Quite clear, if it wasn't before, that Marinatto is a Tranghese mouthpiece

[pepband99]

They're both simultaneously commenting verbatim on:

1) The delay in Pitt / Cuse actually moving
2) Swofford's MSG quotes making them "ill," and both referencing Gavitt when doing so.

It's really sad, and quite clear why this conference is doomed to fail.

 

[noeynox]

Gavitt, Tranghese, Marinatto are all PC guys, and Tranghese said something very telling at the end of his interview on the fan yesterday. That is, that the one thing he was going to do was to make sure he helps Providence.

 

[freescooter]

Tranghese got caught with his pants down, but at least managed to put the league back together. that Marinatto would get caught the exact same way is beyond mind boggling...Even Kevin MacNamarra, his unofficial mouthpiece, called it an indictment of Marinatto's management. I'm still not sure how he got the job. He simply never seemed to have the confidence of the football schools almost at any point, yet they voted for him, or enough of them did to get him the job. He was simply over his head from the first day.

 

[whaler11]

Can someone who is bashing these guys please tell us what they possibly could have done differently? The Big East has been a dead man walking for years. It was just a coincidence of timing that they were able to even get the league to where it was last week.

 

[junglehusky]

Can someone who is bashing these guys please tell us what they possibly could have done differently? The Big East has been a dead man walking for years. It was just a coincidence of timing that they were able to even get the league to where it was last week.

+1

Talk about being handcuffed. In hindsight not re-upping with ESPN proved to be a death sentence, but anybody who says they knew it at the time (even Pittsburgh) is full of poop.

 

[freescooter]

Can someone who is bashing these guys please tell us what they possibly could have done differently? The Big East has been a dead man walking for years. It was just a coincidence of timing that they were able to even get the league to where it was last week.

I asddressed this in another post somewhere,whaler. I agree with you that the Big East has been held together by chewing gum for a while now. And I don't have an issue with Tranghese. He got caught with his pants down, but in his defense, it was a different environment where raids were unexpected. So when Shalala said she was not talking to the ACC, he took her at her word. Bad mistake,but again, given the environment then, league jumping wasn't expected. Then he did manage to put the league back together, at least for a while. As to Marinatto, though, how in heaven did he not have an idea that this was happening, and why didn't he have a plan to deal with it? I'm not sure I by Boeheim's argument that if the Big East had signed the ESPN deal this wouldn't have happened, especially when by most reports Nordenberg was one of those who opposed that deal. he seemed too much of a basketball guy, and his idea of pushing a solution was adding Villanova...good grief. Had he pushed hard enough last year to bring in the Kansas schools , maybe Missouri, it might have worked, too...but he buckled to the basketballers,particularly St Johns and PC and that opportunity was lost. Maybe it doesn't work anyway, but it might have with a hard charging commissioner.

 

[businesslawyer]

I asddressed this in another post somewhere,whaler. I agree with you that the Big East has been held together by chewing gum for a while now. And I don't have an issue with Tranghese. He got caught with his pants down, but in his defense, it was a different environment where raids were unexpected. So when Shalala said she was not talking to the ACC, he took her at her word. Bad mistake,but again, given the environment then, league jumping wasn't expected. Then he did manage to put the league back together, at least for a while. As to Marinatto, though, how in heaven did he not have an idea that this was happening, and why didn't he have a plan to deal with it? I'm not sure I by Boeheim's argument that if the Big East had signed the ESPN deal this wouldn't have happened, especially when by most reports Nordenberg was one of those who opposed that deal. he seemed too much of a basketball guy, and his idea of pushing a solution was adding Villanova...good grief. Had he pushed hard enough last year to bring in the Kansas schools , maybe Missouri, it might have worked, too...but he buckled to the basketballers,particularly St Johns and PC and that opportunity was lost. Maybe it doesn't work anyway, but it might have with a hard charging commissioner.

Having Kansas in the Big EAst doesn't keep Syracuse and Pitt from the ACC. And, if Mizzou had committed, they'd have uncommitted by now with the SEC calling.

 

[whaler11]

But we've heard every rumor under the sun for 3 years. I have not seen a single mention that Pitt and Syracuse were going to the ACC until after it was a done deal. Unless Marinatto should have teased it out Pitt not wanting to sign the ESPN deal, how would he have known what was going on? Most here thought it was brilliant not to sign the ESPN deal when those rumors were flying (I did not because going to Comcast would have been a death sentence).

Villanova was idiotic, but they added TCU and there was not one other school in the country who was worth adding. Pittsburgh didn't like the idea of Villanova? Well it didn't really matter anyway because there were no other options past TCU. Kansas and Missouri stayed with the Big XII. They weren't going to be the ones to walk away from that league when they were under the impression that Texas and Oklahoma were staying. I'm not sure how it's Providence's fault that Missouri and Kansas didn't anticipate that Texas A&M wasn't going to be able to make it 12 months before throwing in the towel.

 

[freescooter]

these rumors have been on the Pitt and Syracuse message boards for a month for heaven sakes. You're the commissioner and you have so little interaction with your members, your friggin' chairman of the board, that you don't have a clue? You don't have a contact within the Syracuse hierarchy? Or Pitt? Sounds like UCONN at least had an inkling this was going down. rutgers too. but the commissioner was caught off guard? Sorry, but that is indefensible. Maybe he couldn't do anything about it, maybe Kansas wouldn't come, and maybe it wouldn't have kept Syracuse and Pitt, but he couldn't even make the offer because he couldn't deliver the basketball schools. Nor could he deliver the football schools after offering a spot to Villanova. He has been a disaster...By the way, I agree with you on the ESPN deal, though. That is a story concocted by Boeheim to cover the Cuse's treachery in this. It is particularly difficult to swallow when you realize that Pitt was one of the leading oppnents of the deal.

 

[whaler11]

Pitt and Syracuse were doing everything in their power to make sure Providence didn't know. If you could go based on message boards, Rutgers would be playing Ohio State in a conference game this week instead of Ohio.

It doesn't really matter if he knew or not. There was nothing he could do to stop them anyway. Providence may have known and are just trying to make Syracuse and Pitt look like the villians by pretending that they didn't.

The Big East office is impotent, but I still don't see why it matters other than it gives people a message board whipping boy.

 

[businesslawyer]

Pitt and Syracuse were doing everything in their power to make sure Providence didn't know. If you could go based on message boards, Rutgers would be playing Ohio State in a conference game this week instead of Ohio.

It doesn't really matter if he knew or not. There was nothing he could do to stop them anyway. Providence may have known and are just trying to make Syracuse and Pitt look like the villians by pretending that they didn't.

The Big East office is impotent, but I still don't see why it matters other than it gives people a message board whipping boy.

You know why the board clings to the need for whipping boys -- because otherwise it would have to realize that what is holding us back from competing for football championships is not Providence or FHCRE but not having enough fans, and the fans we have not buying enough tickets, watching enough games and making enough donations to the program.

 

[FfldCntyFan]

Gavitt, Tranghese, Marinatto are all PC guys, and Tranghese said something very telling at the end of his interview on the fan yesterday. That is, that the one thing he was going to do was to make sure he helps Providence.

The actual quote was "I will always take care of Providence". Much more telling.

 

[gars44]

Can someone who is bashing these guys please tell us what they possibly could have done differently? The Big East has been a dead man walking for years. It was just a coincidence of timing that they were able to even get the league to where it was last week.

whaler, I think you're right, to a point. There is a quality called "leadership," I'm not quite sure how to define it (it's like pornography) but you know it when you see it. I think with a JFK, or a Jack Welch, someone who just exudes leadership, we could have held the football side together, and turned it into something. I'm not going to condemn Marinatto for not being John Kennedy or Jack Welch, that's just not fair, and frankly, I'm not that person nor have I ever been in the company of such a person (except I met Bill Clinton once, and he could work the room pretty good). But Marinatto was just not the guy at all. Not even close to the kind of leader we needed. He's the smart fat kid in class who's really nice but you made fun of. I'm not proud of saying that, but this was not the stewardship that the BE needed, and that's ok, because it's a rare quality, and someone who has it goes to Washington, DC, or Wall Street, and not to Providence, RI. Although it's a nice place, too.

 

[gars44]

The actual quote was "I will always take care of Providence". Much more telling.

And at the end of the day, I don't fault him for saying that, you take care of your family first. I respect that. Swofford is taking care of North Carolina first. I respect that.

 

[J187Money]

You know why the board clings to the need for whipping boys -- because otherwise it would have to realize that what is holding us back from competing for football championships is not Providence or FHCRE but not having enough fans, and the fans we have not buying enough tickets, watching enough games and making enough donations to the program.

Shhh....

 

[gars44]

You know why the board clings to the need for whipping boys -- because otherwise it would have to realize that what is holding us back from competing for football championships is not Providence or FHCRE but not having enough fans, and the fans we have not buying enough tickets, watching enough games and making enough donations to the program.

Look BL, all you're saying is that money talks, bull walks. Old saying. But you can't expect a novice program like Uconn to carry the load on the football side, like it does on the bb side. Novice fans expect, to a certain extent, to be taken care of by their leaders, their elders, as well they should. The leaders/elders in this case were Providence/Syracuse/Pitt. Which is why there is such a strong animosity against BC for what happened last time. They were our brothers, and they were a leader, and they walked out on us. They just walked out the door. Never looked back. That's what hurt. And that's what we have to get over. Re-reading your post, I guess that's what you're saying in a way (maybe I'm wrong), but don't be judgmental about it. It's human nature.

 

[gars44]

You know why the board clings to the need for whipping boys -- because otherwise it would have to realize that what is holding us back from competing for football championships is not Providence or FHCRE but not having enough fans, and the fans we have not buying enough tickets, watching enough games and making enough donations to the program.

And one more thing. You have to have whipping boys. They have always been with us. From the dawn of time, society has created that need. Psychologically, there is a reason for that. It is what allows us to recover and move forward. For over 3,000,000 years, from the time of the hominids, it has seemed to work pretty well.

 

[UConner]

And one more thing. You have to have whipping boys. They have always been with us. From the dawn of time, society has created that need. Psychologically, there is a reason for that. It is what allows us to recover and move forward. For over 3,000,000 years, from the time of the hominids, it has seemed to work pretty well.

There were conferences 3 mm years ago? Hmmm Tribes maybe....

 

[noeynox]

The actual quote was "I will always take care of Providence". Much more telling.

So I'm not the only one that found that comment interesting. I mean I thought Tranghese was actually good, but the BE commish should not place the interests of any one school over the whole of the conference, and I am not saying there is any evidence of that having happened.

 

[huskyrob1]

these rumors have been on the Pitt and Syracuse message boards for a month for heaven sakes. You're the commissioner and you have so little interaction with your members, your friggin' chairman of the board, that you don't have a clue? You don't have a contact within the Syracuse hierarchy? Or Pitt? Sounds like UCONN at least had an inkling this was going down. rutgers too. but the commissioner was caught off guard? Sorry, but that is indefensible. Maybe he couldn't do anything about it, maybe Kansas wouldn't come, and maybe it wouldn't have kept Syracuse and Pitt, but he couldn't even make the offer because he couldn't deliver the basketball schools. Nor could he deliver the football schools after offering a spot to Villanova. He has been a disaster...By the way, I agree with you on the ESPN deal, though. That is a story concocted by Boeheim to cover the Cuse's treachery in this. It is particularly difficult to swallow when you realize that Pitt was one of the leading oppnents of the deal.

I don't think Marinatto cares about anything that's happened in the past 10 days, just like when Tranghese didn't give a 5 years ago. Face facts, Providence College founded and still runs the Big East purely as a showcase and money making venture for college basketball. Yeah, pay lip service to the football schools, throw'm a bone like TCU, but face facts 5 premier football programs have left the league since 2006. Do you think it's coincidence that two of the best coaches in the game today, Rick Barnes and Rick Pitino coached at Providence or that Billy Donovan played there? Marinatto and Tranghese couldn't care less about the problems facing UCONN with respect to it's football program with what's been happening the past 2 weeks.

 

[freescooter]

BL,

Call him a whipping boy. Call him a scapegoat. Whatever you want. But the guy was at the helm when two long time members walked out leaving everyone else scambling. And he got caught by surprise. How can that happen after the last time? It is simply impossible. Read the freaking internet and you'd have seen rumors. if he hasn't got the relationships with the various schools that he can get this kind of information, he shouldn't be inthe job anyway. he can't contact the Pitt adminsitration and get somebody to tell him something? College administrations aren't exactly the CIA, for heavens sake.

I've been saying for a while we need to add teams. You have 8 and lose two, you are screwed. If we had 10 or 12 now, we withstand this realtively easily. And who knows, maybe you don't lose those two. No real way of knowing. But he couldn't bring the basketball schools along with that idea. He proposed Villanova, with a high school stadium and ignored concerns that were raised, but couldn't deliver the votes to add them. He couldn't deliver the basketball schools for anyone else. If I were one of the current Big East members left behind, I'd be calling for his resignation immediately.

I don't hold Syracuse and Pitt totally blameless in this like so many people seem to do, by the way. Texas A&M is slimey, perhaps, but at least they made it very clear what they wanted to do. Nordenberg and Syracuse's President acted in a pretty sleazy manner, in particular Nordenberg, who was chairman of the Big East. Do what's best for your school, of course, but do it up front. They might have wrecked athletic programs at 6 schools and damaged them severely at 7 more since the basketball schools will likely take a big hit in their media deals, too. they ought to be piriahs. Their scheduling ought to be horrible...3 or 4 game road trips, Saturday games followed by Wednesday games followed by Saturday games, every good basketball team on the road...any crappy thing you can do to them. But the fact that they made Fr. Leahy and DeFillipo look honorable doesn't excuse Marinatto in my book. he was a clueless leader with limited imagination and no relationships with the football members that he could count on.

 

[pepband99]

Can someone who is bashing these guys please tell us what they possibly could have done differently? The Big East has been a dead man walking for years. It was just a coincidence of timing that they were able to even get the league to where it was last week.

It's not their actions I'm talking about, really. It's the ineptitude of this conference to handle football appropriately, mostly by electing an endless stream of reps from a basketball-only school. They get elected, and keep the party going for PC. Both Tranghese and Marinatto failed at what should have been their main task, in hindsight. The fact that Marinatto is now essentially parrotting what Tranghese says seems to point to something covert.

 

[businesslawyer]

BL,

Call him a whipping boy. Call him a scapegoat. Whatever you want. But the guy was at the helm when two long time members walked out leaving everyone else scambling. And he got caught by surprise. How can that happen after the last time? It is simply impossible. Read the freaking internet and you'd have seen rumors. if he hasn't got the relationships with the various schools that he can get this kind of information, he shouldn't be inthe job anyway. he can't contact the Pitt adminsitration and get somebody to tell him something? College administrations aren't exactly the CIA, for heavens sake.

I've been saying for a while we need to add teams. You have 8 and lose two, you are screwed. If we had 10 or 12 now, we withstand this realtively easily. And who knows, maybe you don't lose those two. No real way of knowing. But he couldn't bring the basketball schools along with that idea. He proposed Villanova, with a high school stadium and ignored concerns that were raised, but couldn't deliver the votes to add them. He couldn't deliver the basketball schools for anyone else. If I were one of the current Big East members left behind, I'd be calling for his resignation immediately.

I don't hold Syracuse and Pitt totally blameless in this like so many people seem to do, by the way. Texas A&M is slimey, perhaps, but at least they made it very clear what they wanted to do. Nordenberg and Syracuse's President acted in a pretty sleazy manner, in particular Nordenberg, who was chairman of the Big East. Do what's best for your school, of course, but do it up front. They might have wrecked athletic programs at 6 schools and damaged them severely at 7 more since the basketball schools will likely take a big hit in their media deals, too. they ought to be piriahs. Their scheduling ought to be horrible...3 or 4 game road trips, Saturday games followed by Wednesday games followed by Saturday games, every good basketball team on the road...any crappy thing you can do to them. But the fact that they made Fr. Leahy and DeFillipo look honorable doesn't excuse Marinatto in my book. he was a clueless leader with limited imagination and no relationships with the football members that he could count on.

Not that anyone wants to acknowledge that I keep saying this, but I am not saying Marinatto was a good choice or did a good job. In hindsight, I think the Presidents wish they had put more firepower in his chair.

But saying that is totally different than saying that someone else in his chair would have us in a different position today than where we are. And, as I just said to Whisky, each time we waste bandwidth on "he sucks" or "they only care about the basketball schools" (yes -- because the football schools didn't get to vote for the last two presidents) we are discussing something other than what the Big East would actually have to do to put itself in a position where this doesn't happen.

 

[Rumrunner]

Got to give marinate credit. He is still employed. Nothing negative has happened to him or Providence College.

 

[businesslawyer]

Got to give marinate credit. He is still employed. Nothing negative has happened to him or Providence College.

One day, someone will have to explain to me how you or anyone else thinks you are strengthening your argument by making fun of someone's name. Assuming you're not ten.