Not too late for St. John's to make run at NCAA Tournament
St. John's coach Rick Pitino looks on late in the second against UConn at Madison Square Garden on Saturday, Feb. 3, 2024. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Moments of adversity arrive and we often try to get past them by changing something: our mindset, our approach to oncoming obstacles, how much we will believe in ourselves. And then we say things like “tomorrow is the first day of the rest of my life” and attack the future.
Tuesday is the first day of the rest of the season for St. John’s. And after a brutal three-week stretch, it is time for the Red Storm to reach down deep and be the team they have always thought themselves to be. Because everything they wanted from this season is still right there.
In the second week of January, St. John’s was off to its best Big East start in 23 years. The question surrounding the Red Storm was not whether they would return to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2019 but how good a seed they might be capable of earning in the 68-team draw if they maintained their ascent.
But after dropping five of its last six games — including the one-pointer at now-No. 16 Creighton, the one-pointer against now-No. 7 Marquette and the failed comeback at Xavier after tying the score twice in the final four minutes — St. John’s now is warding off “bubble team’’ status.
On Saturday, for the second straight game, the Red Storm weren’t good in the late going and took a loss, this time against No. 1 Connecticut at the Garden. When the weekend’s action had concluded, they sat in the Big East’s mid-pack quagmire with the likes of Butler, Xavier, Seton Hall, Providence and Villanova. And Butler’s NCAA Tournament resume got significantly better when it added Friday’s win at Creighton to its Jan. 10 win at Marquette.
“There are three teams that have a lock and then there are five teams, six teams battling in the middle and you’ve got to come up with a win,” Rick Pitino assessed after the Xavier loss.
“Seton Hall beat Marquette and beat Connecticut. They lost to some other people . . . It’s going to be a battle to the end with Providence, Butler, us, Xavier, Seton Hall. But there are three locks and there are probably openings for three teams and we’ll see what happens.”
The Red Storm (13-9, 5-6) can begin a new ascent by beating woeful DePaul (3-19, 0-11) in Tuesday’s 6:30 p.m. Big East game at UBS Arena. How St. John’s will draw for that game is a question mark, though the Pitino bobblehead promotion could help. He joked in a social media post Monday that the figurine “looks much better than the real thing.”
On Saturday, St. John’s will get its fourth attempt at a first win over a nationally ranked team when it visits Marquette.
But there also are plenty of opportunities for the Red Storm to distance themselves from the rest of the quagmire. They will have a chance to complete regular-season sweeps at Providence and at Butler and can earn a split when they host Seton Hall. A Garden date against Creighton on Feb. 25 also will be a big opportunity.
St. John’s can’t afford to take anything for granted, such as the two games with a Georgetown team whose only conference win was against DePaul or the rematch in Chicago against the Blue Demons.
Before the week is out, we should all have a better idea of whether this 1-5 stretch has shaken the players’ confidence. They certainly see what’s laid out in front of them.
“This is where we should be strong as a team — around this time of the season — because this is when it really matters,” Daniss Jenkins said. “What we went through in the beginning of the season? It doesn’t matter to this point because all that matters right now is this month of February. This is where teams are made. This is where teams make their mark.”
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.
