Battle For New York Hot Takes, Lava Cakes and Expectation Mistakes

Man, has the D’Angelo Harrison legacy talk been a thing for the last few seasons. I am as guilty as it as anyone. It is funny, though, as more Red Storm games are being broadcasted on the ESPN family of networks it looks like the mothership doesn’t even know how to explain him.

Harrison, as a player, is the volume-shooting, passionate, leader, and best player on the team. This is who has been since his sophomore year after Moe Harkless left for the NBA after just on year. He has also had some run-ins with off-the-court shenanigans, which has landed him on uneducated people’s bad people list. Harrison has never done anything that horrible that his heart, soul or character as a person should be questioned. Although…

ESPN has aired two Red Storm games with two different broadcast teams. The first, with St. John’s playing the tenth ranked Gonzaga Bulldogs, featured Dan Dakich spending large portions of the game questioning Harrison’s heart, shot selection and motives. At one point during the game Dakich went as far to say “he is taking that shot because he thinks it’s his turn”, as if the only reason Harrison was putting up that three was to make sure he was getting his. Either Dakich has never seen four years of Harrison’s volume-shooting or doesn’t realize he is one of the very, very few players who can shoot from beyond 18 feet for the Red Storm.

A funny thing happened with the broadcast of The Battle For New York, though. A new broadcast team was put into place. One featuring Shane Battier. Battier, unlike Dakich, was more than happy to tell the viewing audience that Harrison has the green light to shoot from anywhere and that “he likes it too” after Harrison hit a three in transition.

People who actually watch more than one or two Red Storm games a year know the true dilly with Harrison. That, yes, he sometimes takes bad shots, but they often go in. That he is also the best player on the team. That the team will go as he goes. That he is all heart, hustle and passion. Basically, that the only thing people should be questioning at this point is why he sometimes shies away from taking more shots after getting hot — which is something that happened after his late first-to-early second half NBA Jam-like hot streak during the Cuse game.

D’Angelo Harrison is likely going to wind up being an All-Big East First Team member and could even wind up being in NPOY consideration (not even hyperbole), but the fine folks at ESPN might want to get together in a meeting to figure out which version of Harrison they want to portray because the one Dakich talked about at length during the Gonzaga game — while having some shreds of truth in its moments of pure fiction — is not a fair or accurate depiction of the face of the last four years of the St. John’s basketball program.

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