What if St. John’s doesn’t lose at the buzzer in the 1st round of the 2010 NIT at Memphis.  What if they win at the buzzer instead? And then go on a semi-magical run all the way to Madison Square Garden and beat North Carolina.  Does Norm get fired? Does Steve Lavin ever get to check out real estate in New York City this spring?

What if everything doesn’t snowball into one week Seton Hall fans will never forget?  Punches, ejections, technical fouls and arrests.  Do the cards play out the same way?  Or does Kevin Willard return to Iona for a 4th season instead of beginning his reign at Seton Hall?  And then does Tim Cluess never leave CW Post for his dream job of coaching Division 1 basketball at Iona. And current CW Post head coach Chris Casey (formally of St. John’s with Norm Roberts) is most likely unemployed this season.

What if the ball bounces another way back in that April baseball game between Pitt & Rutgers?  What if the ball bounces in favor of Fred Hill Sr.’s team….not Pitt?  What if the umpire makes a different call?  Fred Hill is most likely coaching against Jim Calhoun this winter and Mike Rice is most likely coaching against Dan Hurley at Wagner this winter.

What if Tim Welsh catches a cold that day and never decides to go out for a few drinks?  Everything is most likely great in Hofstra land and Tim Welsh is house hunting today in Long Island.  Instead, Hofstra’s head basketball coach is Mo Cassara.  Cassara was unemployeed last month because he worked for Al Skinner at Boston College. He was working the phones and sending his resume everywhere. He was calling everyone he knew and bracing himself for the possibilty of unemployement.  Today, he wakes up as the head coach of a great mid major program.

Sometimes this world of college basketball defies logic.  It’s not about the recruiting classes, or the GPA’s, or the zone offenses.

Sometimes it is how the stars are aligned….how the course of events play out….and the right and wrong decisions of others.

We will never, ever forget the crazy coaching carousel of 2010, will we?

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