Congrats to Mo Cassera

[stuball888]

On becoming a father for the second time

[triplec2195]

Hmmm Mo who?? You mean Cassara Stu the coach who under his watch we had the biggest basketball scandal around. I don't want to point fingers probably a nice guy and his wife Elisa DiStefano was a regular at the games when he was here a channel 12 reporter. No more coaching jobs for him I guess just a play by play guy?

[stuball888]

He owns two restaurants in point lookout

[HUSID74]

Real good guy...terrible situation at Hofstra but he has bounced back strong and has built a great life on LI...Congrats to Mom and Dad!

[The Shadow]

Our old friend Mo and his staff set the HU Program back at least a few seasons. I remember that Coach Joe had only 4 scholarship players when he arrives 6 years ago. I think HU has finally progressed past the horrible publicity from that time.

[Wags]

Hmmm Mo who?? You mean Cassara Stu the coach who under his watch we had the biggest basketball scandal around.

Or the coach who guided Hofstra to its only CAA regular season title so far.

As for the scandal, I wouldn't put that on Mo. No coach knows what his players are doing every minute. He had no way to know what was going on. Shaquille Stokes had me fooled. I thought he was a nice guy.

[stuball888]

The ring leader was the guard from Lincoln High school. I remember his mother was a piece of work calling all of Nassau county a racist county

[Hof_Judge99]

Who cares. One thing about Mo is that he would’ve fouled in that situation at the end of the game yesterday. Really about the only good thing about him.

[Wags]

Who cares. One thing about Mo is that he would’ve fouled in that situation at the end of the game yesterday. Really about the only good thing about him.

I'll say that in terms of the point of this thread, whatever you think of him as a Hofstra coach, he's a good guy. THAT is a very good thing about him and he deserves to be congratulated with his wife on the birth of their child. I wish them all the best.

[daHUPride]

Good guy - put in a bad situation with some bad kids - forced to change careers and did himself fine after all.

[triplec2195]

Hmmm Mo who?? You mean Cassara Stu the coach who under his watch we had the biggest basketball scandal around.

Or the coach who guided Hofstra to its only CAA regular season title so far.

As for the scandal, I wouldn't put that on Mo. No coach knows what his players are doing every minute. He had no way to know what was going on. Shaquille Stokes had me fooled. I thought he was a nice guy.

The only time we won a CAA regular season title to the best of my knowledge was under Joe in Juanya's senior year and we were tied with UNCW that year. We went on to play for the championship and lose in O/T to UNCW. Wags do u know something I should know?? Not trying to turn this into a contentious post thread and congrats to him and his wife of course. It's just that right or wrong when you hear the name Mo Cassara there is definitely a stigma attached to that name as it applies to Hofstra basketball.

[hualum]

he's a great guy.

[Wags]

Hmmm Mo who?? You mean Cassara Stu the coach who under his watch we had the biggest basketball scandal around.

Or the coach who guided Hofstra to its only CAA regular season title so far.

As for the scandal, I wouldn't put that on Mo. No coach knows what his players are doing every minute. He had no way to know what was going on. Shaquille Stokes had me fooled. I thought he was a nice guy.

The only time we won a CAA regular season title to the best of my knowledge was under Joe in Juanya's senior year and we were tied with UNCW that year. We went on to play for the championship and lose in O/T to UNCW. Wags do u know something I should know?? Not trying to turn this into a contentious post thread and congrats to him and his wife of course. It's just that right or wrong when you hear the name Mo Cassara there is definitely a stigma attached to that name as it applies to Hofstra basketball.

Wow, I honestly can't believe I said that. Where was my brain?! This is what happens when you don't sleep enough. I think I meant that at the time, Cassara had guided Hofstra's to its best finish ever in the CAA (tied for 2nd with ODU - they had never finished that high in the league before - prior to ODU beating HU in the CAA semis that year, in 2011 - and I was courtside for that, in Richmond, as well as for the 2016 finals in Baltimore when Joe and HU lost as the 1 seed to UNCW, so you'd think I'd remember!!)

What I do remember is that Hofstra, even when getting the 1 seed three years ago, has never cracked 14-4. They've finished as high as that four times (the at-large snub year in '05-'06, the following year, and the two years mentioned above with Mo and Joe). So if they can get these last two on the road, they'll go at least 15-3 for the first time in their 18 years in the conference.

Now, if I can just remember my address or my middle name.

[HofstraMathew]

Congrats to Mo!! We also have to remember he was thrust into this coaching position after Walsh had the incident (Dui or DWI??) on Hempstead Turnpike.

[Polito]

A few things on this thread:

1). Congrats to Mo and Elisa, God bless!
2). Mo as a person and at heart seems to be a great guy - have met them, and eaten at one of their restaurants, positive all around.
3). I believe he fell to the pressures of:
A). Being thrust into the HC position before he was ready after Welsh was canned days into his employment.
B). Proving it was the right move by the admin, and taking some recruiting chances to gain a hopeful big reward.
C). Extreme inexperience to handle all that the HC role encompasses, including the recruiting process.
4). As the head man, of ANY organization, the buck stops with you. What happened was a very unfortunate incident, and no coach can know every minute of every players lives. HOWEVER, when things happen under your watch, fair or not, you are going to take the hit and the blame. That's what being a leader is, just part of the job.
5). As the HC, he absolutely carries the responsibility to recruit properly. All programs take chances on guys, but there has to be a limit at this level. I can guarantee you few to none of those involved would've ever made it past this current staffs vetting process. As Stu noted, when the family is an issue, you can bet it has trickled down in some way. This wasn't "put" on him, he wasn't totally clueless, he brought these young men in and unfortunately paid the price for their actions.
6). This doesn't mean that Mo is the 100% reason why. He also had assistants that he trusted to help eval and coach up properly. That means on and off the floor. AND ultimately these young men were ADULTS, made their own poor choices, lied to most around them, and this is on them when it's all said and done.

Bit of a perfect storm, it set HU back a lot, and really sucked for all involved. I have no ill will towards Mo, he loved HU, best of luck to him and his family!

It was a tough spot for HU, what Welsh did really screwed everyone up, and they certainly didn't have a lot of time to find a suitable replacement...but they really took the cheap easy way out and pushed a young new assistant into a very deep challenging role before he was ready. Admin also has to take some blame here.

Thankfully I also feel this is ancient history, rarely ever referenced anymore, and the HU program has been righted - JM & Co. had a brutal job to do, and did so with grace and success. I am proud to now say that the HU basketball program year after year showcases some incredible student athletes and citizens.

[Captain]

Well put Polito. You nailed this on every level.
Even 1 bad apple can influence freshmen who are on their own for the 1st time. You do have to recruit what you think are pretty good citizens. Having said that you don't live with the kids in the dorm and in most colleges, freshman year especially some stupid things happen and not just involving athletes.
This was a huge embarrassment to the program and it appears the new regime is committed to greater scrutiny in recruiting and perhaps ongoing during the school year. A great turn around and coach's successor will need to be held to this standard. We want to be proud of their athletic accomplishments and their real decency on and off the court.

[Wags]

A few things on this thread:
4). As the head man, of ANY organization, the buck stops with you. What happened was a very unfortunate incident, and no coach can know every minute of every players lives. HOWEVER, when things happen under your watch, fair or not, you are going to take the hit and the blame. That's what being a leader is, just part of the job.

I don't disagree with this, and it's a huge part of why he got fired - that, and winning as many DI games (six) as Hofstra had player arrests during Mo's final year at HU. But before we think it's so easy for a coach to judge the character of players, I'll tell a short story. I think I can usually be a decent judge of character, and after Shaquille Stokes hit that long, buzzer-beater 3 to beat Nate Wolters' South Dakota State team, I interviewed him. He was smiling and was very personable and likeable. He told me the main reason he transferred to Hofstra from Hawaii was that he wanted to come back home and be near his grandmother, whom he was very close with. I thought... nice guy, good player, glad he's playing for HU. A short time later, I find out about the scandal, he's arrested, and he's kicked off the team. So as much as we say the buck stops with the coaches (and yes, it does, fair or not), and they should know these things, it's not always so easy to pick out the bad apples from the good ones. And we should never assume that "they should have known." Coaches are sometimes just as surprised as the rest of us when their players turn out the way Stokes and his co-horts did.

Speaking of the number six, it's also been that many years since Mo was let go. So, do some of us here still need to be piling on (not you, Polito, though I'm responding to your post)? Mo was (rightly) fired for what happened (the arrests and losing so many games) under his watch. He moved on, he's a good guy. HU has moved on and is now having success. Let's let it go and not make Mo out to be some kind of bad guy that willingly allowed the program to be destroyed. The ones who did that more than anyone are the criminals who played for him. Yet, I see less blame pointed in their directions than toward Mo, and that's just wrong.

[HU76]

I blame the Administration. He should have never been hired.

[Wags]

I blame the Administration. He should have never been hired.

Maybe a much greater lack of judgment on its part for this than on Mo for trusting those players. But then, I also give the administration somewhat (not a complete) pass on that, too. Instead, where's the blame for Welsh? The administration gave Welsh a five-year contract. They didn't expect to have to scramble around and have to replace him a month later because Welsh couldn't remain mature enough not to drink so much before driving that he passed out at a green light, slumped over his steering wheel on Hempstead Turnpike.

There's a parallel there. Yes, the buck stops with Mo. Yes, the administration (on short notice) MAYBE could've found a more experienced and better coach (when every school had already hired theirs). But Instead of: Let's blame Mo! Let's blame the Administration! How about: Let's blame the idiot players who got arrested and the idiot coach who could've killed someone or himself, and who's very lucky he didn't. At some point, you can't put too much blame on those in charge for things they didn't do. At some point, some players and coaches have to act like adults and have to act in such ways that they can be trusted by those who are in charge of them, who in turn, end up taking the fall for others who act moronically or even criminally.

[Jojogunne]

Congratulations to the Cassara family!

https://twitter.com/COACH_MOCASSARA/sta ... 2671877120