WE’VE become spoiled. We’ve lost our perspective.
St. John’s is exactly where it should be after Saturday’s 78-74 loss to Connecticut. Clearly, we have forgotten just how far this program has come so fast.
Two years ago St. John’s was fighting for a berth in the postseason NIT. The NIT for crying out loud.
The Red Storm wasn’t listed in anyone’s pre-season Top 25. They weren’t picked to win the Big East. They were picked fourth. Fourth. Yet when the Red Storm took a 12-point lead over the Huskies Saturday, some reporters on press row were speculating on how high they would climb in the polls. The Top 5, was mentioned.
Top 5? Have we all run out of Prozac?
St. John’s, which is 17-5 overall and 8-2 in the Big East, has surpassed anyone’s expectations, except perhaps its own.
This is a team with a new coach that had to replace the third and fifth leading scorers in school history in Felipe Lopez and Zendon Hamilton.
This is a team with one, count ’em, one senior – Tyrone Grant.
This is a team with a freshman point guard, albeit an amazingly mature and talented one, in Erick Barkley. This is a team with a junior college transfer (Albert Richardson) and a true freshman (Donald Emanuel) trying to play center against guys named Elton Brand and Tim Young and Jake Voskuhl.
If prior to the season we told you that St. John’s would have made it to the Preseason NIT semifinals and would have an NCAA Tournament berth locked up weeks before the Big East Conference tournament was to begin, anyone with a Red Storm sweater would have been thrilled.
If prior to the season we told you each of the five losses would be to Top 25 teams by a total of 16 points, any St. John’s fan would have called the season a success.
But when St. John’s beat Massachusetts early in the season and then took Stanford to the wire before losing 55-53, in the Preseason NIT, common sense clanged off the rim like a Chris Dudley foul shot.
“We have been in a position to beat every one of those teams,” St. John’s coach Mike Jarvis said after Saturday’s loss. “We’re not ready yet. But we have eight or nine more regular-season games, the Big East tournament, and then the NCAA Tournament. Hopefully, when that game comes, we’ll talk about we learned and we will not use that word, yet. We are a very young team. The only way we get old is being in games like this.”
How did Connecticut (19-0) get to be the nation’s only undefeated team? The Huskies are not a one-season wonder. They have been building toward this for years. All five starters returned this season.
The same goes for Stanford. Duke is loaded with McDonald’s All-Americans. Cincinnati has been one of the nation’s best programs the last five years. Maryland has as talented starting five as there is in the nation. There are your top five teams.
Anyone see a spot for St. John’s? No.
Yet the fact is the Red Storm has been tantalizingly close to being ranked that high. A two-point loss to Stanford after blowing a 10-point lead with five minutes left to play. A four-point loss in overtime to Duke with Grant on the bench, his fractured right wrist in a cast. A four-point loss to Connecticut, again, with Grant on the bench.
“They are as good as anybody we have played, including Michigan State or anybody else,” said Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun.
Jarvis has only taken issue with one loss, the 84-79 setback at Miami when the Red Storm allowed the Hurricanes to shoot 57.7 percent from the field. We take issue with Purdue loss when the Red Storm blew a 16-point halftime lead in the consolation game of the NIT.
St. John’s has a chance to avenge the Miami loss Wednesday night at the Garden. The Red Storm could get another shot at the Huskies in the Big East Tournament. The only way the Red Storm will see Stanford, Duke, or Purdue again is in the NCAA Tournament.
Perhaps by then the Red Storm will be ready to beat one of those teams but we doubt it. This team is like the Jets, a year ahead of schedule. They have come to believe in themselves. They fear no one and that’s the way the Red Storm plays. We’re spoiled to expect anything more.
“We know we can beat any team in the country,” said Jarvis. “And you want to know something, eventually we will. When we’re ready to do so. This is a whole ‘nother level.”
It’s a level no one expected St. John’s to have reached so soon.
