Pelle and Garrett visiting SJU

[UOducksTK1]

Really? The same time?

MEHHH, If Lavin pulls these two away, that will be 5 players of four/five stars that he has stolen from us. And really, in many of the cases it was down to Oregon and SJU.

[dthomas=ddixon]

Dude if he pulls that off I'm just gonna become a StJ's fan.

[UOducksTK1]

Well I think Garrett is as good as a johnny tbh.

Hopefully Pelle won't give into temptation and won't commit.

[greenyellow]

Still seems odd that Oregon and St. John's are going after the same players, but can definitely see why they are since both lost huge amounts of players to transfer/graduation after getting new coaches and trying to fill their rosters with players that will fit their schemes.

[UOducksTK1]

Talked to my SJU friend, he seems pretty high on them landing pelle... He told me his entire family visited.

MEHHHH Why couldn't we have got Lavin?

[soduck]

Lavin is a great recruiter and now he has proven it was not because he was at
UCLA, but he had number one classes over and over at UCLA and lost a lot of games with bad coaching. He will not likely improve in that area, but we will see. All of us old timers did not want him.

[gofightingducks]

Talked to my SJU friend, he seems pretty high on them landing pelle... He told me his entire family visited.

MEHHHH Why couldn't we have got Lavin?

Altman has proven he can win and so far he has done a good job at recruiting. He was handed a mess and he just needs some time to get out of it. I think he will do just fine with recruiting given a couple of seasons. Lavin can recruit but how good is SJU going to be with all of that talent?

[buckmarkduck]

St. Johns will soon find out why no one else wanted to hire Lavin. He's a worse X and Os guy than Kent. He was always a top notch recruiter he just can't coach that talent.

Talked to my SJU friend, he seems pretty high on them landing pelle... He told me his entire family visited.

MEHHHH Why couldn't we have got Lavin?

[duckgrad99]

St. Johns will soon find out why no one else wanted to hire Lavin. He's a worse X and Os guy than Kent. He was always a top notch recruiter he just can't coach that talent.

Talked to my SJU friend, he seems pretty high on them landing pelle... He told me his entire family visited.

MEHHHH Why couldn't we have got Lavin?

I disagree:

During Lavin’s tenure as head coach, the Bruins qualified for six consecutive NCAA Tournaments (1997–2002). During this period, Lavin became one of two coaches (along Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski) to have led his team to five NCAA Sweet 16s in six seasons. Lavin’s record in the first and second rounds of the NCAA tournament is 10-1. Lavin’s winning percentage (90.9%) in the first two rounds, is second only to Dean Smith in NCAA Tournament history.


The guy had one bad season at UCLA. I'm happy with Altman, but Lavin would have been a solid hire for Oregon.

[uostudent]

Talked to my SJU friend, he seems pretty high on them landing pelle... He told me his entire family visited.

MEHHHH Why couldn't we have got Lavin?

I've met Lavin a few times and he's a nice guy. He's very engaging and genuinely seems interested in getting to know everyone he meets. I grew up a UCLA fan during the Lavin years. The guy is a great recruiter, but remember what he was selling - UCLA's prestigious history, academics, Westwood, being able to play close to home, etc.

UCLA is one of the easiest schools in the country to recruit at. If Lavin isn't winning, the top recruits aren't going to continue going to St. John's. Right now, the program is somewhat of a novelty - new coach, NYC! (Queens), big time exposure (not really), and Lavin's ability to send guys to the pros.

It's funny that Lavin has been using the fact that he sent Baron Davis to the pros as a sales pitch. Baron Davis HATES Lavin.

UCLA products Baron Davis and Matt Barnes were back in their old haunt as the Warriors held their shootaround at Pauley Pavilion.

As things wound down, Davis started needling Cal grad John Murray, the Warriors’ strength and conditioning coach. “Look up there,” Davis said, nodding at the UCLA’s 11 championship banners. “That’s tradition. That’s the little brother beating up the big brother.”

Then Davis got rolling. Talking about his own time with the Bruins, he took a swipe at Marin native Steve Lavin, saying, “We should have a banner up there: the only team to make the tournament without a coach.”

[greenyellow]

It sucks to lose so many players to Lavin and St. John's but I don't think it will last. DA will get some recruits that fit in with what he wants to do.

[buckmarkduck]

I would suggest some of you just go over to a UCLA site and ask them how much the like Lavin. He did some goofy stuff in his time at UCLA, he was worse at time management than Les Miles, and if I remember right he once cost UCLA a game by calling a time out with none left.

[bellsduck]

Pelle picked SJU.

[oregontrack]

St. Johns will soon find out why no one else wanted to hire Lavin. He's a worse X and Os guy than Kent. He was always a top notch recruiter he just can't coach that talent.

Talked to my SJU friend, he seems pretty high on them landing pelle... He told me his entire family visited.

MEHHHH Why couldn't we have got Lavin?

I disagree:

During Lavin’s tenure as head coach, the Bruins qualified for six consecutive NCAA Tournaments (1997–2002). During this period, Lavin became one of two coaches (along Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski) to have led his team to five NCAA Sweet 16s in six seasons. Lavin’s record in the first and second rounds of the NCAA tournament is 10-1. Lavin’s winning percentage (90.9%) in the first two rounds, is second only to Dean Smith in NCAA Tournament history.


The guy had one bad season at UCLA. I'm happy with Altman, but Lavin would have been a solid hire for Oregon.

The problem with this is that Lavin had Final Four talent and never got out of the Sweet 16. During the Lavin era, the Pac-10 was extremely top heavy, typically fronted by Stanford or Arizona, with UCLA at the next level alongside a rotating team, usually USC or Oregon. Arizona State, Washington, Washington State, Cal, and Oregon State were all pretty terrible, which is to say, half the the Pac-10 was awful. Hell, we were in the bottom group some years. UCLA feasted on bad teams, typically got into the Tournament as a 5 seed, had a habit of playing out-of-this-world basketball in the first two rounds, and flamed out in the Sweet 16 every single year despite usually being much more talented.

UCLA has more alums in the NBA then any other college, and much of that is still thanks to the Lavin era. I don't know how much Pac-10 hoops you watched back then, but it was pretty universally accepted that he grossly underachieved. That's why his job was constantly under fire those final couple of years, and when the wheels fell off in his final season, the axe was pulled. He SHOULD have one of the highest winning percentages in the first two rounds in NCAA history, his teams were stacked. That he never got out of the Sweet 16, though, is a MUCH more telling statistic. Roy Williams, Coach K, Bill Self, etc. win two titles in the Lavin era EASY.

[UOducksTK1]

Talked to my SJU friend, he seems pretty high on them landing pelle... He told me his entire family visited.

MEHHHH Why couldn't we have got Lavin?

Wow my SJU friend has been right about every recruit every time. Lol I'll ask him about Amir this weekend.