College basketball thread...

My understanding is that St. John's tried to hire Calipari a couple years ago, before settling on Roberts, but Carnesseca put his foot down. Apparently Calipari incurred Louie's wrath by telling recruits--when Cal was an assistant and Carnesseca was St. John's head coach--that Louie was sick and no one knew how much longer he'd coach. It's alleged that Louie told St. John's that if they hired Cal, he'd walk away from the program.

 

No way.

St. John won't shake hands with the Devil twice.

I heard a story once about Cali at UMass. Every school in the East wanted Lou Rowe, but his grades were so bad that no school could ever get him enrolled.

Not one. Not Temple. Not GW. Not Georgetown. Not Pitt. Not the Cuse.

All of a sudden, Cali gets him in at UMass. There was a collective sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeettttttttttt along the Atlantic.

That might be an urban legend, but I always thought it was true.

 

Jarvis stopped recruiting NYC talent and pissed off all of the Catholic and Public School coaches along the way. Roberts has tried to mend fences, but it has been a very tough job.

It's really amazing the talent that Jarvis let get away from St. John's. The most egregious case was Ben Gordon. Gordon wanted to go to St. John's and went so far as to send a tape and a letter to Jarvis. Jarvis passed and Jim Calhoun and UConn reaped the rewards.

 

I don't think any relevant coach would touch the St. John's job now.

 

Nice little run by WSU to close the half trailing ASU 29-27.

 

Sylven Landesberg would be the latest. A senior at Holy Cross in Flushing passes up St. John's and signs with Virginia.

 

St. John's tries to recruit by extolling the virtues of playing home games at MSG, but for a lot of these kids have played big games at the Garden. It's not special to them. And they don't see St. John's as a stepping stone to a pro career.

 

St. John's has had some monumental flops who were supposed to be big stars coming in but never panned out: Omar Cook, Felipe Lopez, Zendon Hamilton. All Jarvis guys of course, but like hb said Roberts has a lot of Mikey messes to clean.

 

I was in St. John's for the Omar Cook error. He was a lousy shooter, indifferent defender and moody prick. He received the wrong advice and left after a freshman season that can charitably be called middling.

I humbly disagree with your assessment of Felipe Lopez. He's only the third highest scorer in school history. Eight papers covered his signing announcement. He was on the cover of SI before playing his first college game. No matter what he did, it wasn't going to be enough.

 

Sorry, I didn't mean they were college busts (though Cook sort of was because of his curious departure), I mean they didn't pan out as pros. Hamilton and Lopez were actually a nice combo as college players.

 

That is absolutely true. Calipari was an assistant at Pitt. He told recruits that Louis had terminal stomach cancer. It almost prompted a fistfight at the BE league meetings the next summer.
There is nothing redeeming about Calipari. At all.

 

It's going to be very, very hard for St. John's to be relevant nationally as long as they're in the Big East. Somebody in that 16-team behemoth has to lose, and it sure as hell isn't going to be:

Georgetown
Syracuse
Connecticut
Louisville
Marquette (as long as Crean is there)
West Virginia (as long as Huggins is there)
Cincinnati
Pittsburgh

So that's 8 programs that clearly are better in terms of facilities, budgets, resources, etc. If you're St. John's you're hoping to be better than Villanova, Seton Hall, South Florida, Providence, Rutgers, etc. annually and maybe you catch lightning in a bottle and finish 4th or 5th in that league.

It's a bad job.