Ever wonder why a school can't win anymore?
It can be as simple as a university going on a building spree that continues for years without anyone noticing its potential detrimental effect on the high powered basketball program.
Such is the case at St. Johns University, located in New York city.
Back in the school's heyday, Coach Louie Carnesecca used to recruit kids either straight out of high school or through the transfer process that wanted to come home or remain in good old New York city. The kicker was that since St. Johns didn't have much dorm space, the players were given a stipend approved by the NCAA that was meant to allow them to live in the locale of the school. Since NY is just about the most expensive city to live in in the world, the players were given a hefty check, then would crash with Moms or bunk up with some friends at a local dive apartment. And it was all approved by the NCAA. Here is a terrific article by Sports Illustrated's Seth Davis discussing this in detail.
But now that St. Johns has built enough dorms for roughly a quarter of their student population to live on campus, there is no excuse for the players to live at home. And that has hurt recruiting big time. The St. Johns facilities are second rate despite recent improvements and current Head Coach Norm Roberts has been unable to land any highly thought of high school or junior college players in his five year tenure.
The school may fire Roberts, but the problems will continue. Unless they break the piggy bank and hire some college legend, the school will continue to suffer. High school players have seen to much of the country by the time it comes to make a college decision via AAU and summer camps to want to stay at some stuffy dorm in Queens. And it is next to impossible to get good players to come to a losing program.
Good luck to Coach Roberts, who seems to be a good man and a hard worker. But it would appear that St. Johns will have to live with being a second class citizen of the Big East conference for quite some time.
Such is the case at St. Johns University, located in New York city.
Back in the school's heyday, Coach Louie Carnesecca used to recruit kids either straight out of high school or through the transfer process that wanted to come home or remain in good old New York city. The kicker was that since St. Johns didn't have much dorm space, the players were given a stipend approved by the NCAA that was meant to allow them to live in the locale of the school. Since NY is just about the most expensive city to live in in the world, the players were given a hefty check, then would crash with Moms or bunk up with some friends at a local dive apartment. And it was all approved by the NCAA. Here is a terrific article by Sports Illustrated's Seth Davis discussing this in detail.
But now that St. Johns has built enough dorms for roughly a quarter of their student population to live on campus, there is no excuse for the players to live at home. And that has hurt recruiting big time. The St. Johns facilities are second rate despite recent improvements and current Head Coach Norm Roberts has been unable to land any highly thought of high school or junior college players in his five year tenure.
The school may fire Roberts, but the problems will continue. Unless they break the piggy bank and hire some college legend, the school will continue to suffer. High school players have seen to much of the country by the time it comes to make a college decision via AAU and summer camps to want to stay at some stuffy dorm in Queens. And it is next to impossible to get good players to come to a losing program.
Good luck to Coach Roberts, who seems to be a good man and a hard worker. But it would appear that St. Johns will have to live with being a second class citizen of the Big East conference for quite some time.
posted by joe sweeney at 3:55 PM
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