ROBERTS, JOHNNIES LIVE TO FIGHT ANOTHER DAY

By Zach Smart

NEW YORK--I'm a block from the Mecca of basketball in the big city of dreams, anticipating the biggest game St. John's has played since 2003.

There's a laundry-list of ticket pushers I can score a ticket from. I have one connect (don't get it twisted, he's legit--I go to him for cheap-as-dirt Knickerbockers tickets and he's even hooking me up for the Ludacris concert in Connecticut in May) who's got me covered, I'm going to report to him in about 15 minutes.

So, it looks like Norm Roberts was eating good last night. After all the hearsay and talk of him needing to be supplanted ASAP--albeit his job security has been intact all this time--Roberts muted his detractors, as the Johnnies stamped a 64-59 victory over Georgetown in the opening round of the 2009 Big East Tournament.

Paris Horne, the Delaware-bred guard who slipped under the recruiting radar and is coming into his own in his sophomore season, led the Johnnies with a game-high 23 points.

Theo Rabinowitz, a longtime St. John's/Big East analyst and New York City basketball junkie from Long Island, put the resume win in perspective.

"Georgetown has struggled this year, and I don't think it was like beating the Hoya team of 2007, but obviously it's huge for the players' confidence and just getting the first post-season win during the Norm Roberts era under their belt is huge," said Rabinowitz, who attended White Plains high school (Westchester County, NY) during the Sean Kilpatrick-Devon Austin-Quentin Martin-David Boykin era.

"I think it's a good win for the program though and to beat a traditional rival like Georgetown makes it even more important."

The loyal SJU fan base--which been with the program through thick and thin-- had no complaints yesterday.

Nobody was in the stands calling for Norm's job and the 13th-seeded Johnnies reeled off a 14-7 surge (which featured a personal 6-0 run from Horne) to close out their most pivotal win of the season and recent memory.

Sean Evans, a 6-foot-8 forward who's beginning to flower, copped a double-double. The sophomore from Philadelphia scored 12 points and tore down a game-high 13 boards.

DJ Kennedy, who's been a major catalyst following the season-ending injury to Anthony Mason Jr., paced the Johnnies with 14 points.

Kennedy, the high school teammate of Big East co-MVP DuJuan Blair, got into a scary collision with referee Mike Kitts in the second half. Kennedy ran into Kitts during the culmination of a St. John's fast break, and both player and referee went sprawling to the ground.

Kennedy ended up alright, while Kitts suffered a face contusion.

For SJU, It's never too late to turn the tide.

Prior to the season, there was much negativity surrounding the program and word around the campfire that Roberts was on a short leash. The situation festered when Mason Jr. suffered a season-ending injury. The Johnnies opened up the season with their best start since the 1994-95 campaign but tailed off, significantly, once Big East play came around.

Fans continued to voice their displeasure, appointing Roberts as the prime target of their boos.

Roberts, who said he's trying to scour the New York landscape for the best players no matter what, didn't buy into the rumors.

He helped the Johnnies pull off their second victory over their traditional blood rivals in just over a week. Now the Johnnies will be put to the test, facing a Marquette team that may be without Dominic James but still has plenty of firepower (see McNeal Jerel, Matthews, Wesley or Heyward, Lazar).

The new 16-team post-season format bodes well for the Johnnies. An upset over Marquette would vault them into a new, high-rent area code--one which they couldn't have envisioned at the start of the season.