How to revive New York area’s struggling college hoops scene

This is the kind of week that rekindles the seemingly eternal discussion of what is wrong with college basketball in the New York City area.

On Tuesday night, bubble team St. John’s was routed in a very important game against Georgetown. At the same time, unraveling Seton Hall watched guard Sterling Gibbs shockingly club Villanova’s Ryan Arcidiacono in the face during the Pirates’ fifth straight loss. Thursday night, Rutgers is widely expected to absorb its 10th straight loss, at home against Iowa.

Times are hard. Have been for a while. Last time one of those three programs made the NCAA tournament was 2011. Last time one of them won an NCAA tournament game was 2004.

In one of the game’s most celebrated locales, that’s embarrassing. I talked to several people this week who are familiar with the New York college hoops scene, and one word kept coming up: “sad.”

But instead of traveling down the well-worn laundry list of what’s gone wrong, it’s time to ask: Who can make it right?

The current coaches do not seem like strong candidates to lead the long-awaited revival.

Steve Lavin has just one year left after this on his original six-year contract at St. John’s, and while there were reported discussions of an extension last year, nobody is saying anything about it now. He’s one game under .500 in the Big East, and his only NCAA bid was in his first season when working with Norm Roberts’ leftovers. After leaving an ESPN TV gig, Lavin has been characterized as a low-motor guy in a job that demands a high-motor rebuilder. If the Jonnies don’t earn an NCAA bid next month, it’s hard to see Lavin being retained.

“I don’t think Steve Lavin is a great coach, quite frankly,” said New York Post columnist Mike Vaccaro, who has watched the Red Storm far more than most city columnists, who fixate on the pro sports.

Fifth-year Seton Hall coach Kevin Willard is probably safe, despite the current team’s tailspin out of NCAA tourney contention. Willard basically brought his old boss at Iona, Pat Lyons, with him to be athletic director at Seton Hall, and by all reports Willard has his support. And while Willard had some major recruiting successes within the last year, some wonder what the collateral damage from that has been in terms of team chemistry. Willard has a lot of friends and admirers in the coaching business, but in his eighth season as a head coach, he’s never been to the NCAA tournament and has a lifetime 56-84 record in conference play.

NJ.com columnist Steve Politi fired a missile at Willard this week, calling him “a coach who has lost control of his program, and one who seems incapable of turning his index finger around and pointing it at himself when things go bad.”

Eddie Jordan has at least not done anything to embarrass Rutgers – well, at least since he was hired without having his degree. He hasn’t put himself in the headlines the way former coach Mike Rice and athletic director Julie Hermann have. But his record in nearly two full seasons is 22-37, and after this season he loses his two best players, seniors Miles Mack and Kadeem Jack. The Scarlet Knights are miles from competing in the Big Ten, but Jordan assuredly will get more time.

Vaccaro said current ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla was the last New York-area, major-college coach who checked all the boxes.

“I thought he was the perfect embodiment of what you need,” Vaccaro said. “He understood the culture and how to recruit the city, and he was a good coach.”

Since the New York native and former coach at Manhattan and St. John’s probably isn’t walking back through that door, maybe he knows what it takes.

“You need the kind of people skills where you can relate to everyone,” Fraschilla said. “From Wall Street bankers to AAU guys to the handlers to the high school coaches – anybody who will influence kids to stay home. Politician sounds like a negative word, but you do need to be able to get along with all kinds of people. Because in New York, all those people are part of the basketball culture.”

The answer could be this simple: hire a Hurley.

The brothers Hurley are in the neighborhood, and they’re winning at places where they probably shouldn’t be. In his third year at Rhode Island, Danny has the Rams (18-6) tied for the lead in the Atlantic-10 and improbably in the NCAA tournament mix with a team built on freshmen and sophomores. In his second year at Buffalo, Bobby has the Bulls (16-9) in Ken Pomeroy’s Top 75 – where they have finished the season just once in 13 years – and also in Jeff Sagarin’s top 80.

The bloodlines are impeccable – sons of legendary Jersey City (N.J.) St. Anthony coach Bob Hurley. The family name carries weight throughout the New York area. It would immediately open pathways in the rapidly shifting recruiting landscape.

“Basketball in the city is not as good as it was,” Fraschilla said. “More and more players are heading to prep schools at an earlier age, and they’re being exposed to life outside New York City. They’re more likely to go to college outside the city. Usually it’s 50-50. For every player that wants to get away, there’s a player who wants to stay. The ones who want to stay are the guys you need to concentrate on. There are enough of them to win with.”

The Hurley boys wouldn’t need directions to the Gauchos gym, or any of the other must-hit spots in the city. Being Bob’s sons certainly doesn’t hurt – but they have created their own identities outside of their father’s.

First, they were standout players – Bobby at Duke and Danny at Seton Hall. Now they’ve earned their stripes as coaches.

Danny coached high school ball in New Jersey at St. Benedict’s Prep for nine years, winning more than 90 percent of his games. Then he turned around Wagner in two years, and now has done the same at Rhode Island – and he’s done it without tapping a pipeline to St. Anthony players. Older brother Bobby was slower to join the family business, finally becoming an assistant to Danny at Wagner and then Rhode Island before getting the job at Buffalo. His immediate success there (35-19 in nearly two seasons, 20-11 in the Mid-American Conference) has frankly caught some by surprise.

If the bigger New York schools aren’t looking hard at the Hurleys – Danny first, Bobby second – they should be. Because someone else outside the metro area inevitably will.

Danny Hurley can afford to be more selective if he so chooses – he has Rhode Island on track to be an annual NCAA tournament team, which it hasn’t been since the late 1990s. Bobby, too, should have his best Buffalo team next year.

As a coaching candidate, Danny may have outgrown his home state – he almost assuredly can get a better job than his alma mater, or the sinkhole that is Rutgers. St. John’s would be the intriguing one for him.

There are other candidates in the neighborhood who would merit consideration – namely the two guys who have had the most success in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference in recent years, Tim Cluess of Iona and Steve Masiello of Manhattan. Cluess has a deep St. John’s pedigree – he and his three brothers played there, before Tim finished up at Hofstra. Masiello, overcoming his own no-college-degree fiasco that cost him the South Florida job last year, is thoroughly wired into the New York recruiting scene.

So there are options, if the sagging New York-area schools choose to exercise them. Or they can stay the course –– but the glory days are slipping further into the recesses of memory. They’re nothing but vague stories and low-definition highlights to the current New York players, who need a fresh reason to stay home and revive their city.

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