Should college basketball be hyping up the St. John’s Red Storm?
It’s been said that “Every day is a new day, and you’ll never be able to find happiness if you don’t move on.” For the St. John’s Red Storm they are finding happiness not because they moved on from their history but because they have remembered what they were.
St. John’s is one of the most historical college basketball programs in the country but they haven’t had the popularity and notoriety that they did back in their heyday. Remember the glory days of St. John’s basketball? Yeah, me neither. How about a little refresher course.
From 1976 through 2002, they nearly made the NCAA Tournament every single year and also made it to the elite eight round of the NCAA Tournament three times. During that time span they won three conference tournament championships, and were the regular season conference champion five times.
Then it happened and like the saying goes, “all good things must come to an end.” Their last NCAA Tournament appearance was in 2011 under their current head coach Steve Lavin. After being snubbed from the NCAA Tournament last season with a 20-13 record, St. John’s is back again and is playing like a team who is destined to make the 2015 NCAA Tournament.
With a record of 11-3 and a No. 15 ranking in the AP Poll there is much reason to believe that St. John’s has finally turned the corner with their program.
The reason why St. John’s has had such a huge turnaround with their program is because of their commitment to defense. The defense of St. John’s is stifling and they cause their opponents to play their style of half court basketball. What’s impressive about St. John’s is that their team looks like they have bought into the defensive philosophy. On the year St. John’s has only allowed one team to score at least 80 points, while in eight of their games they allowed their opponent to score 60 points or less.
On their roster they have three players who average more than six rebounds a game. They also have four players who average at least one steal a game. They even have two players that average at least one block every game.
Their defensive minded philosophy is going to prove itself valuable playing in the Big East conference with teams that score a lot of points and are highly offensive minded like Xavier, Georgetown and Villanova.
With all of the defense that St. John’s does play, one of the biggest reasons why they are a legitimate team, is because of the talent that they have on their roster, in particular their 6’4 shooting guard D’Angelo Harrison.
In college basketball, not so much in the NBA, teams can win games simply because they have the best individual talent on the floor.
Unlike the NBA where a lot of the game is very team oriented and very focused through a collective gathering of great talent, in college basketball a team can win games and get lifted into the higher ranks of college basketball because of one player.
As team oriented as college basketball is, having the best player on the court is always going to give college teams a better chance to win.
Most of the time when St. John’s takes the court, Harrison is the best player standing.
The shooting guard has a lot of swagger to his game and is a very crafty scorer. Harrison gives the defense all they can handle whether he’s catching the basketball on pull up jumpshots, driving to the lane finishing with contract, or attempting to break his man off the dribble. Whatever the defense want’s he’s serving and when he gets rolling he’s one of the hardest players in the country to defend.
He’s averaging 20.3 points per game, which leaves him at 13th in college basketball for scoring. He’s also scoring a lot of points but still playing efficient while shooting 45 percent from the field and also grabbing 6.2 rebounds. Harrison’s last masterpiece came against Butler when he scored 31 points on 10-for-21 shooting from the floor and 2-for-5 shooting from the three-point line.
If anyone asks if this St. John’s team is legitimate, wait until March when they prove to us that they are because this roster is going to make a good 2015 NCAA Tournament run.
Next: Did St. Johns make the list of the greatest 75 college basketball programs of all-time?