Bobby Metzinger Posted February 29, 2012 Share Posted February 29, 2012 Several posts on the board today have been mentioning Chris Mack's lack of control over his minions and while that may be true, you have to wonder if X's tailspin of a season could have been salvaged by their AD in the moments following the Cincy brawl. Mike Bobinski is the person that all Xavier fans should be turning their vitriol towards. People talk about "game management" on here and how Chris Mack isn't a game manager. Well Mike Bobinski is not a "people manager." The Athletic Director, in this case, should have placed a gag order on his team immediately after they returned to the locker room. Let the media frenzy wait until the AD's and other administrators from X and UC meet with officials from both leagues to determine punishment. The fact that Mike Bobinski let his players address the media after the game triggered the avalanche that has been Xavier's 2011-2012 season. Chris Mack can only control what goes on with his team between the lines of the basketball court. This goes beyond the scope of the game of basketball; if the AD's job is to provide figurative "direction" for an institution's athletic programs, Bobinski failed to provide the leadership and direction necessary for Xavier to retain a positive image in the college basketball landscape. If X fans are looking for a scapegoat or someone to throw under the proverbial bus, look no further than Mike Bobinski's office. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slu72 Posted February 29, 2012 Share Posted February 29, 2012 Disagree. Mack's job is to make sure his minions play with discipline. That whole UC affair was started/initiated by Lyons at the end of the first half when he went gangsta on the UC bench. Mack should have sat him for the first five minutes of the second half just to let him know that's not acceptable behavior for a rep of Xavier University. He didn't and the whole mood just got uglier and uglier. As for post game, no player should have been allowed in the media room per Mack's orders. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kmbilliken Posted February 29, 2012 Share Posted February 29, 2012 Chris Mack could have and should have put the gag order on himself. Letting his players go to the media room and answer questions was crazy. He should have been the one, and the only one, answering questions about the incident. Majerus has the authority to keep players from talking to the media. I'm sure Chris Mack does too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobby Metzinger Posted February 29, 2012 Author Share Posted February 29, 2012 Chris Mack could have and should have put the gag order on himself. Letting his players go to the media room and answer questions was crazy. He should have been the one, and the only one, answering questions about the incident. Majerus has the authority to keep players from talking to the media. I'm sure Chris Mack does too. I'm not defending Chris Mack by any stretch here, but there's a difference between controlling your players (Mack's job) and controlling your program (Bobinki's job). Clearly Mack's job post-brawl was made more difficult by Bobinski's lack of leadership in the moments after the game. You could literally see in real-time the culture shift at Xavier and all of that could have been avoided if Bobinski stepped in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taj79 Posted February 29, 2012 Share Posted February 29, 2012 All you have to do is compare what X did vis-a-vis what Cincinnati did. For X, you had two emotional, immature street thugs doing all the talking. For UC, you had Mick Cronin. I have yet to see Chris Mack talk about anything in the matter and that is wrong. Hindsight is 20/20. I would tend to believe that both share blame in the matter. But Mack gets more blame as the season spirals out of control. He can fix the team if its fixable. Apparently, he never had the control to do so. Lyons doesn't stand coachable to me. He's going to do what he knows --- be a punk. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cowboy Posted February 29, 2012 Share Posted February 29, 2012 -silly me, i clicked 'view it anyway' thinking this thread was about x's ad being on the committee and he has seen SLU firsthand twice beat his team and how perhaps he will be an advocate for us in the room, instead.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Box and Won Posted February 29, 2012 Share Posted February 29, 2012 A team is a reflection of its head coach, and Mack is a turd. Remember this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RiseAndGrind Posted February 29, 2012 Share Posted February 29, 2012 A team is a reflection of its head coach, and Mack is a turd. Remember this? Guy seems like a hot head. No wonder X can't keep their cool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prairie Bill Posted February 29, 2012 Share Posted February 29, 2012 Disagree with the OP as stated. Players do not leave the locker room until the coach releases them. The best you can say for Mack is that he committed the management mistake of not knowing he had a serious problem. ("We shipped a few lots of contaminated peas? Darn. Well, pull them off the shelves, have legal deal with it, and try and keep this out of the press. Now lets get back to business.") Mack (who clearly has a short fuse himself) didn't see this as a PR disaster and let the press conference proceed as usual. Cronin, on the other hand, knew what had to be done and did it. On the other hand, I do think that Bobinski is responsible for Mack, and his failure was not stepping in when Mack shrugged it off. Its now up to Fr. Graham to decide how to deal with it - if he wants to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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