It sounded like an auditory mirage. Remember, this is supposed to be the St. John’s Invitational, right? Or so grumble a lot of the teams that have to play the Johnnies in the Big East Tournament, which has called Madison Square Garden home since 1983. 

Dan Hurley’s the only one with the gumption to say it out loud now, but everyone’s always thought it. Even in the many years across the last three decades when St. John’s was just playing out the string, teams with far more talent and ambition would dread peering at brackets that included them and St. John’s in the same quadrant. 

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All the way back in 2012, a rival coach quipped at the possibility of having to face an outmanned St. John’s on its alternate home floor. 

“If I’m going to play you in your driveway, with your ball, and the cracks in the pavement you know a lot better than I do,” that coach, Rick Pitino, then at Louisville, said then, “I’m going to think you have an excellent chance of beating me.”