Who is to blame for the decline in Our MBB?

[RutgersDon]

Top down Lawrence,McCormick and Barchi and all their AD's.
A marginal level of financial support for coaching,staff,recruiting and the failure to update and expand facilities.

 

[knight82]

Fred Gruninger dug the grave. Others (ADs, coaches, and administrators) piled the dirt on over the years.

 

[wheezer]

Hunter and Bryant were committed when RU left for the city of Rome tournament. If I remember correctly the Maryland coach hired one of their their coaches while Young was away and that was that. Perhaps someone could shed some light on this, but I have a vague recollection of this being the case. Hawkeye Whitney had been on the verge of committing and was probably following those two before they flipped. One of the replacements that was hastily recruited thereafter ultimately worked very hard to undermine Tom Young so the program suffered a secondary injury because of these flips.

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I seem to recall that after we lost Hunter and Bryant ( I think it was to Rollie Massimino at nova) , we wound up with two recruits..... One of them was like the sixth man for Camden, A mediocre player, not even a starter

A big fall for RU and its attempt to keep the program relevent

 

[Hondo77]

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I seem to recall that after we lost Hunter and Bryant ( I think it was to Rollie Massimino at nova) , we wound up with two recruits..... One of them was like the sixth man for Camden, A mediocre player, not even a starter

A big fall for RU and its attempt to keep the program relevent

I thought we lost them to UNLV. Their replacements were Rodney Duncan and Todd Milligan. You're thinking of Wendell Bradley who I believe played for RU-Newark.

 

[wheezer]

I thought we lost them to UNLV. Their replacements were Rodney Duncan and Todd Milligan. You're thinking of Wendell Bradley who I believe played for RU-Newark.

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I am fairly sure we lost the recruits to Rollie...... And Tod Milligan was the player I was trying to remember the name.... I don't think he was a starter for his high school team...

 

[knight82]

We actually lost those recruits to Lefty Driesell at Maryland. I hated that guy for years because of that

 

[wheezer]

We actually lost those recruits to Lefty Driesell at Maryland. I hated that guy for years because of that

--- yep, I think you are right...

 

[Scarlet Shack]

Correct..::they went to Maryland

 

[RUMassAlum]

As we are close to hitting rock bottom

Was trying to gauge everyone's opinion on how we got into this mess

What was the tipping point?

I honestly think it was firing Gary Waters

We were a middle of the road team in an elite conference and just wanted more. What he did with our resources at the time was pretty amazing

Totally agree; Gary Waters should have been retained. Sleazy deal to get FHJ in. That turned out well.

 

[megadrone]

Totally agree; Gary Waters should have been retained. Sleazy deal to get FHJ in. That turned out well.

I don't think that was the tipping point, but rather the last in an incredibly bad string of poor decisions.

We had 3 coaches implode (Bannon, Hill, Rice). We could have survived any one of them, and followed Bannon's firing with a decent hire, even if he was our seventh choice.
We made the wrong conference choice. Well that did eventually get corrected.
We chose to throw all our eggs, investment wise, in one basket. That will have to get corrected.
We fired a good coach, although he could have been on a downward trajectory. We could have survived that if Hill had been any type of head coach.

Given our past track record, if we have to make a decision for the basketball program, invariably it will be the wrong one to make. That can't happen forever (I hope).

 

[BIGRUBIGDBIGredmachine]

Gruninger started it by whiffing TWICE on the Big East, then RU Admin trying to run the program on the cheap thereafter--coaches and facilities most notably and regrettably.

 

[wheezer]

Gruninger started it by whiffing TWICE on the Big East, then RU Admin trying to run the program on the cheap thereafter--coaches and facilities most notably and regrettably.

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the first time was THE most critical....would have boxed out Seton Hall...

 

[rutger80]

Correct..::they went to Maryland

Besides Hunter and Bryant, other late 70's players we didn't get: (not to say they were ever going to go to RU) (Tripucka, O'Koren, Spanarkel, Alex Bradley, Rory Sparrow

 

[BIGRUBIGDBIGredmachine]

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the first time was THE most critical....would have boxed out Seton Hall...

 

[rucook08]

is it true we almost got the villanova head coach jay wright

 

[PhilaPhans]

I cringe when I see "Gary Waters leaving" as something we shouldn't have done. Yes, we were doing well with him, but EVERYBODY back then knew we had to take another step up in recruiting if we really wanted to hang with the big boys. We completely swung and missed from then on out, but it's not as if it was the wrong decision back then.

The decline has to do with the relative lack of support from the administration and bad hiring decisions. We (rightfully) put our efforts into football. It helped us get to where we are now in the B1G. But sooner or later, the BB program needs to stop being treated like the ugly stepchild of the university and be given the right support.

 

[PeterN]

is it true we almost got the villanova head coach jay wright

Yep. Villanova was quick to show Lappas the door in order to get JW.

 

[RU93]

NJ. never supported Rutgers... And the state never had a state pride.

 

[RU-Choppin-Ohio]

Besides Hunter and Bryant, other late 70's players we didn't get: (not to say they were ever going to go to RU) (Tripucka, O'Koren, Spanarkel, Alex Bradley, Rory Sparrow

Aaron Howard from my hometown also went to Villanova and was a 3 year starter, played with Rory Sparrow and Alex Bradley when Rollie Mass. was there. Rollie Massimno (sp) out recruited Tom Young for some very good Jersey players. There was no excuse for it because Rutgers basketball was recently coming off it's final 4.....but, Rollie got Alex Bradley, Sparrow and Aaron Howard from Jersey....then he followed it up with John Pinone and eventually Ed Pinckney.

 

[RUHotTrumpetMonkeyLove]

 

[rutger80]

I still recall being disappointed with the teams that formed the Eastern 8. No Syracuse, Providence or St. John's. GW instead of Georgetown. UMass instead of BC. I've never seen anything regarding the formation of the E8. If anyone has any scoop, I'd love to hear it.

 

[MADHAT1]

I cringe when I see "Gary Waters leaving" as something we shouldn't have done. Yes, we were doing well with him, but EVERYBODY back then knew we had to take another step up in recruiting if we really wanted to hang with the big boys. We completely swung and missed from then on out, but it's not as if it was the wrong decision back then.

The decline has to do with the relative lack of support from the administration and bad hiring decisions. We (rightfully) put our efforts into football. It helped us get to where we are now in the B1G. But sooner or later, the BB program needs to stop being treated like the ugly stepchild of the university and be given the right support.

I often wondered if Hill wasn't hired to be Waters replacement and stayed his assistant if RU MBB
would have improved instead of crashed and burned like it did under Freddie.
Waters, in my opinion, was a good HC, just couldn't bring in the talent to be a top BE program.
Hill could have brought in that talent
and maybe the program could have started moving towards the top instead of heading downwards like it did.
But the rumor was Seton Hall was interested in Freddie and Mulcahy thought he'd be a better HC because of his recruiting and pushed Waters out the door.
There were a lot of RU fans that agreed that Gary couldn't make RU more than a middle of the BE pack team and thought hiring Hill was the thing to do.
In hindsight that was a mistake, but at the time it was an acceptable gamble to most RU MBB fans.

 

[rutgersal]

The biggest reason is our alumni, who don't support our athletics programs enough, which is why Rutgers has to take chances on ADs, FB coaches, and BB Coaches. Have you ever heard of a school which chooses its golf coach to be an athletic director? We have the Athletics programs we paid for. Recruits can see the lack of commitment and not surprisingly shy away, and frankly. I don't blame them.

Visiting Ohio State was very eye opening for me and the biggest takeaway was the amount of support alumni give to the school.

 

[jakeknight]

I believe both Bryant and Jo Jo hunter ended up at Colorado, Hunter spent 2 years at Maryland and then transferred to Colorado. RU didn't participate in the NLI program, so while Tom and the team were in Italy they renege on there non binding pledge and that was really the beginning of the end. considering we went to the final 4 and ended up recruiting no one after going 31-2, this has to be one of the strangest story ever. In my humble opinion we never recovered from our undefeated season and final four appearance. (This could only happen at Rutgers) As a foot note Hunter was convicted of armed robbery in 1997 and spent at least 15 years in prison.)

 

[jakeknight]

Madhat, you are basically correct, although what was driving Mulcahy was losing out to Villanova for Jay Wright, Mulcahy thought he had Wright in the bag and in like a day Villanova fires Steve Lapidus and hires Wright while Bobby is sitting in his office with pud in hand. Mulcahy was so freaked out that Seton hall was going to one up him again he pushed Waters out the door and anointed the Village idiot Fred Hill.