Seton Hall Fires Head Coach

[Thegreatone]

Zagsblog.com is reporting that Bobby got fired. More to come.

 

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Lutz got fired. He was a scary coach back in the day. His team lost some luster when all the good teams in that conference fled elsewhere. Certainly didn't help him or his program one bit. Shades of things to come for BE football? I hope not.

 

[Not Guilty]

Gary Parrish breaks it down:

Bobby Gonzalaz beat Fred Hill twice this season, and he had a better record, better RPI, better shot at the NCAA tournament, and a better overall team than Hill did, too. By any normal measuring stick, Gonzalez was safe and Hill was on his way out. But Gonzalez is a crazy person who alienated nearly everybody, and Hill is not that at all. So though it came as a surprise, it actually makes sense that the crazy coach was fired Wednesday while the coach with four consecutive losing seasons was retained.

And let this be another lesson to all coaches.

If you didn't learn it from Billy Gillispie, learn it from Bobby Gonzalez.

You can treat people poorly, rant, rave, curse out reporters and enroll prospects with questionable characters, if you want. But if that's the route you take, you'd better be super awesome at winning basketball games. Otherwise, you won't last long. Gonzo is the latest example.

Speaking of, do you remember what I wrote in my Big East preview back in November?

"Bobby Gonzalez has his most talented team to date, and if all goes right the Pirates could make a run at the NCAA tournament. But is it really possible that all goes right? Gonzalez has brought in gifted but questionable-character guys in Keon Lawrence (transfer from Missouri) and Herb Pope (transfer from New Mexico State), and most believe things will blow up, sooner or later. If so, Gonzalez could pay with his job. But if he can somehow blend Jeremy Hazell (22.7 ppg), Robert Mitchell (14.6 ppg and 8.0 rpg) and Eugene Harvey (12.5 ppg) with his newcomers, then this team will finish in the top half of the Big East, for certain."

After I wrote that, Gonzalez called, cursed me out, told me I didn't know what I was talking about, you know, the usual. It was the single strangest yelling match I've ever had with a coach -- and I've had plenty -- because he kept asking why I wrote it was "inevitable" that his team would blow up even though I never used the word "inevitable." I told him that. He told me I was lying. Then we spent the next five minutes arguing about whether the word "inevitable" was even in my Big East preview. As you can see, it wasn't, but Gonzalez could never acknowledge that, for some reason. The call ended with him hanging up on me. He later expressed his displeasure to an SNY reporter, which led to SNY describing a "clash" between me and Gonzalez, which led to me addressing it in the blog.

And now here we are four months later.

And Gonzalez is out of a job.

One questionable-character guy I mentioned in the Big East preview (Keon Lawrence) caused an auto accident while driving the wrong way on the Garden State Parkway in the preseason, the other popped a Texas Tech player in the private parts in Tuesday's loss. Make no mistake, these are the things -- along with Gonzalez's personality -- that led to Wednesday's dismissal. It wasn't the losing. It was the enrollment of troubled prospects who embarrassed the university, and Gonzalez's divisive attitude that routinely did the same. Simply put, Seton Hall was tired of being portrayed negatively by a coach who didn't win enough to make him worth the trouble. So the school took the first step toward fixing the problem, and the first step was to make a change at the top.

 

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Seton Hall will usher in a new era in men’s and women’s basketball Wednesday when the school introduces Kevin Willard as its new men’s coach and Anne Donovan as its latest women’s coach.

Both will be introduced during a joint noon news conference in South Orange, N.J.

Shortly after landing Willard from Iona Sunday morning, Pat Hobbs, the Dean of the Seton Hall Law School, managed to pry the 6-foot-8 Donovan away from the WNBA’s New York Liberty and bring her to Seton Hall as well, ZAGSBLOG.com has learned. Donovan will still coach the Liberty this summer before taking over Seton Hall for the college season.

Both coaches will receive five-year deals. Willard will receive a total compensation package worth “roughly” $1 million per year, with a base salary in excess of $500,000. Donovan’s contract details were not disclosed.

“We are announcing to the world that Seton Hall is going to be competitive in college athletics,” a source within the Seton Hall administration said. Read more…

http://www.zagsblog.com/

 

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TARRYTOWN, N.Y. — When Herb Pope, Jeremy Hazell and Jeff Robinson all said they would test the NBA waters in the wake of Bobby Gonzalez’s firing last month, the immediate future looked bleak for Seton Hall.

After all, those three players accounted for 44 points and 19 rebounds a game last season.

Yet a few weeks removed from those pronouncements, it now looks as if all three players could return to play for first-year coach Kevin Willard.
“Now that I know Coach Willard a little more, now I kind of feel obligated to give him the best chance of me coming back and really look at it,” Pope said Wednesday at the Metropolitan Basketball Writers Association awards banquet.
“He obviously wants me back. He’s excited about me and I’m excited about him. I love his style already and I like him as a person.”

The 6-foot-8 Pope was named to the All-Met Second Team after averaging 11.5 points and a Big East-best 10.7 rebounds.


http://www.zagsblog.com/2010/04/22/pope-hazell-could-return-to-pirates/