I like many points in your post. Your description of Gonzo and his impact on the program is spot on. And you make an essential point in Willard. He was good at getting a couple questionable teams over the finish line into the NCAAT but couldn’t get his more talented teams to take that next step.
Can't resist. Willard and Maryland go down to Davidson
- Thread starter ivyhillparkk1963
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Willard. I don’t see you saying who recruited Brandon Walter’s, Mike Davis, and Mike Glover.
All true although he and our team got screwed royally in that Covid year. What could have been and Sandro was coming into his own too if I recall correctly.
They had a brutal last week of reg season. Marquette msg tourney game outcome was gonna dictate rest of their season
What are you talking about? We went to 2 big east finals and lost in the first round. Those BET results never dictated crap.
I think he's saying we would have fallen out of a 4 seed if we had lost to Marquette. If we had fallen to a five we probably would have had to travel rather than get placed in Albany.
Gonzo would attend our Post Game Dinner and circulate every table and make you feel good.
Gonzo was a great schmoozer but radecicco was absolutely 100% correct.
You're blind with hate for Willard. Nothing you say there is even remotely true.
As soon as I read your original post I groaned and said the Inman shot. That name will forever be engrained in my brain. 🤦
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I promise I will do my best not to bring it up again until the next Willard-Gonzo debate which will likely be next week.
You're blind with hate for Willard. Nothing you say there is even remotely true.
really? Are you saying the old BE wasn't tougher? Syracuse, UConn, Louisville, Pittsburgh, BC, Georgetown, Notre Dame Nova. Marquette ?
really? Are you saying the old BE wasn't tougher? Syracuse, UConn, Louisville, Pittsburgh, BC, Georgetown, Notre Dame Nova. Marquette ?
If only teams played each other twice back then. Sure you can rattle off more team names because the league had more teams, but you played less big east games and didn't necessarily play the best teams twice. In the new big east, playing Villanova twice is the equivalent of taking 2 of those teams off your list. Chris Mack had some pretty darn good Xavier teams, there's another 2 teams off your list.
Just curious who was coaching Seton Hall at the time in the old big east when BC, Lousville, and Marquette were all in the big east at the same time? Surprised you didn't mention the great VT and Miami teams the big east had over the years.
There were some very good Xavier and Creighton teams in the new BE. Athletes are bigger, stronger and faster now too. Two BE eras and you really can't compare them.
We went to 4 or 5 NCAAs in a row - that's saying something. We were relevant for a long time under Willard once he got it going. Like it or not (like him or not) he will be one of our all time winningest coaches. Hope Sha surpasses him in Wins and NCAA victories but that is the fact.
We went to 4 or 5 NCAAs in a row - that's saying something. We were relevant for a long time under Willard once he got it going. Like it or not (like him or not) he will be one of our all time winningest coaches. Hope Sha surpasses him in Wins and NCAA victories but that is the fact.
Terrible take… the big east with Cuse, UConn, ‘Ville, WVU, ND had 8-10 NCAAT teams every year. Way stiffer competition than our 4/5 teams making the NCAAT
Looking forward to that Nova - Maryland game later this week. 👀
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The mid BE before the fb split had a lot of good teams. But we didnt play most of them twice. Bg used to brag about beating ru under hill, the least sccessful coach in BE history and sj under the guy now the kansas asst. Bet ee pkayed dp or tge other weak teams twice. If yhe nbe has had 5 ir six bids we pkayed a tourney team 10 timed out of 16 games.
And i wonder if that version ever had 2 #1 seeds in the same yr. We have 3 top ten teams so far this yr. That is pretty damned strong. And 3 of the last 5 natl champs.
And i wonder if that version ever had 2 #1 seeds in the same yr. We have 3 top ten teams so far this yr. That is pretty damned strong. And 3 of the last 5 natl champs.
Big East NCAA bids in the Gonzalez/Willard time period:
2007: 6/16 (38%)
2008: 8/16 (50%)
2009: 7/16 (44%)
2010: 8/16 (50%)
2011: 11/16 (69%)
2012: 9/16 (56%)
2013: 8/15 (53%)
"Old" BE total: 57/111 (51%)
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2014: 4/10 (40%)
2015: 6/10 (60%)
2016: 5/10 (50%)
2017: 7/10 (70%)
2018: 6/10 (60%)
2019: 4/10 (40%)
2021: 4/11 (36%)
2022: 6/11 (55%)
"New" BE total: 42/82 (51%). A tournament in 2020 likely would have included 60% of the league as well.
Gonzalez (07-10): 29/64 (45%)
Willard (11-22): 70/129 (54%)
Based on this measure, Willard coached in tougher leagues by far. He was also here for the last three years of the old Big East, which saw more league teams make the NCAA's than not.
I'm no huge Willard supporter, but he did a decent job here and Gonzalez was one of the worst things to ever happen to this program.
I'll just defer to SHU09's post. Read it and try to consider actual facts.
More good teams and just as importantly, more bad teams.
It's apples and oranges if you play Syracuse, UConn and Louisville once in a season and RU, DePaul and South Florida twice.
You do realize in the old BE (3 seasons) Willard was a mere 8-7 vs the 3 teams referenced above. With 9 of those games decided by 6 points or less.
Gonzalez in 4 seasons against those same teams the HALL was 14-3.
Once again not saying Gonzalez was better than Willard. But I’ll keep saying Willard was a good coach not a great coach. For some posters they act as if he could do no wrong.
probably very similar percentages in those time periods which would lead me to believe gonzo did better vs those 3 teams and Willard did better vs the rest of the league.
FWIW, I agree with you. Good, not great, coach.
I've posted chapter and verse here about the missed opportunities during the Willard era. Long Beach State in Charleston, URI at Barclay's Center. Oregon in Atlantis, the NCAA bid in 2012 et al.
On the other hand, good is better than a fair number here believe him to be.
Well no actually on that point as well. The numbers aren’t much better.
Willard’s 2012-13 campaign really hurts his old BE metrics. A 3-15 conference season is always going to do that to you.
His old BE record was 18-36 overall (.333)
Gonzalez was 27-43 (.388)
If you back out the 3 teams we were analyzing
Willard was 10-29 (.256)
Gonzalez was 12-40 (.230)
Very similar vs the rest of the league
My original post included games in the BET vs Rutgers / USF / DePaul. The numbers above are just conference regular season play.
How do you get the answer no on that point as well? Is .256 not greater than .230?
Both are abysmal.
That’s right Fooch. Amazed that posters tout Gonzalez and I believe you’re a poster with a ton of credibility. You know SHU. Teams are also different every year. If you ever knew the things Bobby said on a daily basis to the women in the athletic dept you would cringe. Think of the worst possible words you could say and that is what he called them to their faces. Amazing what he got away with. The man was a menace. Willard on the other hand graduated his players, had very few issues and represented SHU with class. Posters don’t seem to value that. I do whether you liked his personality or not. Let’s move on and talk about Sha and look forward. Let’s go Pirates!!
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There's a small sect of Gonzalez supporters still on these boards who will always defend him and try to make him out to be better than he was for some reason, even nearly 15 years later. It's quite bizarre, actually.
I guess it's hard to let go of the promise he offered so many of us when he was hired. I honestly thought we were going to get back to Amaker-level excitement, but with better results. I think a lot of us did.
Woof. There were some fun days, but I don't know how anyone can look at that era as anything but a disaster.
It was like watching a car accident in slow motion. Came I like a wrecking ball and that’s what he ended up doing. We were a complete embarrassment by the end.
There was at least one guy who was not. He hoped he was wrong. Of all the times to be dead right.
I did not see any exaltation of Gonzalez in this thread but simply a comparison of records. This wasnt done to say Gonzalez was anything special or not sociopathic. Nobody said that. The comparison was made simply to contextualize Willard's on-the- court success here as a coach.
Sure but you've got one guy coming in taking over a program where 2 tournaments in 3 years wasn't good enough and another whose first priority is to restore an image of the program. Literally this is like comparing the start of Jon Sheyer's coaching career vs the start of Sha's career at SPU. You're not starting on the same playing field. There's more to it than W/L's. Getting excited that Gonzo had a better record against the bottom feeders is an abysmal view of things too.
I ran into Gonzo multiple times in random places. Nicest guy in the world when I talked to him. You say big win last night coach or tough loss but they're fighting hard, next thing I knew an hour passed and I didn't get a word in. I know that goes against everything written about the man, but I can only speak to my personal experiences and I found the guy to be great to talk to.
On the flip side. He didn't get us to the tournament. He didn't leave the place better than he found it. If what has been written about him is true, you can only be thankful of the job Willard did on and off the court.
You really think comparing coaching records of a program coming off 2 tournaments in 3 years to a coach who had a disaster (guns, drugs, nut punch, player flatlining, player shot) to clean up on top of coaching is fair context?
It’s all about context, right? The Blaney Era was like a pin to a balloon. Then here comes Amaker. Media-savvy, a Marketer in his own right, something for everyone to get behind. We had some mediocre teams that played tough in the BET early on with him, then Sha’s Senior year, the recruiting class. BAM. PJ-level excitement is back.
Orr was the anti-Amaker. But he had what should’ve been 3 of 4 winning BE seasons and NCAAT appearances to end his tenure. Yet nobody felt the juice. “Programmatic details” anyone? LOL.
Enter Gonzo. Juicer. Starts with a bang landing Eugene Harvey. I was in the GonZone for sure, was all-in. All the talk of getting a “shark”, all those things Orr wasn’t doing that Amaker did.
I understand that people get very triggered these days and are super-sensitive. So they may not understand that you could make a comparison of coaches just based on various records. Doing so does not mean an endorsement for the personal behavior of any given coach.
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