Newsday.com
St. John's should consider Davidson's Bob McKillop
Arthur Staple
10:51 AM EDT, March 31, 2008
Bob McKillop will be 58 in a few months, and next season will be his 20th at Davidson. He still has the Queens accent, still talks like a coach putting the basketballs away at Lutheran for the season instead of wrapping up one of the dream runs in NCAA Tournament history.
"My father was a New York City cop," he said in Ford Field Sunday night, after Davidson fell one last shot shy of beating Kansas to reach the Final Four. "He used to always tell me to polish the backs of my shoes, because that's the last thing people see of you."
McKillop wasn't a serious candidate for the St. John's job 10 years ago, even though he had the local pedigree and a decade in at Davidson, where he was starting to put the Wildcats on the small-school map. The Red Storm had lots of people interested in a program filled with star players that Fran Fraschilla had brought in, and the school wanted a splashy name.
John Calipari was very much in the mix then. Mike Jarvis was the choice. It didn't go so well, needless to say. So, while Jarvis bristled at St. John's non-competitive facilities and let most of the city and the Island's best players leave town for college, McKillop's squad thrived.
When the Red Storm job came open again in 2004, McKillop wasn't even mentioned, even though the school needed an upright, hard-working coach to clean up the mess that Jarvis left behind.
Norm Roberts has cleaned things up, but he hasn't won. McKillop, with players from all over the globe, has a sterling reputation at Davidson and he's won. And won.
Will St. John's retiring president, Fr. Donald Harrington, make the right call after next season? Roberts will finish out his contract, but he's a dead man walking unless he can get his young team to play consistently better. Way better, actually - it would take a run to the NCAA Tournament to keep Roberts on board.
The temptation for St. John's, which still fancies itself a major program despite Madison Square Garden being emptier and emptier for the games the it plays there, will be to get a marquee name. To shoot for the moon once again - Bobby Knight, maybe?
I'm not saying McKillop is the answer, or that he'd even be interested in a year. Stephen Curry is a special player, but would he be as special and would McKillop be able to drive his team to play as hard as it does facing Big East competition? Tough call there. Curry understandably looked a little beat at the end Sunday night.
But McKillop has two things working for him: He's a good coach and he can find talent. He wouldn't have to look quite as far and wide as he has at Davidson, but St. John's could do with some reinvention. Jarvis gave up trying to recruit and build; Roberts has been hamstrung by not being able to build the squad he wants.
McKillop finished his remarks Sunday night in Detroit by thanking the media, of all things. "I'd be remiss if I didn't say thanks to the media for how clearly, how candidly, how professionally they have presented us, and the integrity with which they've presented us," he said. "That's a pretty good marriage. So I'm expecting that we'll capitalize on it."
He meant Davidson. Maybe it's for him, too.
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