BIG EAST GAME PREVIEW: ST. JOHN'S @ PROVIDENCE

December 31, 2008


The Keno Davis era enters the Big East schedule in his debut season as the Providence Friar basketball coach on New Year's eve when PC hosts St. John's at the Dunkin Donuts Center in downtown Providence.

While neither team is looking like they are completely out of the running to appear in your March Madness betting pools when the NCAA Tournament roles around, both have not quite doomed their season yet.

Here are the articles on the web previewing the contest:

As Big East Season Opens, Question is, Is PC Ready (Providence Journal)
St. John's at PC Match-ups (Providence Journal)

While St. John's sits at 9-3 on the season, the pre-conference period has not been a real healthy one for Norm Roberts' club. They lost their best player, Anthony Mason Jr., for the season to a knee injury. They have yet to beat anyone of significance, losing to three ACC squads (Va Tech, Miami and BC), two of which were in the Garden, and will play the Big East opener without their starting point guard, Malik Boothe, because of injury and still have Justin Burrell rounding into form after breaking facial bones earlier this month.

Providence enters the game with an 8-4 mark, with losses to Northeastern in Davis' debut, Baylor, St. Mary's (CA) and at Boston College as well. PC has a win over Rhode Island to their credit and has shown, at times, to be capable of scoring some points.

With the injury concerns of SJU, especially playing without their point guard in this one, I like the Friars to get a home win as Keno Davis collects his first Big East win.

Prediction:

Providence 73
St. John's 63

New Area Code For SJU Awaits

St. John's will open conference play at Providence New Year's Eve


by Zach Smart


The best start since the 1994-95 season, when St. John’s was still somewhat of a credible program (see Lopez, Felipe for more on that one) must have been too good to be true.

The Johnnies, despite losing go-to-guy Anthony Mason Jr. to season-ending injury, started off the season in a fashion that indicates credibility may be restored.

SJU stamped nine wins in their first 12 games, falling to Boston College, Virginia Tech and Miami of the ACC.

The VT loss came during the championship of the second-tier Aeropostale Holiday Festival tournament, an event such an afterthought along the college basketball landscape that a meager 2,000 fans showed for the championship. That’s at the world’s most famous arena widely regarded as the Mecca of basketball (Madison Square Garden), I might add.

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So, while the fanfare may be lacking the young freshman and sophomore firepower is on a different boat.

V-Tech outclassed the Johnnies, 81-67, though sophomore Sean Evans showed fight in the second half. Evans finished with 13 points and eight boards, as the Johnnies’ sizzling seven-game win streak was snapped.

Of course, the wins that St. John’s scored over teams like Cornell, Long Island, Eastern Michigan, NJIT, and Bethune-Cookman were only a preamble to bigger, stiffer competition.

After all, we know that the puppies can’t dance with the pit bulls.

Harkening back on it now, the Johnnies have never really benefitted from a schedule that’s about as challenging as catching a date via Myspace.com

This Big East slate shall be a serious test of their manhood, now that the young guns have established chemistry and gotten the kinks out against lesser opponents.

The stakes are immediately raised.

The New York hoopheads want a raging Red Storm Resurgence and they want it now.

Whether or not they will get it may just put Norm Roberts’ job security in jeopardy.

Even the boo birds have flown north to St. John’s this winter, adamantly calling for Roberts to clean out his office immediately.

So, it appears SJU is the only place in Queens where you can get a Bronx cheer.

These jeers, that have been persistent since the first game of the season (remember were talking about New York fans here, sometimes the Knicks feel like they are in enemy territory during home games), are almost always directed at Roberts.

Roberts, who supplanted the God-awful Mike Jarvis (Google “Jarvis Doesn’t Jive” by littyhoops.com, for more on that one), is often targeted for the Johnnies’ recruiting shortcomings.

Never mind all of that right now. This is about winning and winning with what you have, even if it’s a nucleus of neophytes that Roberts is confident will come to fruition.

Paris Horne has quickly evolved, averaging 12.6 points to complement DJ Kennedy. Horne was named to the Big East’s weekly Honor Roll following a week in which he shouldered the burden of leader for the Johnnies.

The rapid ascension of Horne and the aforementioned Evans has helped cushion the loss of Mase, who fell out with a torn peroneal tendon in his right foot.

If anyone knows about rapid ascensions, it’s Providence College guard Marshon Brooks. PC is the first Big East matchup of the season for the Johnnies.

After a second-rate freshman campaign (3.3 points in under 10 minutes per game), Brooks has skyrocketed to school stardom. He now averages 13.5 points, four boards and helps facilitate the offensive attack as a guard/swingman. His coming out party came against Sacred Heart, when he hung 30 on the Northeast Conference foe.

The smooth, serene close of the out-of-conference slate gives way to the circus opening of the Big East schedule.

Will the young, sophomore-laden team be able to hold their own against the Big East sharks of the big NCAA ocean and buck the latest college basketball odds?

Game Notes:

--Not to add salt to the wound, but the Johnnie’s could definitely use the services of Mason Jr. and Malik Boothe for this game. Mason Jr is out for the season and a thumb injury will likely keep Boothe, their starting point guard, out of action a little longer.

-Justin Burrell (10.6 ppg, 4.8 rpg, 55 percent FG shooter) is a freakish and strong athlete (the broken backboard support he broke on a dunk against NJIT are indicative of this) who can counter the athleticism of Providence, who have the upper hand down low.

-St. John’s is severely undersized in this one. They don’t have the size that Providence does with 7-foot center Randall Hanke and the absence of Mason opens the seas for boardsmith Geoff McDermott.

-McDermott, a 6-foot-7 point forward, is averaging a team-high 8.2 boards and is extremely versatile. He is the senior playmaker for the Friars.

-Weyinmi Efejuku (Thank God I’m not announcing this game) is the leading scorer for Providence, averaging 13.8 points.

-Oceanic depth will play a major role in the outcome of this game. The Friars have some shooters in Marshon Brooks, Brian McKenzie, Jeff Xavier, and Sharaud Curry. They’ve also got guys that can pop off the pine and score buckets.

So, the Johnnies’ bench needs to step it up and supplement Kennedy. Dele Coker, Quincy Roberts, and Rob Thomas, I’m talking about you guys.

ST. JOHN'S FALLS IN FESTIVAL FINALE

December 21, 2008


by Ray Floriani

NEW YORK CITY - A day after handily defeating Marist in the semifinal, St.John’s met their match. Virginia Tech defeated the Red Storm 81-67 before slightly over 2000 at Madison Square Garden. The win gave Virginia Tech a second straight Aeropostale Holiday Festival title. Tech defeated St.John’s is last year’s championship.

St.John’s, playing minus the injured Justin Burrell and Anthony Mason (out for the season) fell behind 9-3 early. The Storm got right back into it largely on the strength of their three point shooting. Paris Horne led the way with 11 for the Storm and shot 3 of 6 beyond the arc.

The second half saw Tech build on its 39-35 halftime lead. Sean Evans of St.John’s was limited to three minutes the first half due to foul trouble. The 6-8 sophomore had a strong second half, finishing with 13 points 8 rebounds. The Storm however shot an icy 0 of 8 beyond the arc the second half, a performance that makes for long NCAA Basketball Odds against a quality opponent like the Hokies. Credit that to the Tech zone that trapped the wings and extended deeper the final twenty minutes. “We mainly went 1-3-1 to keep our guys out of foul trouble,” Tech coach Seth Greenburg said. “In my eighteen years of coaching I don’t remember ever playing as much zone.”

Offensively the Hokies also exhibited good crisp ball movement, finding the likes of A.D. Vassallo who scored a game high 24 points. Malcom Delaney added 22 points, handed out 8 assists and earned the Lou Carnesecca Most Valuable Player award. “In the second half, Greenburg said, “we made better decisions on offense. We screened and read the defense.”

“We competed,” St.John’s coach Norm Robers said. “But we hit a five or six minute stretch where we didn’t execute and gave up too many offensive rebounds. Against an ACC team a stretch like that can change the game. But give them credit. They (Tech) wore us down.”

Members of the All Tournament team were :
KJ Matsui, Columbia
Ryan Schneider, Marist
DJ Kennedy , St.John’s
Sean Evans, St.John’s
A.D. Vassallo, Virginia Tech

Virginia Tech is 8-4. St.John’s falls to 9-2 , the other loss to another ACC team, Boston College in the Pre-Season NIT. ACC ‘tour’ for the Storm continues as they host Miami on Saturday at noon at the Garden.

St. John's Hopes To Continue Success As Big East Slate Nears

By Zach Smart

The Felipe Lopez replica jersey that once hung proudly on the window at Modell's on Yonkers Ave. has since been removed. There's doubt that most people today would even recognize the name. There's a considerable feeling that most would just question the decision to showcase the old-school jersey.

After the hype, high expectations, and hearsay about the kid once synonymous with New York City basketball went by the wayside (Lopez played four mediocre seasons in the NBA before taking his game to the CBA and over-the-waters), the likeness was removed.

Lopez authored a storied stay at St. John's, becoming an All-Big East selection as a fabulous freshman and scoring 1,927 career points at the school, behind only some guy named Chris Mullin and the late, great Malik Sealy.

Ask most, and Lopez' story is not unusual. A kid from a New York City perennial power turns heads during his time with the Johnies and either falls off at the next level or exits prematurely, chasing hoop dreams. See Cook, Omar or Barkley, Erick, for more details. It's become a vicious cycle, a destructional pattern. Mike Jarvis didn't exactly help alter the program's already-dented perception.

Now, with Norm Roberts at the helm, the program is focused on getting the city's youth back to St. John's. The Johnnies have dwelled under bridge of obscurity these past few years, with promising campaigns underscored by recruiting troubles, lack of chemistry and underachieving players.

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This season, the Johnnies already drove into a gap, one that wasn't self-inflicted. It was a tough pill to swallow as Anthony Mason Jr., who led the Red Storm with 14.4 points and 4.4 boards last season, jumped out of the fold.

In his highly-anticipated senior season, Mason played just three games--highlighted by a 24-point performance in a win over Cornell--before falling out with a torn peroneal tendon in his right foot.

Mason Jr., the son of former New York Knicks warhorse Anthony Mason, suffered the season-ending injury during the Preseason NIT.

SJU, however, has stepped it up in Mase's absence, reeling off a six straight victories since an 82-70 loss to Tyrese Rice and Boston College on Nov. 18.

Though their out-of-conference schedule has been softer than marshmallows, front-loaded with teams that swim with that can only swim with the plankton of the big NCAA ocean (i.e. the reeling, new lower grounds-shattering NJIT), they've developed an identity.

DJ Kennedy has come into his own.

The 6-foot-6 guard/forward has established himself as the go-to-guy, posting 14.3 points per game. He lit up Long Island and Cornell for 23 and 22, respectively, during the first two games of the season. While his consistency has been called into question (He did his best Houdini impression against Boston College, Loyala-Chi., and the aforementioned NJIT), the onus is on him to fill up the stat sheet.

Leading the Johnnies into a new area code and a high-rent district, however, will have to be a cohesive effort. The roster is littered with freshman and sophomores, but Norm Roberts is confident that point guard Malik Boothe is up for the task.

The half-pint local product is averaging 9.3 points and 5.3 dimes, with sophomores Paris Horne (12.5 ppg) and Justin Burrel (10.6 ppg), a freakish athlete who broke the backboard during the NJIT beatdown, emerging as his primary targets.

Horne, a Delaware native who’s beginning to flower, was named to the Big East Honor Roll. He’s accompanied by Louisville’s Samardo Samuels, Marquette’s Lazar Hayward, Notre Dame’s Luke Harangody, and Seton Hall’s Jeremy Hazell. SJU’s 8-1 start is the best since the 1994-1995 season, with Lopez running the show. The Johnnies improved to 7-0 at home this year with a 77-59 trouncing of Bethune-Cookman. It was the Sean Evans show early on, as the 6-8 forward scored the game’s first nine points.

Will the young, sophomore-laden team be able to hold their own against the Big East sharks of the big NCAA ocean and buck the latest college basketball odds?

“I chose the path we are on,” said Roberts, who hears the “Fire Norm!” chants despite the win streak. "I chose to bring in eight freshmen. I chose to do that for our program (to) build a foundation. We have to take our lumps in order to be good. We are playing against quality - not good teams, but great teams (in this league)."

Recruiting Update: St. John’s

By Zach Smart

Top-flight recruits have become a rarity at St. John’s in this day and age, though the signings of guys like Malik Boothe and Justin Burrell brought some resurgence for a New York City-based, Christian school that prays some of the city’s talented youth stay home.

Right now, it would appear that Norm Roberts suffers from the same disease that has been encountered at Maryland.

In a high school hotbed climate, it’s hard to get kids to stay home. Especially when so many of the city’s youth follow the NBA pipedream.

In a city where IS8 games tend to generate more interest than the Knicks do, young guns are courted by a number of high-end basketball coaches—Jim Calhoun (UConn), Jamie Dixon (Pitt), and Jay Wright (Villanova), to name a few.

Some of the New York area players just flat-out fit into the other coaches’ style and system better.

St. John’s has bit the bullet before, and they will continue to scour the city playgrounds and Long Island/Westchester powerhouses for talent.

“We're going to try to recruit the best kids in New York no matter what. We're always going to try to," said Roberts earlier this year.

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“You know, sometimes kids that live in a rural area will say, ‘I’m sick of living in this rural, country area. I want to go somewhere in the metropolitan area.’ Sometimes you have the city kids say, ‘I’m sick of living in the city, I want to go somewhere else.’ And that’s what happens. What we’ve got to do, is get the guys that are the best, the guys that want to stay home, that want to be here and make them as good as they can possibly be.”

Trevon Hughes, a New York native who plays for Wisconsin and Tyshon Edmonson, a freshman guard from Kentucky who plays for St. John’s, is perhaps indicative of this statement.

“It’s always been that way,” Roberts continued, harking back on the days of Chris Mullin and Mark Jackson, the golden age of St. John’s basketball. “St. John’s, for a long time, did not get everybody. Ed Pinckney went to Villanova, Rod Strickland went to DePaul, Kenny Smith went to North Carolina but what happened here is they got Mark Jackson. You didn’t worry about other guys going (out of New York). So we’ve got to deal with the guys we’ve got.”

The Johnnies have already secured a pair of NYC-bred ballers in Omari Lawrence and Dwight Hardy.

Lawrence, a 6-foot-4 guard, chose St. John’s over Georgetown, Marquette, Pitt, Xavier, and Memphis. Hardy, who starred at the NYC’s JFK before prolonging his career at Indian Hills Junior College in Iowa.

With the recent hiring of guys like Kimani Young and the presence of Director of Basketball Operations Billy Singleton, Roberts definitely has help with recruiting pitches. The New York state of mind will hopefully lure the highly sought-after youngins into staying put, remaining in the stomping grounds and competing for the odds of a berth in the NCAA tournament.

Right now, the Red Storm are still chasing Lance "Born Ready" Stephenson, one of the country's top guards and a super scorer with an NBA body. They've also kept a close eye on Mount Vernon's Sherrod Wright, a quick-strike shooter who can go to the tin and create his own shot. Wright, a product of Mount Vernon High School, will play a schedule front-loaded with national powers this season. They have also thrown their hat in the ring for Patterson (NC) School's Vincent Council, a transplanted NYC point guard who has already left the big city for peace and quiet. Adding a little more local talent each year will certainly increase the NCAA Basketball Odds for SJU in the future of dancing again in March!

ST. JOHN'S SPRING RECRUITING PREVIEW

November 30, 2008


Now that the early signing period is over for college basketball, many teams are looking forward to the spring signing period as their is an usually large number of uncommitted players available this season.

So while NYC fans might be looking at the NFL Odds of the Jets and Giants lining up for the Superbowl, there are a few following a recruiting story that is quite intriguing in Queens.

St. John's of the Big East added a pair of early period signees in NYC natives Omari Lawrence and Dwight Hardy.

With the decision to part ways with verbal commitment Malik Stith, St. John's was expected to have an open scholarship when the spring signing period arrived.

However, that might not be the case senior wing Anthony Mason Jr. was lost for the season with a knee injury in just the second game of the year. Mason is expected to pursue a medical redshirt, which would give him the last available scholarship for next season.

Of course, a sure sign of spring is the annual exodus of players out of the SJU program. So, it is an almost certain expectation that a scholarship (or scholarships) will become available. With no current scholarship juniors on the 2008-2009 roster, there is a serious problem in the balancing of the classes at SJU to begin with, so some movement in their large sophomore class might occur.

If that were to happen, the obvious #1 target of Norm Roberts' desire is Lance Stephenson, aka 'Born Ready.'

Of course, with Stephenson, plenty of opportunities are available for the 6'5 manchild, including the professional route ala Brandon Jennings.

SJU has also been following another NYC native in the prep ranks, Vincent Council, and Thomas Jefferson senior guard Keith Spellman this fall. A couple other unsigned area players that could be in the mix the longer they stay open in recruiting process include Tevin Baskin and Sherrod Wright.

ST. JOHN'S SIGNING REVIEW

November 18, 2008


When your campus is located on the doorstep of dozens of the top high school basketball prospects year in and year out, keeping those players home is a key to improving your college basketball odds of competing for titles.

In his tenure as head coach of St. John's, Norm Roberts has not had much luck in interesting the top players of NYC to come play for him. However, the 2008-2009 recruiting class might begin to signal a change in that luck.

In the early signing period for basketball, the Redstorm inked a pair of NYC natives as South Kent Prep shooting guard Omari Lawrence and NYC native Dwight Hardy, who is currently attending Indian Hills (IA) Community College.

St. John's is also getting a little more of a positive vibe in the Big Apple with a couple recent hires to Roberts' administrative staff of Kimani Young and Oswald Cross do give the Redstorm a much more positive image and influence in NYC circles. Cross coached current SJU power forward Justin Burrell in high school and was a coach of the NY Panthers AAU team last summer that Lawrence competed with. Young was the director of the New Heights AAU program that has several of the area's top 2010 prospects in its program.

One SJU commitment, Malik Stith, did not sign with the Redstorm. It was rumored to be the case for sometime, so when it began public that SJU and Stith had parted ways, it did not come as much of a surprise.

The 'storm is in a little bit of a scholarship pinch...they do have one available for the spring, but unless other players leave (an annual rite of spring with SJU), that is the only 'ship for 2009 and 2010 available.