Nova 68 Georgetown 29
- Thread starter pittman71
- Start date
People are asking the same exact question of Stallings at Pitt. Remember Louisville last year?
Top programs over the last 30 years who have fallen on real hard times (I am talking about more than a bad season).
Pitt.
Georgetown
Uconn
St Johns
DePaul (Okay maybe outside of the 30 year window)
Illinois
Iowa
LSU
By the way, Vandy is 1-5 in conference, 6-12 overall. I am just sayin'.
Pitt.
Georgetown
Uconn
St Johns
DePaul (Okay maybe outside of the 30 year window)
Illinois
Iowa
LSU
By the way, Vandy is 1-5 in conference, 6-12 overall. I am just sayin'.
that is why I started the thread. Pitt has a brother in futility; it is nice to see another former big time school getting bludgeoned the way Pitt is.
Pitt, UConn, and Georgetown should not have fallen this far. Add in Syracuse who has barely kept their head above water since leaving the Big East.
Nova, WVU, Creighton, Xavier, Butler, SHU, and Prov have elevated.
Nova, WVU, Creighton, Xavier, Butler, SHU, and Prov have elevated.
DePaul is a strange one. They had the tradition and they are in Chicago for pete sakes. Should be a talent hotbed. Same with St. Johns....NYC.
Georgetown deserves everything they get. They make our hiring process look like it is the best ever invented. Patrick friggin Ewing? So unqualified. They just can't cut ties with John Thompson and the past. They even fire Thompson's kid and they still can't make a hire from outside the "family"
But yeah, those three Big East schools, Gtown, St. Johns and Depaul should be lights out every year given their geography and tradition. But it couldn't happen to a nicer group since those three sucked the teet dry in the old Big East and held football back for so long. Wish them nothing but failure in the future.
What made them think Ewing was a good coach? It's like people who think Joe Greene should coach the Steelers, just because he was their best player generations ago. What exactly was Ewing's coaching cred?
Thompson still holds a lot of influence, even though they fire his kid. They refuse to go outside the family. But as I posted earlier, couldn't happen to a more deserving program
Broad history take -- from like 1945-1980 or so, college basketball was dominated by the blue bloods. The great thing about the Big East, IMHO, is it created a few new powers. Especially thanks to the ESPN/Big East TV deal that got east coast players to stay in eastern, often Catholic, schools, instead of just heading to Kentucky/Kansas/UCLA/UNC/Duke.
It's starting to feel like that is declining and we're back to the same four teams competing for the top recruits every year. The way Nova wins without out-recruiting Cal is keeping kids for 3 or 4 years I guess? Rest of the nouveau riche includes a lot of teams on hard times. It'd be a shame if we're back to the regression to the mean after that exciting 80s-90s shake up of college hoops.
Add Temple to that list. What Fran Dunphy has done to that program makes m want to cry.
Saying Ewing has no coaching cred is silly. You can disagree with the hire. You can argue that there were candidates with more head coaching experience. But you can't deny Ewing has remained involved with the game after his retirement.
I think St Johns and DePaul both got leveled by scandals. Didn't St Johns have a point shaving scandal that put them on probation and caused the school to nearly destroy the program? DePaul got nailed by a documentary that showed how they systematically recruited poor black kids who couldn't read or even take care of themselves on basic levels and they tossed them out on the streets after their playing days were over and most of them turned out horribly. The school then de-emphasized sports as a result of public outcry.
Indeed, Ewing's modest credentials are way above those of Mullin, which were basically, "he played for us during the glory years". Reminds me of the "we need a Pitt man" crowd.
2002–2003 Washington Wizards (assistant)
2003–2006 Houston Rockets (assistant)
2007–2012 Orlando Magic (assistant)
2013–2017 Charlotte Bobcats / Hornets (associate HC)
2017–present Georgetown
Yeah Ewing may fail. Maybe most coaches do. But he definitely doesn't have a lack of coaching experience.
2003–2006 Houston Rockets (assistant)
2007–2012 Orlando Magic (assistant)
2013–2017 Charlotte Bobcats / Hornets (associate HC)
2017–present Georgetown
Yeah Ewing may fail. Maybe most coaches do. But he definitely doesn't have a lack of coaching experience.
Plus, he's almost too old for these 18 year old kids to even know who he is. But their dad's will be impressed.
Yeah the kids don't play video games or watch ESPN classic or NBA throwback with Patrick Ewing.
It'll be an interesting challenge. JTII is really the only consistent winning coach they've ever had. They didn't go to the NCAA tournament from world war II to 1975. All their conference tournament championships except one was older Thompson. 2007 was their lone non JTII March Madness run.
Yes. As a coach of 8th grade boys basketball in a city school, the kids know who Patrick Ewing is, even in a bad basketball town like Pittsburgh.
Georgetown has basically no tradition without a Thompson at the helm. They were not one of the many Catholic powers in the independent era, and had almost no success during that time. If you had made a list of the following schools at the time JT Jr. was hired (Duquesne, LaSalle, St. Bonaventure, St. John's, Providence, St. Joe's, Holy Cross, Seton Hall, and Georgetown), and told someone with knowledge of college hoops, that one one of these schools would make 3 NCAA finals, and win a championship within the next 15 years, I can guarantee you that Georgetown would have been the last school anyone would have picked. To put it in local perspective, comparing Georgetown to Duquesne in 1973, would have been like comparing the 2009 Pitt team to St. Francis. What Thompson did at that school is beyond belief. It would be like turning Vandy into a consistent power in SEC football. Success at Georgetown isn't the easy slam dunk that people think it is. The inability a have an arena on campus, due to being located in such an historic district is a major drawback. Playing at the Capital One Arena is great when you have a good team, but it becomes a big negative when you don't. If DePaul can struggle for decades in Chicago, Georgetown could easily go down the same path. St. John's isn't as pathetic as DePaul, but they haven't really been a factor in 30 years. Pitt fans, of all people, should realize how fragile success can be for all but a handful of schools. Hell, Indiana has advantages to rival UNC, and UK, and even they've hit the skids.
Sure, kids know who Patrick Ewing is, but how relevant is he? I knew who George Mikan was when I was in 8th grade. Didn't mean I'd have wanted to play for DePaul if he'd been the coach.
Fair enough. Patrick Ewing doesn't really seem "cool" anymore I guess. George Mikan never was, though maybe today he'd be considered a hipster.
There is a tendency for us "old types" to look at the world through our eyes. This is how a Chris Mullin gets hired at St. John's. He excites us, because we remember him. Surely kids will be lined up to play for Chris Mullin. The reality is that the kids see him as an historical figure. They respect that he played in the NBA at a high level, but he has to go up against Jay Wright, who is not historical, but a "here and now" guy. In 2018, Jay Wright is a bigger deal than Chris Mullin, or Patrick Ewing.
As for DePaul, I wonder if once number 23 came to Chicago, DePaul became such an afterthought in the city, that it actually damaged the program.
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He didn't have the sort of experience I'd look for if I were hiring a college coach, but the idea that he lacks coaching experience is silly.
DePaul has a sweet new downtown arena. Id expect they see a resurgence. The Rosemont Horizon had to be in the bottom ten of D1 arenas and it was way too far from campus.
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Alot of schools are like this. Look at UConn, they weren't any kind of power until Calhoun came. Arizona was a good program in the 40's and 50's not a power until Lute Olson took over in the 80's.
Mikan is so "old school" he retired from the NBA before I was born, and I'm 58, but I always liked that a geeky white guy wearing #99 had been the NBA's #1 star though, LOL.
If you want to have kids dig on Ewing, have them watch the documentary "Requiem for the Big East", if you watch that 2 hour show, you'll come out of there thinking about what a game changing bad ass he was in the history of college basketball.
He has been coaching since 2003, and was a top assistant, he would have been a head coach in the NBA someday. I don't know think he is a bad coach from an instructional and game planning standpoint, but I do think it is hard to coach an NCAA team without ever having coached at that level.
