St. John’s basketball: Johnnies decide on Mike Anderson as next coach
By Ed Stein
The search to replace Chris Mullin as the head coach of St. John’s basketball took many turns on a short road. The journey ends with Mike Anderson.
The search to replace Chris Mullin as St. John’s basketball coach has been a rough road with plenty of twists and turns for athletic director Mike Cragg. Two weeks ago, he probably thought he’d wouldn’t be in this position when he publicly supported his man saying “Chis Mullin is our coach.”
It was a shock to many when the school and it’s all-time greatest player parted ways on April 8. I was as big of a Mullin critic as there was. In my opinion, Chris Mullin was a better player and NBA executive, than he was an “X’s and O’s” man. When Cragg announced Mullin was still the guy, it looked like he got another season to prove himself.
Since then Cragg has been under the media microscope. He began a national search and got rejected by candidates more than the geeky boy at school asking cheerleaders out on a date. An early favorite, Arizona State’s Bobby Hurley didn’t pan out. Mid-major coaches such as Tim Cluess at Iona and Porter Moser from Loyola-Chicago told Craig “no.” After that, he A.D. went in a different direction than expected
By all indications, former Arkansas Razorbacks coach Mike Anderson is set to take over the St. John’s basketball program. No one was expecting the Johnnies to go after a high profile former SEC head coach.
Anderson is a great coach with an outstanding resume. He is an excellent hire by Cragg and the Red Storm. In this Easter season, St. John’s has hired a man known for resurrecting basketball programs. He did it first at Alabama-Birmingham, then at Mizzou, and most recently at Arkansas. I have personally born witness to one of these revivals.