More history repeating itself from a Newark Star Ledger piece titled "Orr: Cloudy Status Hinders Hall Recruiting."
Speculation over coach Louis Orr's future at Seton Hall has hindered the program's recruiting efforts. The Hall has two available scholarships for next season, but has not received a commitment from a recruit.
"(The rumors) have a tremendous effect," recruiting expert Tom Konchalski said. "It's almost an untenable recruiting position when there's speculation swirling around a coach like this. Kids want to know who they're going to play for. If there's a good chance they're going to bring him back, they have to make some sort of public statement saying his job is secure."
First-year athletic director Joe Quinlan, who will examine all facets of the basketball program at the end of the season, said he would make "a prompt evaluation" at season's end and be "thoughtful about recruiting considerations." The national signing period begins in mid-April.
Said Orr: "You just have to deal with whatever was put out there about whether I'm going to be coaching or not. That's the biggest barrier. We just have to continue to target players who fit our program."
Malcolm Grant, a highly regarded point guard at Paul Robeson High School in Brooklyn, backed off his commitment to Seton Hall and reopened his recruitment last month because of the rumors. He is currently considering Villanova and St. John's.
"Louis Orr is a class act," said Grant's coach, Todd Myles. "Malcolm never said he was not going to Seton Hall. He's just protecting himself. If Louis Orr is coming back, there's a 99 percent chance that Malcolm's going there. If Louis Orr is gone, you'll never see Malcolm Grant in a Seton Hall uniform."
So let's review. 293 faculty members voted against unionization. In the end, the antagonizers didn't even get a majority (48%) of the faculty to support their efforts. Soon after, a fraction of a fraction of that nonplurality throws a tantrum and stages a "sit-in" in Mazey's office to protest the grevious social injustice of their own upper-middle class incomes. To dare not further anger this fringe, many of whom don't even recognize the validity for any athletics whatsoever, we keep Orr and chose not buy out the remaining year of the lowest paid coach in the MAC. They get their new contract with future and retroactive pay raises and the fans get shat on.
We don't actually know if the faculty union is to blame here, do we? The status of our AD and our historic preference for letting coaches careers kinda run their course might be to blame. We didn't have a faculty union when DD was allowed to coach as a lame duck...why assume they're to blame now?
It's not the fall that hurts...it's when you hit the ground.
I don't think the faculty union is much to blame. I think that is an easy assumption. IMO, several major factors (graffiti incident, contract, Frack) all combined in the decision to retain him. Also his ability to avoid the 7 win, complete disaster season, got him his final year. Now as to why he is sitting on scholarships? That has become the laughable, fitting way to finish this era.
I think you're both correct. Throw Christopher leaving into that mix as well.
Our M.O. of tolerating anything above single-win years and permitting outside factors to disproportionally influence the decision process must change, though, and hopefully the new AD will play a role in that. Two of our competitors did what we were unwilling (I won't say unable) to do and are thus a year ahead in their rebuilding efforts.
It's crazy to think Toledo is further ahead as a program after both a gambling incident and Gene Cross. Oh, and BG built a new arena in that time. Just crazy.
guest44 wrote:I don't think the faculty union is much to blame. I think that is an easy assumption. IMO, several major factors (graffiti incident, contract, Frack) all combined in the decision to retain him. Also his ability to avoid the 7 win, complete disaster season, got him his final year. Now as to why he is sitting on scholarships? That has become the laughable, fitting way to finish this era.
There is a complete list of seniors who are leaving their programs with 1 year of elegibility left in some other thread. I would think we could atleast add a few guys by doing that.
Well ya any school could and would do that, but this is Louis Orr urgency. He already stated he had a bench full of guys that could score double digits, yet played Erger and Kraus over them, while limping to another first round meltdown.
guest44 wrote: Now as to why he is sitting on scholarships? That has become the laughable, fitting way to finish this era.
Actually it appears that over on the women's team that Roos is also sitting on scholarships. There are only 11 scholarship players listed on the 2013-2014 roster as well. Pretty thin especially with any injury situation.
True, however that is also due to scholarship players leaving the program recently. Orr has had time, no players leave, and enough losses to probably justify finding as many players as possible.
The only explanation is that he's given up. He's recruited with about 70% of the urgency of other MAC coaches and now that he's a lame duck it's dipped even further.
I'm not big on Twitter, but just about every expert says it's critical in modern recruiting. Almost every coach in the MAC (successful ones, new ones, those building programs) has an active account. Kowalczyk has an entire web page, probably because no-one can spell his name to locate the account. Orr's hasn't been updated since 2011. Inexplicable.
