5 St. John’s Stories From Last Season That May Carry Over
By Joe Nardone
St. John’s Didn’t Make The Big Dance
Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports
The Red Storm had a weird season. They weren’t bad, awful or any other type of adjective that someone might normally correlate with a team that didn’t make the NCAA Tournament.
St. John’s inability to be consistent, while dealing with so many off-the-court issues, may have been the biggest factor that kept them from making the big dance. I mean, the talent was there last season for them to make it. The Johhnies had a few NBA level(ish) type players on the roster. But, in typical Red Storm fashion, nothing ever lined up together at the right time.
Granted, they were never horrible or as bad as a team like DePaul (first of many, MANY backhanded DePaul comments to come), but if Lavin wants this program to take the next logical step, he needs to have his even “average” teams earn a spot in the NCAA Tournament.
It is weird saying all that while this year’s version of the Red Storm has some hype building up behind it. The only new additions to the program are Max Hooper, Rysheed Jordan and (the new eligible) Orlando Sanchez. Those three guys are all expected to be major players on the roster this season, although, Harrison and Sampson are still the stars.
In college hoops role players are super-duper important, however, it is going to be the stars who decide where this team goes. Whether or not they make it back to the big dance will be up to Harrison and Sampson as well as head coach, Steve Lavin.
No pressure or anything.