St. John's falls out of AP Top 25 but fear not: Big East schedule looms
St. John's forward Rubén Prey (17) watches a replay during the first half of an NCAA basketball game against Kentucky on Saturday in Atlanta. Credit: AP/Mike Stewart
St. John’s certainly didn’t look like a team that should be ranked 22nd in the nation on Saturday as it withered in the second half against a far more athletic Kentucky team, blew a seven-point, second-half lead and lost 78-66 in the CBS Sports Classic in Atlanta.
And now it isn’t ranked at all.
When the AP Top 25 came out Monday afternoon the Red Storm, which opened the season at No. 5, weren’t in it. They are on the list of teams receiving votes, 29th best, but the streak of 17 straight weeks, dating back to last season, is over. Seton Hall is two rungs ahead of St. John’s.
It was a bad all-around weekend for the Red Storm (7-4). In addition to losing their fourth and final chance for an NCAA Tournament resume-building victory, coach Rick Pitino admitted that he and the coaching staff failed to get this collection of talented players the high-level point guard they need. Bryce Hopkins answered Pitino’s ask for him to become an ‘Alpha Dog’ with a surprisingly unassertive performance.
As a result, the segment of the St. John’s fan base that’s very active on social media are expressing disappoint tinged with anger. But that’s what the comedown looks like when one expects their team to be a contender for the Final Four and then has the non-conference part of the schedule go like this.
What all Storm fans need to understand though is that while the team has put itself on a bit of a high wire, a very successful season is still attainable. There are 20 games left: Tuesday’s 6 p.m. contest against Harvard (6-6) in the team’s final appearance at Carnesecca Arena this season and then 19 Big East games.
St. John’s, because it played the monster non-conference schedule with games — losses — to No. 3 Iowa State, No. 14 Alabama, Auburn and the Wildcats, actually looks pretty good in the advanced metrics the selection committee consults. Among them, the Storm are 28th in the NCAA’s NET rankings as of Monday and rated 20th by Kenpom.com. And against a very mediocre Big East, St. John’s ought to be the perceived favorite in every game except the two February dates with No. 4 Connecticut.
So, St. John’s may not get one of the 16 best seeds on Selection Sunday, but something fairly catastrophic would have to happen for them to get snubbed. And if the Storm win the games they should and get a split or a sweep of the Huskies, they could be in line for fairly good tournament positioning.
“Every person on the team’s just got to look themselves in the mirror and just realize that in order to have a successful season, we got to be able to make some changes in our character and ourselves personally,” Zuby Ejiofor said. “Everybody’s just really got to be committed to doing whatever it takes to win, as we did last year.”
Pitino-coached teams improve as the season goes on and play their best basketball in February and March. Last season’s team did. There’s no reason to think anything different about this one. The high wire part of this upcoming second act has to do with the number of Big East teams that have terrible metrics. There are five Quad 3 games ahead (as it stands today) and the Storm can afford to lose none of them.
A team with no signature non-conference win and a ‘bad loss’ — the sort of aforementioned catastrophic situation — puts itself at the mercy of the selection committee’s whims.
“Are they a great team? No, they're not a great team,” Pitino said. “But we can be a good team, and we can get better and better and better. . . . . I think by the end of the year, we'll be a formidable, good basketball team. Right now we're not, but I think by the end of the year we can become that.”
Very good things are still right there for the Red Storm. Like Ejiofor said, they have to commit to getting it.
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
