Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Cajou or Not Cajou?

I think that is the question that most Mountaineer fans are wondering these days as it has sparked some debate here on The FanBlog.


The fact of the matter is, I'm not certain anyone knows for sure. The quotes that Robert Burke made after the game on Monday might lead us to believe that its further away from happening than we thought. I talked with someone after the game Monday - and they had spoken directly with Jean and he assured them he'd be playing again - and seemed excited about it.

I don't know the specifics of what caused Cajou to leave in the first place. I do know that he spent the summer on or around campus and worked out with the team. The decision to leave came just after or right before the start of classes in fall. I was originally told that it wasn't all about basketball.

Since that time there has been a press release from the Mount noting the leave of absence and stating of a hopeful return. At the Blue White scrimmage when Robert Burke introduced the team, he talked about guys who weren't there and he mentioned Jean. Cajou has been spotted at at least 2 of the home games this year. Obviously, the time for a return is upon us.

As I've stated here from the start, my hopes for this are that is resolved in the best way possible for Jean. And I hope that whatever the outcome that he finds peace with his decision and that it all works out well for him. I'm not ready to write the Thanks for the Memories piece on Jean Cajou yet. His career has some unfinished business at the Mount. But if he never wears the white and blue (and gold - who let that happen) again, I'll hope that he finds what he is after.

I don't know if the Cajou situation is directly related to the coaching change. However, there continues to be a feeling around here that if you were Pro-Milan you can't be Pro-Burke. Or if you were anti-Milan you've got to be Pro-Burke. I don't get it. We're all Mount fans. We should unite in that and support Robert Burke - and wish for success for Milan Brown and his staff at Holy Cross. And root for the guys who are playing professionally and support all the players currently in the program. That's what has always been special to me about Mt. St. Mary's and its program. It has always been a close knit organization. Always been an extended family. Always been well supported by the college, the college staff, the students and the community.

Robert Burke and Milan Brown are not the same basketball coach. They are not the same person. But as head coach of Mt. St. Mary's they were/are trying to do the same thing. That is win basketball games and help to shape the futures of young men. They may have different ways to approach that but it doesn't mean that either is right or wrong.

Milan Brown was successful at Mt. St. Mary's. Knowing what I know about him and his staff, they'll be successful at Holy Cross, despite the slow start.

Robert Burke has shown an ability to be competitive with a team that was going to be rebuilding no matter who the coach. I've said before that his first year was a more difficult situation to enter than the one Brown entered. The question of how successful a head coach he will be isn't going to be answered this year.

Whether we liked Coach Brown - and how could you not. He was a good coach and an even better person. Or whether we wanted somebody else hired, when Robert Burke was. If we're Mount fans we need to get behind the people in the program now. We need to continue to support them just as we've supported Coach Brown or Coach Phelan in the past.

The uniforms still say Mt. St. Mary's.

That's who we need to root for.

Send an email to thefanblog@gmail.com

16 comments:

  1. All I'm going to say is December 26th I hope everyone is ready :)

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  2. Anonymous2:05 PM

    Is Sunday. No school, no scheduled events. How relate to Jean?

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  3. Hey Raff, good inspirational piece. I actually do not have one exact problem about the Jean situation or Robert Burke. For me, it is just a culmination of things. Maybe Tony feels similar to me, but in different ways. I have seen quite a number of 'regresses' in the whole shebang at Knott. Yeah, yeah, we went to the tournament, but there were some things in the past few years that were truly a step down from the good old days of the low-mid 90's (McGuthrie Era), also the Harris Era as well. Whether it be the crowd at games to the facilities, the gem of Knott Arena just has not been as shiny in recent years. As far as the coaches- I never much cared for some of Brown's actions, I just liked the style of players he brought in. Now as for Burke, I just predict that he will bring in a blander type of player once he has the whole team as his original guys. The Patriot and Ivy League was never exciting for me to watch and that is the type of team that I predict the Mount will soon be composed of. I could go on and on and write a tome, but people that read this hate when I exceed my word 'limit', so I guess I will not say much. Sometimes, people misinterpret me or even take too much stock in what I say on here. A lot of my anger is coming from my pain and my horrendous living situation currently. In the future that will improve though- the living thing. There fore, there is no debate about Burke and Brown for me.

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  4. As far as Mount support and interest goes.... It is one thing when they have a bunch of true, good, talented players, and another thing if they have a team virtually full of players that are not very talent laden. I just do not believe that there are many truly good Division 1 players on the team, maybe half decent Div. 2 though. In the future with Burke, I predict the players to get less athletic and less exciting with Burke here. It already started with that guy Danaher- a tall goofy white kid that could only do good in a 'Home School' league. he is a Burke prototype too. I hope I am wrong, it is just a prediction. I wish that usually my instincts were wrong, unfortunately that is not the case. If I was so wrong in the past, then maybe I could be more optimistic. They will probably get rich or upper middle class white kids mainly and the same level with any black kids that come to Burke.

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  5. With Brown and Phelan, the Mount at least got some good street ballers at times, and types that had to actually put an effort in to get somewhere in life, with experience of true hard times. Lol, this current angry state of me is stem ming from this halftime score at Northwestern. I mean, damn Get Real! What the heck is up with this sheet going on today? It seems as though they just took a pleasure trip to see Chicago this time or something- maybe go Christmas shopping with their parents on Michigan Ave. Basically they are playing the same as at Loyola, it just so happens that N'Western is much better. They will be lucky today to lose by 50. What the heck is wrong with this team? Very odd, to play so well against American and Penn St., and then the next play the clunkers. Heck, if they do not want to play, then Burke should put Oliver Brown and Dan Kenny in. They are more his type anyway.

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  6. Richard - every once in a while you are on the verge of getting it right, but for the most part you come off as a miserable bigoted (and reverse bigoted) ass.

    First a few facts (to answer some of your statements). In no particular order:

    1. Danaher has moved up from the Home School league and remains a major force. Check his stats, he is playing for Fredericksburg Christian this year. If you are not aware (I'm sure you're not), many of the schools in the DC area with 'Christian' as their second name are very superior in the region and sometimes nationally ranked (see "Montrose").

    2. They lose, yes, with a very poor start, though they had 7 easily makable shots in the first 8 minutes. After the 20 point deficit, they actually outplayed NW. This NW team is a very good team.

    3. Golladay out today, Cajou not here yet, Krajina not quite ready. They are playing with a skeleton crew.

    4. Your references to the best of the past Mount players misses the point entirely. As an example, McGuthrie and Harris are Phelan recruits. The single productive recruit from Milan was Jeremy. Yes, I liked Kelly and Will, but when I look at how they played against good teams, I saw "they simply didn't have it". Talk about Division II players? They defined the term.

    5. So it all boiled down to being lucky with some recruits previously under Phelan and Brown. Get lucky and then just let them do whatever they want. This is not what I see Burke doing.

    6. Burke is coaching the whole team. No on ever looks lost out there. Often the team has looked ineffective, but always it comes down to missing open shots and the damn opposition in so many games has been hitting their shots.

    7. I promise you one of these games something good will happen AND when league play starts, watch out.

    8. Where were you last year bitching about the horrible record under Milan? Did they win 3 games before league play? Did they play well in as many as this year's crop of newbies has?

    I am sorry, but your drivel just angers me. It is negative crap, pure and simple

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  7. Anonymous6:16 PM

    Richard poor misery spreading clod.

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  8. Harry - take it easy on Richard. He has expressed frustration, for sure. Probably suffers as I do because i want to see the great upset. I watched the game today and I wanted so much to see each MSM player perform well. To beat this team, we would have needed a perfect game from about 8 players.

    Shawn (again) not there. Golladay was absent. Everyone missed easy shots early on. We simply can't do that and be close.

    It is just the start. Give us Jean and Kristijan and a little luck (PLEASE!).

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  9. Harry, I know all too well that I am an ass. I really have not yet met many who have told me different. The funny thing is though, is that I am an ass because I am a realist, and just because I do not sugar coat things and say what they want to hear. Miserable maybe I am because I would rather not fantasize and see things to be better than what they truly are. I'd rather be miserable though than be fake- I love the truth, be it negative or positive for me. Most cannot stand anything that is negative for themselves no matter if it is true or not.

    So, you are 'sure' that I am not familiar with high school basketball huh? I will say that I do not follow as thorough as I used to. However, I used to live in Stafford back in 2003 the last and I followed a lot of NOVA sports. In the past I have kept tabs on high school ball too. I know that Montrose was not always a powerhouse, it sort of sprung up out of nowhere a little while back like so many other so called 'prep' schools. As far as Danaher goes- if he is from Fredericksburg or Stafford then most likely he is a transplant along with his well-to-do family. The majority of their population is not true native. It is mainly suburbanite communities composing of people who have gotten degrees and moved there from various parts to get those big money jobs that DC area provides. Try to insult my intelligence all you want, but I know the majority of this country's people operates.


    I am speaking of well-rounded, not specific, but most likely, the only thing that you have that is 'better' than me is more money, considering how you allow yourself to be so riled up at an individual person such as me (do you like those sentence fragments?). Geeze, calm down sir, you seem to be taking the internet way too seriously- a huge downfall for the majority of this country.

    Yes Northwestern is good, but they just lost to a very inconsistent St. John's team pretty bad. Wait til they get into the meat of their conference too. I do believe NW will make history and get in the tourney though. I need to see more accomplishments out of NW against better comp to say how good they may be.

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  10. Continued:

    You must have misinterpreted me about the McGuthrie Harris thing. No sheet, Sherlock they were Phelan's. brown's players had much more talent and ability than you give them credit for. I have heard a few announcers of ACC teams when they played them, say that Kelly was ACC-esque. Granted Will was not that great, I will give you that, but Kelly was an unbelievable athlete. Many BCS conference players are more 'athletes' than 'players' anyway. You are quite delusioned if you say Kelly was Div 2. You should have sat behind their bench and seen how many times Kelly was the only one being vocal, especially last game at RMU. Actually, Brown was never able to get the most out of all the talent he had at times. He babysat Jeremy for most of his career. Jeremy was nothing compared to McGuthrie, no one was , in my time that is.

    I 'bitched' bigtime last year about the horrible record. Raff and others know. I was here don't worry about that sir. one reason we have decided to not go to some away games is because of efforts like at Loyola, Albany, and today. You say the Mount was good today? Halftime it was like 49-16 or something. I have to hit you with a huge ESPN 'C'mon Man' for that one. It is time that the Mount schedules games against teams of the caliber that most of the NEC plays in non-conference. I know they have to acquire money, but a lot of times it has done more harm than good to the psyche of the team by losing so much.

    The bottom line, as King Ray Lewis says, is that you are in love or lust with Burke and are pre-biased, no matter what happens.

    I hope you begin to have a more realistic mentality, instead of living by what or who you like or desire to happen. I have my preferences as well as you do, but I would just rather see an Alex Watson instead of a Chris Cavanagh. Unfortunately, we will probably see more of Cavanagh under Burke.

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  11. Anonymous7:47 PM

    Agreement to Harry. Richard out of it.

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  12. Hey 'k' I do not fault you or anyone for believing that. Between my horrible physical pain and my inability to get along with anyone, due to me being so different, I at times believe that an asylum might be a better abode for me these days too.

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  13. Anonymous7:49 PM

    whitney - dec 26 has come and gone.

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  14. DONT YOU DARE THROW OR 'COMPARE JIM PHELAN' EVER!!!!!!!!!! YOU HEAR RAFF?

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  15. Also, I am not going to pull for any team that is composed of a bunch of white dorks or rich spoiled blacks. That is what the team will eventually be composed of.

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  16. Richard - what do your last 2 comments relate to?

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