the season. It's time to start looking at the results. Again, I never said to fire Mullin right now. I give him until next year and I would draw the line at 15+ wins, noticeable improvement, and more solid recruiting. That's throwing him a batting practice fastball right down Broadway. If he can't handle that, it will be very concerning. I never expected 18 wins or anything crazy....I understand where we are and what we are at this point in a rebuild. But that does not mean standards go out the window. With any reputable coach, you expect a team to get better progressively especially by late season. I don't see it. It seems that each of our games are their own season...you never know what team will show up. One game we look like a legit top 25 team. The next game we look like DePaul would beat us by 30. I know, some of you will say "Yes, exactly that's what you should expect from a young team up and down" but I don't accept that. Not at this point in the season, not with many of our players closer to being upperclassmen than underclassmen.

For those of you who say "Look at statistic X or Y, we have clearly improved!", yes you are correct. But the real question is by how much? We weren't expecting a season where we improved by the skin of our teeth after the worst year in program history. We were expecting night and day differences. People lose sight of this. If we don't have standards we will accept anything...if you have a kid who keeps coming home with D's and F's and you keep telling them they are just young, it's not their fault, they will magically do better in a few months, etc. guess what? They will likely keep getting D's and F's and the lack of expectations will lead to the kid thinking failure is acceptable. That's my fear with this program...failure seems to be acceptable. That's what I'm pushing back against. Yes we are in a rebuild, I know, I know. But they are not babies anymore and much of the team has a decent amount of experience now. Now go ahead and tell me how I'm about to jump off a bridge and how crazy it is to ask for some semblance of standards. Just watch the games...we are not anywhere close to a tourney bubble team.

[stever20]

so looking at St John's right now.....

Ken Pom has 4 factors that he feels is important.
effective FG pct
Turnover pct
Offensive Reb pct
FT rate

for SJ- offense-
eFG%- up from 45.4 to 50.9%- up from 321 to 152. major plus
TO%- down from 20.9 to 18.2% up from 322 to 157. major plus
ORb%- up from 27.5 to 28.2%- up from 249 to 202. small plus
FTR- down from 38.0 to 35.0%- down from 134 to 175. small negative
so overall you would say the offense is much improved.

for SJ defense-
eFG%- down from 51.1 to 49.5%. up from 231 to 138. moderate plus.
TO%- down from 20.1 to 19.7%. down from 61 to 124. moderate negative.
ORb%- up from 30.9 to 31.8%. down from 232 to 274. small negative(even though it's improved, not as much as a lot of teams)
FTR- down from 43.3 to 35.2%. up from 307 to 174. major plus
so I think I'd say the defense is improved as well- but not quite as much as with the offense.

as far as hoopers point on players being now upperclassmen equiv- that's fine except for the fact that the 2 guys who man the guard position are both frosh. And overall the roster is so inexperienced- in KP they are 347 of 351 in terms of experience.

[stever20]

and to his last point about them not being anywhere close to a tourney bubble team- I don't think anyone except the most ardent St John's fans- the GTMO equiv- thought that they would be anywhere close to a tourney bubble team this season. Maybe if things broke really right getting in the NIT- but that was the best case scenario. If they can get 2-3 more wins- finish say 12-19 and 6-12 in conference play- that's a 33% improvement overall and a 600% improvement in conference.

[NJRedman]

Another game where our opponent seems to get an easy bucket almost every possession in the paint. Another game that proves we should steer clear of OSNA bigs...skinny and unskilled even close to being a JR so youth not the issue. We are reaching that time of year now where the youth excuse cannot be used nor can the "wait until later in the season". Many of our players are closer to being JR's than Soph's. That improvement has been extremely slight, however slight improvement after our worst year ever is very concerning. We were projected to be one of the most improved teams in college hoops going from 8 to likely 15 wins, however we are stuck at 9 late in the season. It's time to start looking at the results. Again, I never said to fire Mullin right now. I give him until next year and I would draw the line at 15+ wins, noticeable improvement, and more solid recruiting. That's throwing him a batting practice fastball right down Broadway. If he can't handle that, it will be very concerning. I never expected 18 wins or anything crazy....I understand where we are and what we are at this point in a rebuild. But that does not mean standards go out the window. With any reputable coach, you expect a team to get better progressively especially by late season. I don't see it. It seems that each of our games are their own season...you never know what team will show up. One game we look like a legit top 25 team. The next game we look like DePaul would beat us by 30. I know, some of you will say "Yes, exactly that's what you should expect from a young team up and down" but I don't accept that. Not at this point in the season, not with many of our players closer to being upperclassmen than underclassmen.

For those of you who say "Look at statistic X or Y, we have clearly improved!", yes you are correct. But the real question is by how much? We weren't expecting a season where we improved by the skin of our teeth after the worst year in program history. We were expecting night and day differences. People lose sight of this. If we don't have standards we will accept anything...if you have a kid who keeps coming home with D's and F's and you keep telling them they are just young, it's not their fault, they will magically do better in a few months, etc. guess what? They will likely keep getting D's and F's and the lack of expectations will lead to the kid thinking failure is acceptable. That's my fear with this program...failure seems to be acceptable. That's what I'm pushing back against. Yes we are in a rebuild, I know, I know. But they are not babies anymore and much of the team has a decent amount of experience now. Now go ahead and tell me how I'm about to jump off a bridge and how crazy it is to ask for some semblance of standards. Just watch the games...we are not anywhere close to a tourney bubble team.

This isn't the same as grades in school. Because in a class of 10 every kid can have an A. In sports someone has to finish in tenth place no matter what. You don't have to accept jack because no one cares what your opinion is. You dog this team constantly and just expect them to stop being a young team. Guess what, they are still a young team. They still have less than a seasons experience together. Who cares if you don't like that, thats the facts. No alternative facts allowed around here guy. Decent amount of experience? Compared to the rest of the NCAA we are still one of the least experienced teams out there! Stop acting like these guys have been playing together for the last three years. This is the actual year one of the rebuild. Last year was just be happy we could put a team on the floor.

You do understand we have a shot at finishing in 8th place right? THATS an improvement. You don't want baby steps, you want leaps. The year isn't even over and you are acting like 9 wins is the most wins we'll get. Your lack of impatience shows your age and immaturity.