St. John’s booster rips school to shreds on radio over disastrous coaching search

The recruiting period is underway and St. John’s still doesn’t have a head coach, which led one major booster to throw the program under the bus on WFAN.

It’s been over two weeks since Chris Mullin stepped down as head coach, but St. John’s is nowhere close to finding a replacement.

The Red Storm’s bumbling attempt to find a new coach is making UCLA’s muddled hiring of Mick Cronin look good and the process is wearing thin with some of the program’s biggest boosters.

Mike Repole, a St. John’s alum who was the founder of Vitamin Water and has donated significant money to the school, went on WFAN this afternoon to discuss the state of the program with Mike Francesa, a fellow St. John’s alum.

The discussion turned into an airing of grievances as Repole unloaded on St. John’s, calling the program a “national embarrassment.”

Repole’s vitriol inspired this great running thread on Twitter from college basketball insider Adam Zagoria.

Another college hoops insider, Jon Rothstein, also weighed in on the scorched earth that Repole left in his wake.

Repole left no stone unturned, claiming that St. John’s was too cheap to make Bobby Hurley a legitimate offer to leave Arizona State and that the administration is blocking athletic director Mike Cragg from hiring another one of his top choices, Iona’s Tim Cluess.

Cluess is a St. John’s alum and reportedly views the Red Storm as his dream job, but there are significant factions at the school reportedly opposed to his hire.

St. John’s offered the job to Loyola of Chicago’s Porter Moser a few days ago, only to watch Moser reject an eight-year deal to remain with the Ramblers.

Cluess remains on the fringes of the search, but given the resistance the administration has shown it appears unlikely he will land there either. Then there’s this . . .

That’s right, UMBC head coach Ryan Odom has no interest in the job either. We have reached the point where being the head coach of UMBC is more desirable than going to St. John’s, a Big East program that plays some home games at Madison Square Garden and is based in New York City.

The names being kicked around for this job aren’t very inspiring, with Tulsa’s Frank Haith, Yale’s James Jones and Oklahoma State’s Mike Boynton being linked to the opening today.

Rick Pitino, who threw his hat into the ring at one point, endorsed former NBA coach Mark Jackson for the post on Twitter today.

The fact that the search has gotten so embarrassing that a booster is throwing the school under the bus on the radio is pathetic and a reflection of how far St. John’s has fallen. Any candidate with options is going to take a look at this situation and stay far, far, away.