At least not this week. Probably not this season.

Still it's never good when the school feels a need to issue a press release saying they have not fired their coach.

Seton Hall University President Monsignor Robert Sheeran issued the following statement on Monday regarding men's basketball head coach Bobby Gonzalez.

"Bobby Gonzalez is Seton Hall's Coach and will continue to be our coach as we move ahead.

"I can assure you all that Coach Gonzalez will continue to strengthen our men's basketball program and will be successful in all those areas that matter to the University, the student-athletes and the fans. He has the full support of my administration in doing this."

Well isn't that reassuring? There were rumors swirling of an imminent firing, that ostensibly prompted the need to comment.

It's another bad week for Bobby Gonzalez. Yesterday he got ripped by his athletic director for writing a column analyzing the NCAA tournament, which came on the heels of getting ripped by his athletic director for driving the wrong way down one-way streets near Seton Hall's campus, and today he got ripped for his behavior during the final Big East game of the year against Rutgers.

He also got suspended by the university for the first Big East game of next season and AD Joe Quinlan pulled no punches when explaining his decision.

"Bobby Gonzalez's criticism of Big East officials following the Seton Hall-Rutgers game on March 9 is unacceptable and is not representative of Seton Hall University athletics. The Big East provides the best roster of game officials for our students in the country. They represent the game and the conference with great integrity and dignity. We regret any embarrassment this episode may have brought to the Big East and our fellow institutions."

It certainly doesn't sound like Quinlan did a lot of tossing and turning over the decision. He and Gonzalez aren't destined for a long-term relationship. Unless he starts winning mighty quickly, I wouldn't put my money on Gonzalez as the last man standing either. You can get away with a lot when you win but Gonzalez hasn't done that and, given the strength of the Big East, it doesn't look like he's poised for a great leap forward.

The first two years of the Bobby Gonzalez era haven't gone all that well for the coach or for Seton Hall. He's only managed a 30-31 record, reportedly exchanged punches with an assistant coach and could face a suspension, the first in Big East history, for his conduct in a late-season loss to Rutgers. Now comes word that the school is angry with their coach but not for any of the things previously listed. It's because he wrote a column for the New York Times with his thoughts on this year's tournament. Seton Hall AD Joe Quinlan explains:

"It could put the individual and the university in a less than favorable position. That's the equivalent of bulletin board material."

What might Pirate opponents use to motivate them next season? Well he picked Georgetown to go to the Final Four, said UConn could upset UCLA and mentioned that Syracuse should have made the field. Hard to see how that ruffles feathers. Honestly, Gonzalez's piece was a run of the mill insider piece that offered about as much bulletin board material as a bus schedule.

If teams pay attention to anything about this year's Seton Hall team, it will be their inability to make or defend shots. They finished 231st and 227th, respectively, in those percentages and are losing Brian Laing, by far their best player. All of which is far more damaging than picking UCLA over North Carolina in the finals.

There's a reason why it took Seton Hall Coach Bobby Gonzalez several years of laboring at Manhattan before getting a chance at a school in a major program. It isn't because he is a bad coach. In 8 years at Manhattan, he won 129 games, won the MAAC regular season title 3 times and the conference tourney twice. In 2004, his Jasper team knocked off 5 seed Florida. That's the sort of thing that usually gets a coach from a smaller program on a lot of "hot lists."

It wasn't because he didn't have the coaching connections. He was a longtime assistant of Pete Gillen at Xavier, Providence and Virginia. He even had famed sneaker camp legend, Sonny Vaccaro pushing him for major jobs as far back as 2003.

It wasn't because he can't recruit. He's tireless and dogged at that.

No, the reason Bobby Gonzalez couldn't get a better offer for years, is simply that the guy comes off as a complete and utter jerk. Maybe he really isn't, but his behavior suggests otherwise.

The season finale against Rutgers completely captured all aspects of why Gonzalez is so intensely disliked by other coaches and fans. Or at least his words after Seton Hall fell 64-61.

It wasn't a good week for Bobby Gonzalez. Reports surfaced that he got into an altercation with one of his assistants a couple weeks earlier -- with fists flying. Despite other sources saying the same thing, the Seton Hall Athletic Department stated they found no truth to the reports that Gonzalez got physical with assistant Scott Adabato.

Then came the St. John's game on Saturday. The Pirates were up 10 with under 5 minutes to go. They not only end up blowing the game to one of the most offensively anemic teams in the Big East, but are kept from clinching a spot in the Big East Tournament with a 65-62 loss. The final injury to the insult of the loss came at the very end where Seton Hall appeared to tie it up with a 60-foot heave from Jeremy Hazell. Except that Gonzalez had called time out, to draw up a play. Whoops.

Citing "two independent sources," The Big Lead is reporting that Seton Hall head basketball coach Bobby Gonzalez had a halftime fight with an assistant coach during a game last weekend. The Big Lead's report follows up on an ESPN.com report that "a Big East coach who shall remain nameless" had a fight with an assistant.

I spoke with Seton Hall Assistant Athletic Director for Athletic Communications Matt Sweeney this afternoon; he had no formal comment about the reports but told me that he attends every Seton Hall men's basketball game and had never heard anything about it.

The ESPN.com report, from the well regarded college sports writer Pat Forde, said that the unnamed coach "recently got into a halftime argument with one of his assistants in a hallway outside the locker room. According to a source, it escalated to the point where punches were thrown."

The Big Lead says two sources confirmed a confrontation between Gonzalez and an assistant on February 17, as Seton Hall was headed to the locker room for halftime, trailing West Virginia 45-30. But the report said the sources disagreed on the extent of the confrontation:

one source claims it was a very heated argument and other assistants intervened before punches were thrown; the other source claims punches were thrown

As The Big Lead notes, Gonzalez is a personable coach who is well liked by the media, and that could keep this bizarre story from having legs. But it sure sounds like a story that the college basketball media should be all over.

Seton Hall has been one of the hottest teams in the Big East for the past two weeks. The big issue for them has been a lack of depth. They have some young talent and a good coach in Bobby Gonzalez, but they only go about 7 deep. They have two players who average over 36 minutes per game. The other problem for the Pirates is that they have no real inside presence. Against teams that play in the paint and have size, they just can't compete. It happened earlier against Pitt and Georgetown was more of the same. Georgetown won 73-61.

The Hoyas just pounded it inside. Seton Hall just kept falling further and further behind as the game continued. Trying to stay close, but didn't have the shooting.

Jeremy Hazell, who lit up Louisville last week from outside, couldn't find a bucket but kept firing (2-12 on 3s). Brian Laing and Eugene Harvey did what they could with 37 points combined, but the rest of the Pirates could only contribute 24 points on 7-29 shooting.

For Georgetown, it was workmanlike efforts from Roy Hibbert who had 16 points and 8 rebounds. Patrick Ewing, Jr. also had 16 and played great defense. Georgetown's one issue was struggling again on outside shooting, but didn't need to worry about it today.

There are 10 teams in the Big East that are + or - 1 game of .500 in conference play through Sunday. Georgetown has been the only team near the top to start getting some real separation. On the other end, USF and St. John's are well on their way to assuring themselves of not making a trip to Madison Square Garden for the Big East Tournament.

Teams having the best week: Rutgers and UConn. The Scarlet Knights knocked off two top-25 teams for the first time in 5 years. The Huskies beat Marquette and #7 Indiana on the road showing that the potential of the young team is starting to be scratched.

Teams having the worst week: Villanova and St. John's. Blitzed by Rutgers and then lost at home to Notre Dame to slide below .500 in the conference. St. John's just doesn't look like they even want to compete after a certain point.

We all have slips of the tongue at times, but announcer Jim Spanarkel, speaking with Seton Hall coach Bobby Gonzalez commits a rather bad one:

It sounds like a typical post-game interview, as Gonzalez says about Seton Hall's fans, "The emotion, the energy, the buzz in the building, just spectacular, they were our sixth man, and it really was a special, special win for them."

And then Spanarkel says, "Congratulations. Continued good sex in the -- ugh, sex -- in the Big East." He was trying to say "success," but he never did quite manage to say it.

Video via Ballhype.

UPDATE: Thanks to the commenter who informed me of the announcer's name.

A Rick Pitino coached team has never suffered a loss to Seton Hall. Wherever he was coaching, if his team played Seton Hall it would be a win. The Cardinals looked like they were rounding into form on both ends of the court. They had won 4 straight and in their last 3 games, they held opponents to just over 51 points per game.

Seton Hall hardly looked good. They had finally gotten their first conference win against woeful USF, but outside of a November win over Virginia they had 0 wins over quality opponents. The Pirates lack of size inside has killed them against teams like Pitt and UConn. Now they had to face Louisville with Palacios, Padgett and Caracter.

Several times it looked like Louisville was going to blow the game wide open. They had 12 point leads twice in the first half, and a 14 point lead with a little more than 12 minutes left in the game. Each time, the Pirates made big charges to get close. At halftime, the Cardinals only had a two point lead.