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Crews Control - I'm on Board


ACE

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In fact, my m.o. is pretty much the opposite of the Marquette guy, from what I can gather.

I created this account and posted back when we started to become really good under Majerus. I never shared an exchange with the Marquette guy during that time, so I can only assume he wasn't really posting here much when we were good. I really only like to post here when the team is fun to watch. Honestly, I really only enjoy following the team when they are fun to watch. Once the Majerus players all graduated, I was pretty much done following the team.

Now that the Bills suck again, it seems the Marquette guy has started posting here again.

The only reason I'm posting here today is because I was feeling bored/lazy here at work during the holiday season, and I remember catching a lot of flack for predicting that we'd suck once all the Majerus recruits graduated if Crews was going to be our head coach, and I wanted to see if people recognized my vindication based on the total program collapse we've witnessed over the past several weeks.

It seems people did, so I'm content.

My bad. I get that you are a different poster and an actual fan

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I do not think that SOP is to sign assistant coaches to long term contracts - I know it has been done in the Pros but I am not sure how viable it is for college given that the head coach needs to fire some of them to try to save his job if things start to go wrong. I and several others never bought into this "we had to hire Crews because of the COY thing" or the national media made us do it theme. Nobody can make you do anything you do not want to do. If you let others influence you then you deserve what happens to you. Crews was the wrong guy - wrong track record - to hire. There was nothing in his past that said he was a good recruiter or someone who could build a sustainable track record at the level we were wanting to keep us at. He never showed that he was excited about the job or SLU. He is simply a rather boring personality and it shows. I know some will say then why should the administration should be influenced by the fire Crews crowd. My answer to that is that they now have a chance to correct a mistake so if they are stupid enough to not correct it then they all have got to go.

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You're beginning to become obnoxious. And that signature is even worse. (Fortunately, we have the ability to ignore individual signatures.)

I ignore all signatures. I find it makes reading through the forum so much cleaner and easier.

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I ignore all signatures. I find it makes reading through the forum so much cleaner and easier.

Yes, I've been aware of and understand your position, but most signatures are easy to gloss over. He made a signature -- to say, "In your face" to those who disputed his original stance in this thread two years ago -- that's longer than a typical Taj post.

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FYI, I added the "Where Winners Migrate" tag line to my signature.

I was really happy to see that addition. Also I like that you don't ever change your signature you only add to the signature.

So we're in agreement all B-Laws are terrible people.

I'm going to state that SLU won't make it to the Final 4 in the next 5 years. In 5 years time I'll gloat unnecessarily on the message board and It'll make me feel so good to be right. *

*assuming it doesn't happen though I'm actually a fan and I really want them to make it rather than me be able to gloat cause I don't really care that much about gloating and actually enjoy positive stuff cause I'm a relatively well adjusted person, I mean I have issues to be sure just not as annoying as other people's issues

**so to summarize: B-Law's universally s#ck and I don't really want to gloat but I will

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I was really happy to see that addition. Also I like that you don't ever change your signature you only add to the signature.

So we're in agreement all B-Laws are terrible people.

I'm going to state that SLU won't make it to the Final 4 in the next 5 years. In 5 years time I'll gloat unnecessarily on the message board and It'll make me feel so good to be right. *

*assuming it doesn't happen though I'm actually a fan and I really want them to make it rather than me be able to gloat cause I don't really care that much about gloating and actually enjoy positive stuff cause I'm a relatively well adjusted person, I mean I have issues to be sure just not as annoying as other people's issues

**so to summarize: B-Law's universally s#ck and I don't really want to gloat but I will

I realize you're just (poorly) trying to make a point, but the difference between what you're doing and what I did is that I was rudely lambasted and condescended to for sharing my opinion those years ago, whereas you would catch no flack for unironically stating the Billikens will not be going to the final four anytime soon because everyone pretty much accepts that at this point. On the other hand, for whatever reason, a number of people here were hilariously unwilling to accept the reality of the uninspiring nature of the Jim Crews hire, when he was hired.

And, don't worry, the extent that you "don't care that much about gloating" is really shining through in your posts. :lol:

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I realize you're just (poorly) trying to make a point, but the difference between what you're doing and what I did is that I was rudely lambasted and condescended to for sharing my opinion those years ago, whereas you would catch no flack for unironically stating the Billikens will not be going to the final four anytime soon because everyone pretty much accepts that at this point. On the other hand, for whatever reason, a number of people here were hilariously unwilling to accept the reality of the uninspiring nature of the Jim Crews hire, when he was hired.

And, don't worry, the extent that you "don't care that much about gloating" is really shining through in your posts. :lol:

Somebody really wants to have the reputation of a troll.

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Perhaps because you are not an avid fan is why you were so pessimistic. Sometimes it's harder to see the truth in something you love.

That said, I think many on this board were very cautious in their optimism about Crews at the time. Ace's original post suggests he had considerable doubt and I know plenty of others on this board felt the same way. But given the team's success in 2013 and the following year, there was reason to believe that Crews could be successful here in a better situation than Army and Evansville.

While I agree the coaches are the key to success in college sports, the program was offering things it had never offered before (a new stadium, great facilities, tourney appearances, conference championships, etc.). A HOF-level coach did not seem necessary to keep the team as a top 50 program.

Obviously that hasn't been the case, but to act like the writing was all over the wall is a little ridiculous to me. You were right in your pessimism, but so what.

Correct, there were a lot of people who had their doubts as you point out. I spent most of Crews' interim season advocating NOT hiring him as the permanent coach. It's easy to say now that he should not have been given the job, but if you look back at the timing of JC's interim season, it was a little more complicated. Biondi was a lame duck and there seemed to be a lot of uncertainty as to who was going to take charge. IF that team had flopped, not retaining Crews would have been a lot easier. Instead, the team wins the regular season and conference tournament titles... something that NEVER had happened at SLU. On top of that, he was named national coach of the year.

The topic about whether he should be the permanent coach was heavily debated during that season. I had suggested that SLU should have made it clear right from the start that JC was NOT going to be considered for the permanent head coaching job. A couple of people thought the downside was that it would take away any incentive JC and staff would have had during that season. I think that was a fair point. My first instinct that JC should not have been the permanent HC was correct, but under the circumstances, I'm not sure what were realistic options. Maybe they should have had a coach in waiting? Maybe my original thought declaring right from the start that JC would not be a candidate for the permanent job would have been the way to go?... or could that have undermined what turned out to be a great season?

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But the regular season and conference tournament titles were very clearly the work of Rick Majerus's team. Crews road the late great Rick's coattails all the way to a Coach of the Year. Anyone who didn't know this then was kidding themselves. Crews had a very clear track record of being a not-very-good coach. It was a long, extensive track record whose highlights amounted to a small handful of fluke mostly one-and-done NCAA Tourney seasons.

I'll admit, I'm not up on who the hot men's D1 college basketball coaching prospects are in any given season. In fact, I think you raise a good question that might be fun just to shoot the : if they could do it again, who are the coaches on the rise right now that we could have gone after with the benefit of hindsight?

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Correct, there were a lot of people who had their doubts as you point out. I spent most of Crews' interim season advocating NOT hiring him as the permanent coach. It's easy to say now that he should not have been given the job, but if you look back at the timing of JC's interim season, it was a little more complicated. Biondi was a lame duck and there seemed to be a lot of uncertainty as to who was going to take charge. IF that team had flopped, not retaining Crews would have been a lot easier. Instead, the team wins the regular season and conference tournament titles... something that NEVER had happened at SLU. On top of that, he was named national coach of the year.

The topic about whether he should be the permanent coach was heavily debated during that season. I had suggested that SLU should have made it clear right from the start that JC was NOT going to be considered for the permanent head coaching job. A couple of people thought the downside was that it would take away any incentive JC and staff would have had during that season. I think that was a fair point. My first instinct that JC should not have been the permanent HC was correct, but under the circumstances, I'm not sure what were realistic options. Maybe they should have had a coach in waiting? Maybe my original thought declaring right from the start that JC would not be a candidate for the permanent job would have been the way to go?... or could that have undermined what turned out to be a great season?

This is spot-on. I wasn't a huge fan of hiring Crews either, based on his track record - but at the time, the guy was in the middle of winning coach-of-the-year awards and putting together a few very successful seasons (even if with Majerus' recruits). I don't think we can fault the administration for giving him the contract - hell, not giving him the contract may have been spun into its own negative headlines. ("SLU has the coach of the year and still they won't invest in him.")

Obviously, we see now that Crews is not the guy. So hopefully Pestello takes this opportunity to demonstrate his commitment to the program in hiring Crews' successor.

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Re: Dr. P -- one of the big problems here is that we have virtually no idea how he views the athletic program, and specifically BB, in the big picture. (That I remember. Has he ever spoken about it?) One might think that all that time st UD would make him predisposed towards hoops, but do we have any evidence one way or the other?

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Correct, there were a lot of people who had their doubts as you point out. I spent most of Crews' interim season advocating NOT hiring him as the permanent coach. It's easy to say now that he should not have been given the job, but if you look back at the timing of JC's interim season, it was a little more complicated. Biondi was a lame duck and there seemed to be a lot of uncertainty as to who was going to take charge. IF that team had flopped, not retaining Crews would have been a lot easier. Instead, the team wins the regular season and conference tournament titles... something that NEVER had happened at SLU. On top of that, he was named national coach of the year.

The topic about whether he should be the permanent coach was heavily debated during that season. I had suggested that SLU should have made it clear right from the start that JC was NOT going to be considered for the permanent head coaching job. A couple of people thought the downside was that it would take away any incentive JC and staff would have had during that season. I think that was a fair point. My first instinct that JC should not have been the permanent HC was correct, but under the circumstances, I'm not sure what were realistic options. Maybe they should have had a coach in waiting? Maybe my original thought declaring right from the start that JC would not be a candidate for the permanent job would have been the way to go?... or could that have undermined what turned out to be a great season?

Bob Howland apparently wanted the job. He ended up at Miss. State and got a top five recruit for next year.

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This is spot-on. I wasn't a huge fan of hiring Crews either, based on his track record - but at the time, the guy was in the middle of winning coach-of-the-year awards and putting together a few very successful seasons (even if with Majerus' recruits). I don't think we can fault the administration for giving him the contract - hell, not giving him the contract may have been spun into its own negative headlines. ("SLU has the coach of the year and still they won't invest in him.")

Obviously, we see now that Crews is not the guy. So hopefully Pestello takes this opportunity to demonstrate his commitment to the program in hiring Crews' successor.

Sorry, I disagree - I would not have hired Crews. I know it is always hard to not hire the guy that is right in front of you but sometimes you have to look beyond the moment and focus on the future. It is not easy but if doing the hiring job was easy anybody/everybody would be doing it. This group was hired to make the hard/right decisions not just the easy ones.

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Re: Dr. P -- one of the big problems here is that we have virtually no idea how he views the athletic program, and specifically BB, in the big picture. (That I remember. Has he ever spoken about it?) One might think that all that time st UD would make him predisposed towards hoops, but do we have any evidence one way or the other?

Actually I know from my son ( talked personally with him) that Dr. P believes athletics is a key component of the college experience for students. He also believes that athletics can give a school like SLU a national identity and that he does not believe that every year is a rebuilding year. Now unless it was all talk I would think he is not happy with what is happening.

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Actually I know from my son ( talked personally with him) that Dr. P believes athletics is a key component of the college experience for students. He also believes that athletics can give a school like SLU a national identity and that he does not believe that every year is a rebuilding year. Now unless it was all talk I would think he is not happy with what is happening.

Dr. P told me the same thing. What you don't know is he willing to pay for that. Being a novice at this I believe he will lean on Chris May. May needs to recommend that a change is necessary. What we also don't know is a Dr C type willing to help pay .What I don't see is the university paying a big name coach a couple of million dollars without help.
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I am a little confused by everyone thinking some sugar daddy has to step to fund a change. Why can't the school use the NCAA money to do it? The only reason people stepped up for RM was that they had been trying to get Brad fired for several years but Biondi resisted. Also, we did not have the NCAA money available. The school needs to move forward rather than sitting around expecting to be bailed out. If they make a good move then others may step in. I am not suggesting they pay a big name just go out and get someone who wants to be here and is capable.

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Who was trying to get Brad fired for years? Fr. Biondi did not love Brad Soberberg. He may have loved his small salary of $325k to $375k but not Brad the coach.

In short, Fr. Biondi pissed off Spoon so much that Spoon "retired" and then Fr. Biondi hired Romar for less than than Spoon and then hired Brad for less than Romar. If my memory is correct, Spoon's last paystubs totaled around $700k, Romar's $600k and Brad's $375k. With inflation and rise of coaching salaries over the years, RM's $1 million is what we should have been paying for a coach prior to RM.

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