Checkmate
- Thread starter NYShoreGuy
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26 double digit losses (with good teams) in seven years is a lot.
17 in two is twice that much.
Sorry now I had to do it.
Willard’s first 5 seasons has a total of 35 double digit losses.
So 61 during his tenure. About 5 a season.
And the board pretty much went off on each and every one. Even though things change, some things with our fan base never do.
I’m included in that group. No one likes getting their a** kicked.
The die hards will come here and complain, sulk, ask for change, or take the other side of the fence.
The rest of our fans stop watching, don’t show up to the arena, or find an excuse with the traffic patterns, their bedtime, or the cost of pretzels. Bottomline when things are good fans jump on the bandwagon. When times are tough we complain and everyone else checks completely out.
Right now when we need engagement to be high, we are hitting one of those points where fans have already checked out 10 games into the season. Get run out of the building on Saturday and Carino will be able to hand count the number of people at the Rock for his game recap.
One coach was hired to take us out of drought and from being a big east embarrassment. The other was hired to build on the success of making the tournament and advancing in it. To ignore that is just silly. The expectations were not the same at the start and because of the different starting points they shouldn’t even be compared. There wasn’t anyone on social media saying Kevin Willard will take seton hall to a final four.
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Who was saying Shs would take us to the final four? I would like to meet this delusional fan and take them for a lot of money. 😂
His name is John Fanta. I don’t have the Twitter but that tweet I do remember reading on here. Let me know how taking his money works out for you. It received more than a few likes. You might be able to take money from more delusional fans.
April Tweets
setonhall.forums.rivals.com
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A split with the eventual national champion is better than practically all of the league did. There's no sense in replying to you any further, because you are a master at being a contrarian. Nothing you say is going to diminish what was a good year for SHU basketball, in Holloway's second year at the helm.
The comment wasn't from me, but here's how I actually see it: It was a bitter disappointment not to make the NCAA Tournament last year. A team that wins 13 Big East games should be a no-questions-asked NCAA team. It burns a little more because we have a coach with a track record of tournament success, which is not something we've had since P.J. Carlesimo. Thirteen wins is a significant accomplishment at Seton Hall. Even P.J. himself only managed it once (14-4 in 1992-93) and between then and last year, it only happened once (13-5 in 2019-20, a year that ended with a thud on the court and off). I don't care what happened in the nonconference season; they earned their way in.
But I have to say -- and I'm sure many here will reasonably not agree with this, and that's understandable -- I enjoyed the NIT championship more than I do a first-round flameout in the NCAA Tournament. It's not something I realized until it was just about done, and it came as a major surprise to me, but that was a lot of fun last April. Did it ultimately matter? No, of course not. But neither, I maintain, does being sent home by dinner time on the first Thursday of the NCAAs. The hype and the anticipation leading up to the first NCAA game is always great, but it is the pits losing it, especially as a matter of habit. You're done before the thing even really starts. In the end, neither thing really raises your program's profile, which really demands a Sweet Sixteen before anyone but the hardcore fan notices. And that would be great. We seem a long way off from that now, but then again, it's been a long way since it happened previously. An entire quarter century, now, assuming it doesn't happen this year (which, come on...).
I think everyone wants to see Seton Hall be good. Any program that is good believes in NCAA or bust. You can't find a good program that says NIT championship sounds awesome. Well this was fun doesn't change that for me, while others it may, I get that. My only question is if we flipped the switch, if loyal son Sha had us in the dance every year and Amaker, Orr, Gonzo or Willard took over, didn't make it to the dance either year, in year 2 won the NIT and was having a year 3 like this, don't you think the seat would be boiling or would everyone be saying damn that NIT run was fun? My opinion, there would be so many threads about how far back we've gone from Sha. I think people want Sha to be awesome so bad, they've given him a hometown discount lowered bar. Otherwise it would be NCAA or bust. 13-7 with 0 good road or neutral site wins on selection Sunday is a tough sell.
I cringe at what the board would be writing if our coach was Louis Orr (RIP) right now. Man, did he take a beating from fans at times.
But make no mistake about it, what we have seen so far is worse than anything anyone has done in 40 years. We’ve got 22+ games to go and I hope it improves, starting Saturday with payback.
But make no mistake about it, what we have seen so far is worse than anything anyone has done in 40 years. We’ve got 22+ games to go and I hope it improves, starting Saturday with payback.
Mostly fair, I think, but a few things: No, I don't think we should be in the habit of saying NIT championships are awesome. But my human reaction, after the bitter of pill of being snubbed at 13-7 that included a 15-point win against the runaway best team in the county, was that it was surprisingly fun. Fun after we thought we had nothing to show for it all. And it was novel enough after not winning what, one NIT game in the last 65 years, or whatever it was? Is it going to work every year? Nope. Not even close. But the circumstances, such as they were, provided a surprisingly warm reaction -- at least in me.
Yes, I desperately want Sha to be successful, for the program and for him, but I'm not going to delude myself. This year has been an unmitigated disaster. There's no getting around it. Seasons aren't static things, and there is still the possibility this team improves over the course of the season -- even greatly -- but there's no shot at an NCAA short of winning the Big East Tournament, and that's dispiriting. We know that.
But one thing that makes the early Holloway tenure different than that of any other coach we've had is that he is having to step up to a major conference from a low-major and have to figure that out while at the same time figure out how to navigate this new world of paying players and unrestricted transfers. That is a major, major handicap that Willard, Gonzalez, Orr, Amaker, Blaney and Carlesimo never had to confront. Yeah, there were bags, but there was nothing like this, and the transfers would have been unthinkable to any of them early on. So while I never give up on a coach before five years, I willingly admit I am also trying to calibrate my evaluation of of Shaheen Holloway under unprecedented circumstances, and that's hard.
I do truly believe he is a very good coach and if he would've taken over this program in, say, 2017 instead of five years later, I think he would've hit the ground running and we wouldn't have missed a beat. I might even suggest we would have broken through the first-weekend glass ceiling in March, though that's speculative.
Right now, I think Sha is trying to reconcile doing business the way it's done in 2024 with the style that he has always employed and that he is comfortable with, and those two things are not working in harmony. Not this year, anyway. It was important to him to have a deep team that he could use to roate players in and out, as he did at Saint Peter's. I think that can work well, but there are a lot more variables when you have to take ten new players every year, and your "NIL" budget requires you to take lots of flyers on high-upside but unproven and undeveloped kids from other programs. A LOT has to go right. But I think he wanted to try it after wearing out his top five or six guys last year. His style also works better when he can hold onto guys for a few seasons and develop them -- their skills and their mindset. I'm not sure if that is possible here in this new world. If he can ever have access to the funding, he's got a shot, but I'm not bullish on that. So it might not work. He might have to keep adapting and evolving until he finds that balance that will allow his teams to succeed here, and I hoep that's possible. If not, it's a shame, because I have no doubt he would've been successful here not too long ago. It's impossible to say for sure now.
I’m not into the if he was here earlier. We can do that other ways too. if Georgetown didn’t hire Cooley in 2023 and they hired some guy Patrick Ewing (6 years later) in 2023, how much money would Georgetown alums be throwing at their program. Ewing might have elite talent to compete with UConn.
Find a way to compete in this landscape. Getting guys who are 2-3 years away from their upside is a waste. All we are doing is preparing them for someone else.
Funny 3 old school guys from the big east came back to coach their Alma maters all having trouble reaching the youth of today.
The real issue right now is who we’re losing to and what it may reflect. It’s a scary reality, lol.
You could live with the challenges of competing with power conference team budgets, but low or mid majors 3x? Getting run out at home by Monmouth (now 1-10)??Makes the whole situation a 5-alarm fire.
You could live with the challenges of competing with power conference team budgets, but low or mid majors 3x? Getting run out at home by Monmouth (now 1-10)??Makes the whole situation a 5-alarm fire.
Misinformed. UCONN, Marquette, SJ x2, PC away, Butler away. Should have included Creighton but that’s another story.
Quality wins vs teams that didn’t make the tournament? Is that a thing now? Crazy. So there was 2 in total and none away from the Rock.
Oh please. Get your facts straight. First, Willard was targeted by Maryland a P4 football school in the B1G for significant more money. He didn’t bolt. Who is going to turn that down.
Second, the commitment to the practice facility was made several years before NIL. The school took out bonds plus fundraising to get the job done. And it’s needed. It wasn’t either new facility or NIL. We need both and I agree with you that the administration was way behind with NIL.
Third, you can continue with your Pitino fantasy but it was never going to happen. Yeah if it makes you happy go through the motions of reaching out, not going to change anything.
Finally, I hope you are contributing to the University in some way— general fund, Pirate Blue, or NIL. If you are, that’s great and I commend you. If you’re not, then you’re just blowing off on a message board.
We all would have bolted if a had an offer for that kind of money. Phrase it however you want.
I contribute to baseball mostly as a couple family members through marriage played for the program. I’m at a point I don’t know why I do but it’s probably the program I want to see succeed most. But yes I contribute when I get something in the mail it seems every quarter they mail something out.
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Fair enough. We all have opinions but putting some skin in the game with some of our own hard earned money means a lot to me.
Seton Hall needs to come up with something to make you want to put more skin in the game. We spent 1.1 million in basketball and could’ve had the same results spending $50k. Convince us we’re close and few more dollars here and there makes huge difference. I have no clue why I continue to give to baseball over the business school considering the results. A fair assessment is I could probably make more of an impact giving to the business school.
Just curious and not saying you are wrong.
Can you confirm that our NIL spending was $1.1 M for this season?
I think that is a number many people would love to know the actual truth about and there is no way the school is going to publicly announce that.
I am also curious, and I understand if the collective doesn’t disclose what each player makes, but does it tell the larger donors what the total pot SHU is operating out of.
I mean if hypothetically I gave $500,000 and everyone else only gave another $600,000 that might deter me from giving that amount again.
That’s a number I’ve read on here quite a few times. Maybe it’s wrong, maybe it’s right, but bottom line this is part of coaching now. Coaches used to have to deal with 20 handlers to get a player, now it’s raising money. If you put in 500k you’d have the ability to tell coach go raise 2 million before I put in 500k again. Thats now his job whether it’s something the coach likes or doesn’t.
Curious is this what you plan on doing when you take the delusional fans for their money?
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I think it was less than $1M Sha’s first year, north of it last year (thankfully transfer rule was in place) and this year I think it’s even better but still just below $2M. Then Sha decided to spend a small NIL for depth over top heavy and you see where that got us so far.
It’s def improved a lot and there’s some hope donors to practice facility will be able to increase it further.
It’s def improved a lot and there’s some hope donors to practice facility will be able to increase it further.
I don't disagree. He will have to or he will fail. I think there is a path to success here, and I hope it jibes with our head coach's best tactics, but at the end of the day, no one should be bigger than the program.
Well for one, we had John Fanta on our show many times and I remember specifically this topic even came up under the Willard regime. He said something along the lines of it’s not realistic for Seton Hall fans to believe that the Final Four is the expectation. He said a sweet sixteen is more realistic.
It’s hard enough to get into position to be successful in the tournament. Just to be a protected seed line you have to finish top 16 in the country. Even in 2019-20 they ranked 15th in the AP polls heading into the BE tournament before Covid struck. Most said were a 3 or 4 seed.
Even then you win your first game, most likely play a 4/5 or 3/6 coin toss game, and then are potentially underdogs in the next two if the seed lines hold. Making it as a 8/9 seed or lower is just very poor odds.
So if John gave a sound bite to get fans excited about Sha, I can see that. But if you were to play his first response to us back to him and ask him if it’s still believes it, I would bet he would say a Final Four is still not a fair expectation to have.
Now back to Sha having to raise all this money.
I believe he has to be available to shake all the hands of those who will ultimately write those checks. However, you hired him to be a coach not a fundraiser. There should be a strong support system that brings those donors to the table and Sha can be part of the team that closes them. If you are telling me he is refusing to do this, then I have a major issue.
But to think he can manage a team on the court, recruit transfer and HS kids, shake hands at all the functions, and also be making the phone calls for the whales to donate is a little unrealistic as well.
Bottomline the school needs a GM to help oversee all of this.
Is it by any means possible Fanta bought into the hype of the new coach and changed his expectations for Seton Hall. Or what he said on a podcast trumps all?
Sha needs to delegate like any CEO. Nobody can do everything but at the end of the day if he gets the right or wrong people, it’s on him
Fanta hypes everything Seton Hall, he hyped the women's soccer team after they beat a bad Marist team in their opening game. The women's team sucked, finishing 4-12-3 overall, 1-7-2 in conference.
Great guy, bright future, hypemaster general.
Great guy, bright future, hypemaster general.
That earns you only the right to complain about Rob and the baseball program, then. I sit near some guys who have been relentless on Sha this season, already. From very brief conversations with them, they are not ponying up, either. The frequency and duration of complaints with SHU MBB is inversely proportional to the amount invested, financially. Admittedly, I don't give as much as I should or would like to, but I pledged a monthly amount, and I'm going to be the last person to go after Sha. I can't imagine how bad things would be if KW (and I supported him) was at the helm now.
I'd guess 90% of the people at our games give the same amount as the people at other schools. The difference is the 4-5 cash cows at each school. Hard working people aren't just throwing 30% of their pay to NIL to say they gave a healthy 5 figures. Maybe if you're lucky people are giving 5% of their income if that. You're basically saying the only people allowed to complain are the 4-5 people at each school. He can go 0-20 the next 4 years in big east play, but because I mark my money for baseball, I won't say it looks bad.
I didn't say anyone can't or won't. I'm just saying your behavior is typical of the blowhards who sit behind me.
"I can boo them, they're getting paid!"
"How much is coming out of your wallet?"
....
How much is coming out of your wallet is the question you pose. I’m not an owner why should I be paying their salaries is my question to you? I have no problem of them getting paid out of the ticket money. No problem paying for real NIL. But I’m not paying Charlie Sheen on the side because I like watching the show two and a half men.
The worst part of your talking point is you neglect to point out the competition we’ve played for the most part so far is paid way less.
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I don't really agree with this assessment. I support Felt and Sha and don't believe we need someone like a GM above Felt or between him and Sha.
I believe we need the equivalent of an NFL Capologist; Someone who watches the games and estimates what their value on the open market might be and whether they fit the profile of player that Sha wants. It's a hard job considering you may wind up looking at 1,000 potential transfers.
I believe there should be an AD that handles all the non-revenue sports and then someone specifically dedicated to the flagship money making operation of basketball. It’s just too important year round to be having your AD traveling to cheer on the men’s soccer team during their NCAA tournament run a few years ago.
I don’t care what title you give them. But they should act in the capacity that you just described. Even build out a team that helps evaluate all these potential transfers if you have to. Invest in the program in more creative ways if you have to find under the radar diamonds in the rough that are cost effective.
I don’t think the GM role needs to be above the AD it’s more of a support person for Sha. That person shouldn’t have any coaching responsibilities main goal should be having a list of potential needs for next year, 3 pt shooting, pg, scoring big man etc and spend all year scouting mid majors, juco, d2 etc to fill our needs within budget. Should also being putting feelers out to their handlers so we know who we have a legitimate shot at. End of the year comes GM can say to Sha here is a list of guys that fit our style and needs let’s go try and get them.
My understanding is that these GMs in college aren't functioning like GMs in pro sports. They are not creating rosters and making personnel decisions; those still come from the head coach. But they are tasked with making the dollars work and I guess they can influence rosters to an extent inasmuch as they'll be directing allocation of money to players -- but at the directive of the head coach.
Every major school already does this and has for years
Problem is our non-revenue sports leave lots to be desired to be nice..so what are we paying that guy for really?
Arturas Karnisovas has been in NBA offices for 20 years. He is currently an EVP with the Bulls. He has to have plenty of contacts that can point him towards young guys looking to beef up their resumes with scouting and personnel gigs.
People hate the phrase "stepping stone" - I would have no problem with Seton Hall becoming a well respected program that's a stepping stone to bigger jobs on the bench and in the box upstairs. Think Appalachian State in football. Its a very well respected gig that gets you serious looks at bigger opportunities. Because of that they typically get good, young candidates for the gig.
You don't even need a crazy amount of funding for this. Hire one GM/head of scouting and then 2-3 scouts / personnel guys. You could easily make that work for around $1M, less if you want.
Here's the obvious issue - Sha would want control over all of that and I wouldn't give it to him. if Seton Hall were forward thinking they would build out the system and then find the coach for it, that way when he inevitably leaves he becomes more easily replace.
Some really smart people have left the Rays over the years, they still find ways to remain competitive almost every year. That's the type of organization Seton Hall basketball needs to model.
Or keep shooting from the hip every year with Sha making all of the personnel choices. Good luck with that.
