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- Thread starter Piratz
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I do know Chris Mack and Xavier wanted Myles Powell really bad. I'll bet they were willing to use some of their resources on him. And I'll bet he didn't turn them down to go somewhere and get nothing.
I simply answered the poster's original point. Arbitrary but pertinent based on that point.
For the record, I doubt that poster has ever left the Rock after a win, loss, draw or Disney on Ice but that's a different discussion.
Here's something that's not arbitrary. Kevin Willard, by winning percentage, is the most successful coach at Seton Hall since Honey Russell. That probably says more about Seton Hall's futility at basketball since 1960 than anything else but it's a fact.
There are plenty of flaws to point out. I'd have loved more than one NCAA win as a start. But the last half of the Willard era brought plenty of success. Nothing to warrant a statue but it was also the most successful period of the program since the end of the P.J. years.
Willard left us better off than he found us. Hopefully Shaheen can continue building from that point.
Without a doubt. Totally appreciative that we have been playing relevant basketball / games in February and March over the last 7 years.
I just get frustrated by the extreme view points that tend to get shared. It’s either you must love Willard unconditionally or there are people who just despise him.
Definitely feel like his tenure falls somewhere down the middle with an overall positive takeaway and a legacy that leaves him near the top of the list historically.
Richmond's UConn game is starting to sound a lot like Gonzo's Florida game at this point.
Willard did a very good job. He was far from perfect, how he ran things and the games can be legitimately criticized. But his record speaks for itself. Wish we won NCAA games, but thrilled that we played in them so many years.
And now he is gone. Let sleeping terps lie.
PLEASE!!!
And now he is gone. Let sleeping terps lie.
PLEASE!!!
Year 1 they took care of business @ DePaul, 78-67
Year 2 is the 28 point setback back that I try to block from my memory.
I think we will all be happy with a 21 win year 2 from Sha that includes 2 top 10 wins.
Just wondering. We are quick to speculate about other schools paying for players: UCONN and Sanogo for example. For those seemingly knowledgeable about this, I'm very curious. How much did we pay Powell? Was it all up front? How much are we paying a guy like Samuel?
See this is where we differ.
If we have a 20+ win season with two top ten victories that falls short of a NCAA tournament bid because we lost two games to the dregs of the conference that year…I would classify that as a disappointment, missed opportunity, and moderate failure.
When we lost at home to Michigan st after blowing a 5 point lead with the ball and just over two minutes to play. I was not saying it was a moral victory.
Everyone is allowed to have their opinion as to what they believe is considered successful and acceptable.
Yes we differ. My expectations for the year are from the beginning of the year. I don't allow myself to raise my expectations, but never lower them.
For example. If my expectations are 18 wins and a couple things break our way that make 22 wins possible I don't see 20 wins as a disappointment.
On the other end of the spectrum. If my expectations are 18 wins and things break against us and I say looks like we might only win 14 and when we win 16 I never say what a great accomplishment we won 16.
Every coach is only going to fail if you can keep raising the expectations as the season goes along. Eventually all teams lose and you'll be able to call every coach a failure except the guy cutting the nets in early April.
At the same time you mentioned you coach your kids. Have you ever been the inferior team and outcoached the other guy and still lost because the talent the other guy has is just much better? Are you a failure in those instances? Coaching at a place where getting equal talent is often difficult doesn't mean you always do a bad job when you lose.
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But how do you even begin to set that bar at the beginning of each year with how the rosters are completely shuffled every year due to the immediate eligibility of the transfer portal?
Specifically in college basketball you need to see how the team gels, matures, and gets better throughout the year.
Your approach above would be like saying the 89 team was picked to finish 7th in the league, so losing in the first round of the NCAA tournament wouldn’t have been a disappointment because they exceeded expectations that were set over the summer.
However, after winning the Great Alaskan shootout, finishing 2nd in the BE, being ranked 11th in the nation and earning a 3 seed in the tournament, the expectations clearly changed that they could really do some damage in the Big Dance.
If you are saying those expectations never changed in that scenario, I think you aren’t being truthful with yourself. And if they didn’t, ok that’s who you are.
But if you were to conduct a poll, the overwhelming majority will tell you expectations in sports are constantly a moving target.
If the 89 team lost in the first round that still would've been a successful season. Maybe not as successful as it could've been but nowhere near a disappointment. A first round loss itself would be disappointing but not then 1988-1989 season. The loss vs RU and at Depaul were disappointing but the 2012 season was a damn good season overall.
I'd like to ask those overwhelming majority how many of their expectations ever lower? Please name a season where you lowered your expectations at any point and were content with the season because the team met a lowered expectation. Never happens.
I actually lowered my expectations last season as soon as Aiken got hurt. That team was not the same threat they were earlier in the season when they beat Michigan, Texas, and Rutgers.
I was happy that they figured out a way to win down the stretch and surprised that they knocked off Creighton on the road.
If they would have no gotten destroyed in my presence during NCAA tournament, I would have classified that as lowering my expectations and being happy with an 8 seed.
I knew I should've typed other than an injury to a major contributor. I wonder how many pirate fans changed their expectations in mid January of 2001 and were content with an NIT bid? I wonder how many pirate fans thought 2014 was a great season because we exceeded all expectations by making it to the BET semis? Judging a season by what happens in March would lead to a lot of coaches getting fired for not meeting expectations. Nobody wants to make a habit out of losing early in March but for example these big ten teams who end up losing early in the dance with 24-26 regular season wins still had great years.
Meant to respond to the coaching reference.
It all goes to expectations. We definitely played some older more talented kids in a new flag football league this past year. Previously the boys were undefeated for 3 straight years and received a huge wake up call.
Did we out coach anyone this year? I am not sure. Did I expect to out coach then? I am not sure about that either. Did we expect Willard or currently expect Sha to our coach people? That’s not fair relative to the strong depth of coaching there is in the big east.
But in terms of how we coached our team individually, yes we had expectations. We took an inferior opponent for granted and lost by a touchdown. Complete lack of focus until the start of the second half and poor practice earlier that week.
We used that as a rally point to get better with our practices and to not take a moment of the game for granted. We played that same team later in the year and won 39-6.
My expectations going into that latter game was the result we ended up with. We continued to raise the bar for our kids during a challenging year in which they lost games for the first time ever. When you strive to for excellence, push to achieve higher goals, you are more likely to obtain them.
Accepting your limitations, settling for moral victories, and being ok with failure is a loser mentality in life. Just not how I am going to raise my kids. I can reinforce positives and still recognize independent success in a losing moment. But I will never be OK with accepting a certain level of failure as good enough.
Again we think differently.
1. Best recruiting class in the country. Combined with key pieces from a sweet 16 run. Up by 20 at half vs a top 10 Illinois team on the road. Complete failure of a season from that point on.
Lol…but we won two games in the BET and made the NIT. The season was still a failure.
2. A season that finished 16-15 and 6-12 in conference play in the NBE, was considered a success because we made the BET semifinals?!?!? Loser mentality.
The BET tournament is a couple of days at MSG and if you don’t win it to punch your ticket to the big dance after your season sucked, then I don’t really care. I don’t value a BET banner over a Regular season banner. So why would I value a couple of wins over a below .500 conference record we compiled over 2 1/2 months.
You don’t get evaluated by how we do in the BET. But the NCAA tournament is a culmination of the body of work throughout the entire year. It’s your chance to say we had a great year and now let’s see what we can do against the best in the country over a 3 week tournament. Losing by 16, 16, and 27 and only achieving 1 win in 5 tries and saying we don’t measure the program based on those results, is a loser mentality.
This is why the ceiling with Willard was what it was.
How many other schools have $$$$ disadvantages? How many have found a way to make a run at a sweet sixteen? I didn’t hear Danny Hurley complaining about his budget when he was in the sweet sixteen with URI. Nor did we hear Sha complain last year. Or Oral Roberts the year before, or Florida Gulf Coast before that and so on and so on.
So you're saying you don't think Willard pushed his team to attain goals? 2016 team look what they did later in the year vs opponents who beat them earlier. 2017 turned 3-6 into 10-8 and battled Nova in a great semi but one Josh Hart rebound was the difference. 2018, sorry but those guys didn't get the message of Willard, PJ or anyone who tried to give it to them, they expected to walk through everybody and gave themselves a bad seed. 2019 was beyond expectations all year. 2020 that team tied for the big east championship with a less than stellar year from Powell probably because of a concussion.
Thanks for making my point. We possibly did better than most thought we would do in mid January but it was still a bad year because it was below our expectations from the beginning. Not because it was better than our January expectations.
Here's your sweet 16 from last year. let's talk money disadvantages. Gonzaga, Arkansas, TT, Duke, UNC, UCLA, Purdue, SPU, Arizona, Houston, Michigan, Villanova, Kansas, PC, Iowas State and Miami. Show me 3 teams in there with money disadvantages? You get a rarity or 2 for multiple reasons. Overranked team who lost a player late in the year. Guys just overlooking a team. But you get mainly blue bloods.
1. That 2016 was special because of Isiah. Willard deserves the credit for getting him to buy into the role he needed to play to lead the team.
2. The 2017 should have never been 3-6 to begin with. Too much talent.
3. The 2018 were the same guys from the 2017 team. So you shouldn’t have been shocked when they dug themselves a hole and left a higher seed on the table.
4. 2019 we exceeded expectation because no one knew we had an All-American waiting in the shadows of Desi-KC-Angel. Makes me wonder what could have been the two years prior if we found a way to get Powell more looks. I mean it’s not like he didn’t go off for 26 against @ Iowa in his 3rd game as a Pirate.
5. I am in the group that was upset we didn’t win the BET title outright. Still a little salty about losing the last two games and going 5-5 down the stretch.
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You're just a bundle of joy who sees the negative in everything. Basically with our mediocre recruiting we still should never have a bad stretch during the season.
2017 took time to learn their roles without Isaiah.
2018 you had some off the court issues as well. They just weren't focused.
2019 yes Powell went off for 26 in his third game but we also had many on this board asking him not to shoot 3's later in the year when he was something like 0-16 from 3 at one point. Just being fair.
2020 you'tr probably one of many who had us dead in the water after we had no Mamu, lost Powell to concussion thought the season was going to collapse, going to get destroyed by Maryland. and then upset tying for BE regular season champ.
I have said throughout this debate that I fall somewhere down the middle. Even on the show we were down the middle. There were always two sides to many of the talking points during the Willard ERA.
I am discouraged about where NIL is driving the sport and where that puts Seton Hall in terms of their ability to compete.
I am happy when we make the tournament, don’t expect to make a final four, but do expect to win a game or two from time to time since we are a Big East program.
I measure the program’s success on how we do within our own conference. Being in the top half consistently is more than respectable, but feeling like our normal ceiling is 3rd while being Villanova’s little brother is not ok with me. Heck even our current AD said he measures the success on winning Big East championships.
When the teams I root for reach a certain standard, I want to see them grow and reach the next level. If my team wins a championship, I want to see them win it again the following year.
I have experienced 4 Giants Super Bowls in my lifetime. I am grateful considering my brother is a long suffering Jets fan. But I still root for them to eventually win number 5 and then will want number 6. It’s just the nature of certain fans. I am never going to celebrate moderate success and mediocrity, when there is opportunity to achieve more.
I’m not saying you need to celebrate it but if Daboll never wins a giants Super Bowl happens to win the NFC East consistently but doesn’t get to the NFC championship, will he be a failure? Not in my book. Sure it’s good to want more, but you wanting more doesn’t make him a failure.
But Willard did not win the Big East repeatedly.
He was 1-5 in the NCAA tournament.
Overall Failure…no.
Failing moments…absolutely
Going back to the original post about the 16 point home loss. It’s disrespectful to Sha for someone to make a comment like that after his 3rd game.
Willard was not perfect. That’s all I am saying. But some talk about his time here as if he could do no wrong.
No we don't because they are 2 TOTALLY different venues. When was the last time Seton Hall lost by 16 at the Rock? You are such Willard hater its funny. Its going to be interesting to see what the Willard haters are going to be like if the Shaheen Holloway era doesn't pan out.
Marv Levy was 0-4 in super bowls? Failure not a chance in hell.
Are we really going to go after failing moments. The best in the sport have failing moments. I have failing moments at work. I’m sure you have failing moments in your life and at your job. If you want call out failing moments nobody will ever be good enough because all humans will have failing moments. People love your podcast but I’m sure some people will find failing moments, but if we care about the failing moments when the overall picture is good, we’re setting ourselves up to always be disappointed.
As to your comment on the original post, I think it was a stupid comment not so much disrespectful. Again another person living in the moment not looking at the big picture and giving the season a chance to play out. I wasn’t a Willard fan til year 2. Fuquan learned how to shoot like a basketball player, Theodore was 5 levels above where he was a junior, and Auda out of nowhere played inside the 3 point line. Those are the things I like to see from a coach because at Seton Hall we don’t have enough talent to win on just talent. Sha needs time to put his stamp on the program. Game 3 or even game 23 is too early to judge him in my opinion.
@LeftCoastPirates and @SHUHoopsFan need to get a podcast going—could be the next Siskel & Ebert.
Wow, a non-trolling comment out of you! And one I agree with! What is the SHU message board world coming to?
I’ve thought about this a lot. I loved Willard. I wish he never left. I’ve been open about that. How he left was ugly but we got the best possible replacement in Holloway. I think Holloway can be great. His energy is contagious. But I do wonder how long he’ll get a pass for if he doesn’t win this year, or the next, or by year 3. I’ll let the Iowa debacle go. That was some of the worst coaching in recent memory, but every coach deserves a pass, especially in game 3 at a new destination.
I’m excited to see how he learns from that and gets better. Maybe that’s what he needed to get his rotations right, his philosophy instilled in his players, and gets his team to gel.
It was game 3. Game 4 should be a blowout. And then the schedule starts to really heat up. Looking forward to the new era. Let’s see if Sha can build on what Willard started.
No offense, and this coming from a fan of your podcast, but I never found you to be “down the middle.” The podcast was a constant complaint of Willard. It’s clear you didn’t like the guy but to not admit that what he did here was nothing short of spectacular is asinine. And that’s not just you. It’s a majority of the older generation who witnessed the PJ era and expects greatness from a small private school in South Orange, NJ, playing in a power conference with some historic programs. The amount of time that has passed since ‘89 and when Willard found his footing and established a culture and a program is certainly not short. We’re not a blue blood. We’re not even a class below. We are Seton Hall where winning can never be taken for granted.
At Seton Hall I think you need to look at it from a more than wins loss perspective. Is the recruiting going in the right direction? Are the players getting better? How competitive are we with the big boys? We’re in a big time conference going against some school that have some big time money to hand out to players. At Seton Hall, our coach can do more with what he’s got to work with than just about every coach in the conference and still lose, which makes the fact we’ve played important games in late February and March for years straight great. If Sha is doing those things we should be proud of the job he’s doing. At some point, and maybe it’s already happened, Seton Hall needs to realize recruiting investors in the program is more important than recruiting players. Investors will bring the players. What is Seton Hall doing to get Sha in front of local businesses and getting them to pay the players to show up?
If Willard was 1-5 in the NCAA title game, I think I'd personally build the statue to him.
Sure you would. I'm sure you would also build a statue for a coach who took us from the bottom of the big east to multiple elite 8s, a national championship game, won multiple big east tournaments. Are you hiding that statue in your basement?
Agree with much of your post, but I think the majority (by far) of posters here did not "talk about his time here as if he could do no wrong."
Agree. You probably have 5 times more posters who talked about his time here as if he could do no right, than those who thought he could do no wrong.
I don’t agree. I don’t think you can find any of either of those takes on this board.
Gross. I rather listen to Dick Vitale sing a Xmas carol marathon.
Leftcoast pirates was a great podcast.
