Most are really spot on but I'm tired of hearing the ignorant Corey Lowery high school principal garbage. He was not a high school principal when hired by Sha/Seton Hall. He was coming off a 2-year stint as head coach at Lincoln University (certainly a much lower level) with a record of 21-10. Prior to that he was a JUCO coach with a record of 245-63, 152-19 in-conference.Click on the 16 replies. Many of which are spot on.
In fairness, we shot free throws really well last year. And Sha has commented in the past how many free throws he has the guys take in practice.I noticed this in Charleston. During pre game warm ups and especially getting ready for the start of the 2nd half, players on the other teams went to the foul line to take a couple of FTs. Not once did I see a SHU player take a FT during warm ups. A big deal, who knows but it seems to indicate that despite what the coaches say, the players don’t properly value what it takes to get better from the stripe.
Our warm up routine has always stunk. No structure to it. After watching Gonzaga warm up when they kicked our ass in Arizona I was so impressed and then watched them take us to the woodshed. Not sure when our coaches will wise up and put some structure around warm-ups. It provides discipline and develops skills.
We are talking about warmups?Our warm up routine has always stunk. No structure to it. After watching Gonzaga warm up when they kicked our ass in Arizona I was so impressed and then watched them take us to the woodshed. Not sure when our coaches will wise up and put some structure around warm-ups. It provides discipline and develops skills.
I wanted to touch upon the Sha closed door approach for a second.Agree that SetonHallFan…probably over emphasizes the assist coach hire aspect but agree that it part of the systemic program problem. Why didn’t we go big on any of the hires?
SetonHallFan on twitter has been better with sharing awareness of seton hall men’s bball related items then the team’s own’s team page. In this day and age, not being as active on social media and own team shu page is super unhealthy when it’s all about capitalizing on fan booster support. He has been doing it better since the beginning of Willard era.
Add the closed door atmosphere that Sha has built, on not sharing with supportive press, not hyping players bc living in fear players will be recruited from here, it hurts.
While this doesn’t contribute directly to W and loses, it does hurt the program, and over time can ruin what was a healthy program from a PR point of view.
A big part of the head coach job in high major athletics is to be good with media. A good coach should be charismatic and at least a little open with media and def not abrasive.I wanted to touch upon the Sha closed door approach for a second.
Just speculating but these could be other angles.
1. Injury liability concerns
After the Myles Powell fall out, I can understand why details about specific injuries are not disclosed. We wanted to win so bad all we could do was ask when Myles was going to come back and play. Then information possibly gets distorted and you end up with a lawsuit.
Willard was also constantly pressured for updates on the Bryce Aiken concussion process and then last year we had the General Soreness situation. All these become unnecessary distractions for the team in the middle of the season. You even watched Sha get angry with the media when they wouldn’t let the Alexis Yetna injury situation go, all the way towards late in the season.
We obviously want answers, but whoever is able to suit up that night to play is all the coach can concerns themselves over.
2. Setting unrealistic expectations.
On numerous occasions the media has seen a practice or two and then wrote a preseason article hyping up the potential of specific players.
One example would be Jamir Harris. Based on the early write ups, fans were led to believe that his personality and practice performance was going to carry his 20 ppg success at American over to Seton Hall and become our go to guy, big shot maker, and closer at the end of games.
Harris fell well short of that and his early season struggles IMO led to his pressing even harder to live up to those expectations. If I am a coach, I want none of those external factors effecting my players.
We remember the start of Jamir’s tenure with the Hall a little different.A big part of the head coach job in high major athletics is to be good with media. A good coach should be charismatic and at least a little open with media and def not abrasive.
What I am saying is there are ways to answer questions or address the elephant in room besides giving direct PHI to press. Be a politician, answer a diff question, talk about the wine you just bought over the wkd, ask permission from player to reveal injury related info. You don’t need to live in fear on the podium, just be smart with what is said if legal issues are a worry. I don’t think he handles that stuff well.
As far as Jamir, he was ruined by Sha 🤣. Maybe it was the shoulder, maybe it was playing too hard on defense, maybe it was the Sha yelling affect, but he had a decent first year with us percentage wise with Willard.