St. John's needs a win to pad NCAA Tournament resume
St. John's Daniss Jenkins (5) keeps the ball away from UConn's Tristen Newton (2) during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game, Saturday, Dec. 23, 2023, in Hartford, Conn. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer) Credit: AP/Michael Dwyer
St. John’s has never been more in need of a break than it is right now. In a month, it has gone from a situation in which the team looked solid for an NCAA Tournament invitation after a 4-1 start in Big East play to one in which it more likely will miss out than get in. Losing six of eight has a way of tarnishing a tournament resume.
The Red Storm (14-10, 6-7) have a chance to begin shining it back up with Tuesday night’s matchup against Providence (15-9, 6-7) at the Friars’ Amica Mutual Pavilion. Winning a game in Providence, however, is no easy lift. The Friars are 48-5 in their last 53 home games.
If the snowstorm that was bearing down on the Northeast corridor Monday night keeps some of those fans from coming out — and turns down the decibel level in the 12,410-seat arena just a bit — maybe it’s worth a couple of points to St. John’s. And if any Big East team knows what a couple of points can mean in a conference road game, it would be St. John’s.
Among the things that the NCAA Tournament selection committee considers major commodities are “Quad 1” victories and conference road wins. This game is a chance to get both, and the Red Storm could really use ’em. They are 2-7 in Quad 1 games and 1-5 in Big East road games.
The Red Storm just missed the upset at top-ranked UConn (in Hartford), losing by four, and suffered a one-point defeat at now-No. 17 Creighton. They were tied at Xavier with three minutes to play and at now-No. 4 Marquette with six minutes to go, but they still wound up being losses. It doesn’t matter that they were so close; on the ledger, they all look the same as the blowout at Seton Hall.
While St. John’s was preparing for Saturday’s game at Marquette, Daniss Jenkins suggested that if the Red Storm could do the small things to win a game like that, more would come. “Until we get over that hump of winning a tough game,” he said, “it’s just going to be the same things we’re talking about.”
Providence obviously would like its full contingent of fans for the St. John’s game, as it also is trying to differentiate itself from the rest of the teams in the middle of the Big East pack. And for a moment on Monday afternoon, it took some actions that seemed to border on gamesmanship.
All of the Big East games are nationally televised, and the Big East’s rule of thumb regarding playing games during weather events generally works like this: If both teams and all three referees are there and there is staffing for the scorer’s table, the game gets played regardless of how many fans attend. Many may remember the nearly-empty Prudential Center in 2014 when St. John’s beat Seton Hall by one point while an ice storm raged outside.
St. John’s was in place at its team hotel adjacent to the arena in the afternoon when Providence posted a “status update” about the game on social media. It read that “due to the impending snowstorm . . . Providence College has been working with the Big East Conference, St. John’s University and the Amica Mutual Pavilion to determine the status of Tuesday’s men’s basketball game.”
It added: “Once the [Rhode Island] travel restrictions have been determined, we will have a decision on the status of the game.”
Meanwhile, St. John’s posted game notes with details for Tuesday’s game on its athletics website. It was confusing, to say the least. And Providence’s “status report” seemed entirely unnecessary unless something was up.
St. John’s athletic director Mike Cragg, however, said he’d seen no indication that anything was awry.
“They want to play [and] we want to play,” he said. “We’ll see what [Tuesday] brings or what the governor brings in Rhode Island.”
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.
