St. John's fans should temper their expectations

[Halldan1]

The buzz surrounding the Red Storm program has been beyond palpable since Chris Mullin was hired as head coach and that's for good reason. The St. John's staff has done an unbelievable job filling out its roster during the Spring recruiting period and Mullin's presence at his Alma mater has given Red Storm fans the type of nostalgic feel that they've craved for years. But that doesn't mean this team should be expected to be finish in top half of the Big East this season or next.

St. John's is going to get players under Mullin, but people need to remember Steve Lavin also got players when he first arrived in Jamaica and it took him until his fifth year to reach the NCAA Tournament with a group that was ranked as a top-five recruiting class when they were incoming freshman. It takes time to build a program in college basketball and while Red Storm fans don't want to be patient, they're going to have to be. The roster that Mullin inherited was beyond depleted (lost five of top six scorers) when he took over in March and it's going to take two to three quality recruiting classes to get this program


More......

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebas...ab-kentuckys-karl-anthony-towns-with-top-pick

 

[mjs428]

I think they suck this year but Mullin will bring in talent & they will become a a consistent top 25 team

 

[Pirate6711]

As other programs have proven, it only takes a couple good recruiting classes and impact transfers to make a struggling program NCAA Tournament ready. Even though they made the Tournament last year, it was going to be another roster mess for Lavin with so many players losing eligibility and a lack of incoming high-level freshmen. Mullin is going to be given the two most valuable assets to a coach: money and time. With the money, he hired a shark recruiter and a terrific transfer/JUCO evaluator. With Jordan gone and likely Obekpa as well, it's clear that the strategy is to blow up the remaining roster mess that Lavin left and start from scratch. That's a strategy I am in favor of and with the lack of consistency with the last two SHU coaches, it's a strategy that could have been put to use in 2006 and/or 2010. Does anybody think we'd be worse of if we just blew up the roster in either of those two years?