St. John’s basketball unveils new design on Carnesecca Arena court

The St. John’s basketball program unveiled a new court inside Carnesecca Arena. 

It is a new era of St. John’s basketball in Queens and and Carnesecca Arena got a bit of a facelift to prove it.

The Red Storm installed a new floor on its on-campus building that highlights some of the iconic landmarks in New York City like the World Trade Center, Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, and Madison Square Garden.

St. John’s will play three non-conference regular season games at Carnesecca Arena this season and the expectation is that no more than two league games will be played in Queens this season.

Head coach Rick Pitino said during his introductory press conference that he envisions the team not playing in Queens and playing every game in a major arena within the next couple of years.

Stony Brook, Holy Cross, and Sacred Heart are the three teams slated to make the trip to Queens while the Big East Conference is planning on releasing its schedule within the next week.

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Butler and DePaul are the two likeliest teams from the league to play in Carnesecca Arena instead of Madison Square Garden or UBS Arena this season.

St. John’s basketball leaning into preseason hype

St. John’s only returns two players from last season’s roster but many believe that the Johnnies will gather a lot of hype to be included in the Associated Press Preseason Top-25 Poll.

ALSO READ: St. John’s target VJ Edgecombe yet to schedule official visit

UPenn transfer Jordan Dingle and Harvard transfer Chris Ledlum highlight two of the moves the program made in the offseason as 12 new players will wear a Red Storm uniform this winter, including freshmen Simeon Wilcher and Brady Dunlap.

The Red Storm have not won a game in the NCAA Tournament — or advanced to the semifinals of the Big East Tournament — since 2000.