Storm warning at Seton Hall

[CO_Hoya]

Now that Pete Thamel is done picking over the carcass of Kevin Broadus and the Binghamton athletic department, he may have turned his attention and poison pen towards Bobby Gonzalez.

Not one, but two articles today (link, link) on what a bad person Gonzalez is, how mean he is to others, etc.


Mods, feel free to move this to Pro & College board if appropriate.

[jerseyhoya34]

This is utter garbage/bullEdited - Thamel is pulling the Louis Orr (SU grad) card here.

I'd follow Gonzalez to the gates of hell to keep him in the league. He has taken over the circus for Creepy Tom, and our league needs at least one of those. Something to be said about a coach who wears a windbreaker at nonconference games.

On edit: These are must reads for comedic reasons. Mailing of the Gonzo bobbleheads - absolutely classic.

[geedell]

Yikes

[NJHoya95]

In a league where there is a legendary head coach who cheated on his wife the NYT writes a column on a coach who is crazy? Wow, there's news.

[AustinHoya03]

Interestingly, neither of these articles made Sunday's print edition.

[SSHoya]

Both articles are in today (Monday's) print edition.

[RBHoya]

Agree that Thamel's bias toward Orr is a factor, however, I enjoyed both articles and think they pretty accurately characterize ol' Gonzo. The guy epitomizes the term "bush league". He's just a total clown and IMO he really has no business in the Big East. I think you can get away with acting like an idiot on the sidelines if you're winning (example Crean at MU) and you can get away with the minor rules violations if you're winning (example Huggins) and you can get away with being an ass to the media if you're winning (example Calhoun) but I don't think it's gonna work for too long if you're a nobody in the Big East and if you're really a nobody nationally like Gonzalez is.

The thing that bothers me most about the guy is that he frequently advocates for his own team at the expense of other teams within the conference. Remember last year when he was publicly bitching about us going to the NIT and not SHU since they beat us head to head? He did the same this year, questioning to the media why teams like Cincy were in the conversation for an at-large bid when SHU wasn't. I mean, if you want to be an advocate for your team that's fine and if you want to play the "The Big East is insanely difficult, we deserve a birth for getting to .500 in this league" card, fine, but don't name names of other teams in your own conference who you think you should be in over, especially when you scheduled absolutely nobody OOC. That's just not done. Guys like Calhoun and Wright have their critics on this board and others but you ALWAYS hear those guys saying complimentary things about other Big East programs. Gonzo just doesn't "get it", he's too absorbed in himself and thinks the world is out to get him. He also has, at several times in his career, gotten into arguments and cursed out and/or flipped off both opposing fans and his own fans at games.

He's definitely the opposing Big East coach I like the least--he's clearly ahead of Boeheim, which is saying something.

[SFHoya99]

Agree that Gonzo is paranoid, but the irony here is that you can make an argument that Pete Thamel is the Gonzo of journalism. He writes hack jobs -- that article was tremendously one-sided full of moral outrage and ignores issues at his Alma mater. He gets into Twitter fights with other journalists, accusing them of throwing softballs to their favorite programs and coaches when he's just as guilty.

[SSHoya]

Here's the entire interview with Manhattan's AD that is not in the print edition:

thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/08/q-and-a-with-manhattan-athletic-director-bob-byrnes/

[DFW HOYA]

Thamel writes in the style of his paper. The Times has often took the ground of the high-brow "at what price victory?" tone that was used to shine the bright light at Binghamton, which fits well with a demographic that probably hasn't attended a football game since prep school.

That having been said, Seton Hall is an easy target. It just cut track and field to drop to the NCAA minumum for Division I participation, is in the process of pushing out its athletic director (one who got into a public feud with Gonzalez), and has a coach who frequently gets under the skin of local sportswriters. All it took was someone in the Times newsroom asking "Is Seton Hall cutting sports to prop up Gonzalez?" and the articles start from there.

Contrast this to the media's view of Norm Roberts, whose St. John's teams haven't even seen the NIT since they beat Georgetown in 2003--the local papers are saying he needs an extra year (his seventh) because St. John's is just around the corner.

P.S. Thumbs down to Manhattan AD Bob Byrnes. There are things athletic directors talk to the press on the record and things he talks about off it. No boss should sit down with a paper and bad-mouth a former employee--it serves no purpose.

[SFHoya99]

No disagreement, DFW.

I just find it odd that UConn can take $1B of taxpayer money to prop up a football program, or Boeheim can fail to graduate an African American player for five years straight and it's crickets out of our self-righteous muckraker.

But when it is a couple of programs that can't fight back, Thamel is Mr. Tough Guy.

[hoyaalf]

The key to Jersey City?

C'mon!!!

[hoyainspirit]

I'm glad he didn't land here! Talk about Hoya Paranoia...

[Big Dog]

One way or another, however, it benefits the Hoyas if Seton Hall becomes a resurgent power--need another school at the top that will never be a potential football partner. Then if the Big Ten blows up the Big East and the Big East needs to add some more football schools to get to 12, a foursome of GU, Marquette, Villanova, and perhaps SHU could beg to tag along for non-football sports. DePaul, St. Johns, and Providence aren't doing us any favors.

[MCIGuy]

Mar 8, 2010 10:30:20 GMT -5 SFHoya99 said:

No disagreement, DFW.

I just find it odd that UConn can take $1B of taxpayer money to prop up a football program, or Boeheim can fail to graduate an African American player for five years straight and it's crickets out of our self-righteous muckraker.

But when it is a couple of programs that can't fight back, Thamel is Mr. Tough Guy.

Co-sign.

[NJHoya95]

I went to the Villanova/SHU game and sat behind the SHU bench. I got to watch Gonzo for the entire game and it was pathetic. The kids on his team play in constant fear of him. If they turned it over, they get yanked. Miss a shot, yanked. Get beaten off the dribble, have a seat. They play the game looking over their shoulder wondering whether they are going to get pulled. Aside from being a bad coach, he is not a guy who is liked by his players. Jeremy Hazel was killing Villanova that game. He had 30 points with 9 minutes to go. He kept them in the game all by himself. With a little more than 4 minutes to go Hazel missed an incredibly difficult, well-defended, ill-advised shot. It was a 1 or 2 possession game at the time. It was a poor shot but the kid was trying to make a play, like he had done all night. Gonzo pulled Hazell for the rest of the game. Needless to say, Nova ran away with the game after that.

We can critique the Princeton offense all we want, but I left that game thrilled that 3 is at GU because he is nothing like Gonzo.

I agree with Big Dog, we should not wish SHU ill. We are more like SHU than we are like Louisville, which just built an gazillion dollar shiny new arena.

[Boz]

Mar 8, 2010 12:36:28 GMT -5 NJHoya95 said:

I went to the Villanova/SHU game and sat behind the SHU bench. I got to watch Gonzo for the entire game and it was pathetic. The kids on his team play in constant fear of him. If they turned it over, they get yanked. Miss a shot, yanked. Get beaten off the dribble, have a seat. They play the game looking over their shoulder wondering whether they are going to get pulled. Aside from being a bad coach, he is not a guy who is liked by his players. Jeremy Hazel was killing Villanova that game. He had 30 points with 9 minutes to go. He kept them in the game all by himself. With a little more than 4 minutes to go Hazel missed an incredibly difficult, well-defended, ill-advised shot. It was a 1 or 2 possession game at the time. It was a poor shot but the kid was trying to make a play, like he had done all night. Gonzo pulled Hazell for the rest of the game. Needless to say, Nova ran away with the game after that.

I don't know. I can think of more than a few Hoyatalkers who sound like they would coach EXACTLY like Gonzo.

;D

I kid because I love. You know that.

[RBHoya]

Mar 8, 2010 11:29:09 GMT -5 Big Dog said:

One way or another, however, it benefits the Hoyas if Seton Hall becomes a resurgent power--need another school at the top that will never be a potential football partner. Then if the Big Ten blows up the Big East and the Big East needs to add some more football schools to get to 12, a foursome of GU, Marquette, Villanova, and perhaps SHU could beg to tag along for non-football sports. DePaul, St. Johns, and Providence aren't doing us any favors.

I used to think this way too, but for me it is impossible to root for Gonzalez. When/if they get a new coach I'll consider it.

Also, while SHU becoming a resurgent power might be good long-term, short term I'm not so sure. If you look at the Big East over the last few years, there are some pretty clear "haves and have nots"--

Haves: Cuse, Pitt, UConn, Villanova, Georgetown, Louisville, WVU, Marquette, ND

Have Nots: SHU, RU, Depaul, USF, PC, St. Johns, Cincy

And it seems to have come to a sort of equilibrium. Since the conference re-alligned in '05-'06, only 1 of the "have nots" has made the tourney (SHU with Orr in the very first year, and they lost quick). All the other bids have gone to the haves.

Frankly, there is not much room to add another "have". The conference can't possibly be putting 10+ teams into the dance every year (with a 64 team field). Therefore I think if a few of the have-nots get their act together and start to be in the mix for NCAA bids every year, it'll be bad news because one or more of the haves is going to have to get bumped down. Which of the haves are most vulnerable? I'd say MU is probably first, but they've looked like they won't miss a beat with Buzz after Crean left. Notre Dame maybe under Brey, but they have a great overall athletic department/athletic tradition and an insane amount of brand recognition. And after that..... I'd say probably us. And since those are all Catholic schools in that mix too, I don't see it being beneficial for SHU to have a resurgence if it means any of those schools fade away.

So, yes, if say Calhoun retires or Pitino goes to the NBA, and their schools make a bad hire, and SHU moves up as a "have" school while one of the football schools fades into the background, then yes, that'd be good. But short of that I am not rooting for anybody to become too upwardly-mobile, because if they do I think somebody is likely to get squeezed out and I'm not 100% confident that somebody wouldn't be us, at least some years.

[lichoya68]

and then there is the FORMER seton hall track team OUCH go hoyas