After a thorough 65-48 win over South Florida yesterday at Carnesecca Arena, which gave St. John’s one more win than it had last season, the Red Storm players headed over to Taffner Fieldhouse to watch the Super Bowl on a wide screen TV.
D.J. Kennedy, a Pittsburgh native and the team leader, already had on his Steelers’ No. 7 Ben Roethlisberger jersey. The party was on unless, of course, you went over to coach Norm Roberts’ place.
That’s where a storm cloud hangs over his future as the Red Storm coach.
Roberts is in the final year of his original five-year deal. Although the contract contains an automatic rollover, that clause is about as valuable as Citicorp stock because the administration refuses to give him a clear vote of confidence.
Father Donald J. Harrington, the man who hired Roberts, went so far as to say at halftime of yesterday’s win that he was disappointed with the results on the court.
“It’s very important,” Harrington said in regards to the success of the program. “I’m the first one to say it’s very important. I’m disappointed yes, like anyone else is.
“I’d love to be at the top of the Big East,” he said. “But these are complex things. It’s a big conference. It’s a tough conference. We’ll keep doing our best.”
A highly-placed university source told The Post that the administration absolutely wants to retain Roberts, who has restored the program’s integrity, but might have to make a move if the bottom falls out in the last 10 games and Big East Conference Tournament.
Roberts, who took over a decimated program on the verge of NCAA penalty, is 60-76 overall and 23-52 in Big East play. He said he spoke to Harrington as recently as about two weeks ago at a board of directors meeting and that the university president was 100 percent supportive.
When asked if he believed the university wanted him for long haul, Roberts said, “Yeah, yeah, oh, yeah.”
“He’s right, that’s part of the job,” said Roberts when told of Harrington’s use of the word disappointing to describe the record. “You gotta win and you gotta show progress and I think we are doing that.”
Yesterday was a fine illustration of that. Led by a solid nucleus of sophomores – Paris Horne (19 points), Sean Evans (11 points, 10 rebounds), Kennedy (6 points, 6 boards, 5 assists, 0 turnovers) – the Red Storm never trailed in the second half.
Malik Boothe (thumb surgery) returned for the first time in more than a month and Rob Thomas (groin) was back after a two-week layoff.
At 12-9 St. John’s has eclipsed last season’s win total of 11 and at 3-6 in the league the Red Storm are tied with Notre Dame and Georgetown for 10th place. The Red Storm already have commitments from highly-recruited Bronx recruits Omari Lawrence and Dwight Hardy.
“Everything is moving in the right direction and we like playing with each other,” said Horne.
“Norm Roberts is our coach right now and I’d love to see him be our coach for a long, long time, because he’s a guy who embodies what we’re about as a university, but at the same time, Chris [Monasch] is our [athletic director] and its much more complex and he has to put all things together,” said Harrington. “I’ll see what he has to say about that.”
Unfortunately for Roberts, Monasch was at the Super Bowl when St. John’s surpassed its win total from a year ago. Perhaps he could have chased away the storm clouds.
St. John’s 65 USF 48
