Although Hofstra has been called the "Harvard of Hempstead," let's not pretend its admission standards affect its men's basketball program that much. Hofstra gets its fair share of transfers too, and I don't see a large portion of the basketball team joining the many other Hofstra student athletes when they're honored for getting 3.0's.ProudofPride wrote:Iona accepts nearly 90% of applicants which is horrible, might as well be a community college at that point. Have to wonder how good Cluess would do as a coach if the school had real admissions standards and wasn't able to accept every transfer that comes along. A lot of players at Iona probably get can't in anywhere else,
I also wonder what kind of "admission standards" were set for the six guys who were arrested during the same season (not that long ago). Or were they pretty much coddled and easily pushed through because they could play basketball? Not assuming, but a reasonable question. And and course there were the pot-related suspensions for Apodaca and Gibson going back much further. Maybe they did what was required of them to get in to Hofstra, or maybe they only had to meet "other standards" so they could play basketball. We should remember those things before we puff out our chest about Hofstra relative to a school like Iona.
Cluess also has a lot of connections in this area. I'm sure he could have recruited just fine at Hofstra without "admission standards" getting in his way. Oh, and since he played at Hofstra, I'm pretty sure he would have LOVED to coach there, not to mention that with that background, it would've been easy to market him as the new coach back then.
So now we've heard that Iona supposedly broke the bank for Cluess when they first signed him (which they didn't) and that Iona gets players Hofstra couldn't have with Cluess because of higher admission standards at Hofstra. I mean, at some point, while we can defend the program to outsiders with pride (yes, pun intended), we internally can't ALWAYS be apoogists for the program. It's OKAY to be honest with ourselves about results, to offer constructive, honest criticism, to admit (and not continually excuse) some past wrongs and to not defend EVERY thing the program does. That's the only real way to make true progress instead of repeating the same disappointing results.