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The 6th Man of St. John's Basketball

For the die hard St. John's fan.
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St. John’s Commit Darrick Wood: Bridgton Academy’s Constant Scoring Threat

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In August, Darrick Wood watched as the NCAA ruled four of his NIA Prep (NJ) teammates ineligible to play college basketball.

A few days later, the 6’3” rising senior committed to St. John’s. It was then that he knew he needed to make a change.

“[NIA Prep] was having some school issues and problems with the NCAA,” Wood told JohnnyJungle.com. “I just didn’t want to be associated with that.”

Wood will bring instant offense to St. John's as a combination guard. (Photo: iHigh.com)
Wood chose to transfer to Bridgton Academy, located in small Bridgton, Maine, for his senior season, before heading to college.

And along with that came an adjustment.

Bridgton, Maine, boasting a population of 2,751, has very little in common with Wood’s hometown of Washington, DC, and is equally as different from Newark, NJ, home of NIA Prep.

A website for the town lists “100 Things to Do In Bridgton,” among them, “#13 Hunting partridge in a quiet meadow” and “#29 Ice fishing in a bob-house on Moose Pond.”

Some call it “simpler living,” some call it just plain “different.”

But this departure from the norm has given Wood a chance to slow down and work toward his goal: playing for St. John’s.

“[Bridgton] is an all-boys school in the middle of nowhere, so you get to focus,” says Wood. “When you want it so bad, you make those sacrifices because something good is going to happen in return.”

Wood is a lanky, athletic combo guard who is ranked just outside of Rivals’ Top 100 for the Class of 2012, checking it at #104. He is a pure scorer and has the bounce to be a match-up problem against less athletic 2-guards, along with the size to create a problem for smaller point guards.

He averaged just over 14 points per game for NIA Prep last season and was part of a New Jersey Playaz team that won the iS8 championship this Fall.

Wood committed to St. John’s on August 20th, almost three weeks after his newly-found friend and fellow Class of 2012 commit Ricardo Gathers of Riverside Academy (LA) did the same.

“I liked the coaching staff. They really know what they’re doing,” said Wood on his decision to commit to the Red Storm. “I know they were there for Kyle [Anderson] too, but they were out at a lot of my games this summer and showed me love.

“My big concern was my mom being comfortable with where I was going and St. John’s felt like one big family and they welcomed me in.”

Wood says he and Gathers text on and off and they discuss where they see the program going.

“The Cinderella season they had last year showed that the coaching staff matters,” he says. “And with me and Ricardo coming, we’re going to tear it up. We’re bringing back the old St. John’s. We’re just going to be excited to be there.”

Since his move to Bridgton, Wood has put in the work on the court and in the classroom, according to his coach, Whit Lesure.

“He’s off to a good start. He’s adjusted fine academically,” Lesure told JohnnyJungle.com. “He’s a good kid, a ‘yes sir, no sir’ kind of guy. Teachers and advisors really like him.

“On the court, he flips the switch and he’s emotional and competitive, which are two great things to have as an athlete. In addition to athleticism and bounce, he has a great motor.”

Fellow St. John’s commit Amir Garrett, who was ruled ineligible to play for the Red Storm in the first semester of the 2011-2012, is also at Bridgton Academy and is working toward eligibility. The two have become friendly, of late.

“Me and Amir are cool. We played a few games together and we have that St. John’s bond,” says Wood. “He says he’ll be ready [for St. John’s] in December.”

Along with Garrett, Gathers, and ineligible center Norvel Pelle, Wood attended St. John’s Tip Off 2011, an event that he says he enjoyed.

And though he will not step onto campus and enroll in classes for at least another eight months, Wood is quickly becoming a fan favorite because of his presence on social media, where he consistently voices his support for St. John’s and his excitement to arrive in Queens.

“I made a commitment that I was going to be [a member of the Red Storm],” says Wood. “If I have something to say about St. John’s, it’s just me tweeting my excitement. I can’t wait to be in that red and white jersey.”

Gene Keady Brings Experience to Help Young St. John’s Red Storm

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Those in attendance on the ninth floor of the New York Athletic Club looked more ready to greet a high-profile political figure for a swanky fundraiser than a group looking to cover Big East basketball.

Gene Keady's importance as a special advisor has been magnified as Steve Lavin recovers from surgery. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
The suit-and-tie event on a rainy day in mid-October brought together players for the conference’s annual Media Day.

Sitting adjacent to a window that overlooks the southside of Central Park, St. John’s assistant coach Mike Dunlap and special advisor Gene Keady take questions from the media that surround their table.

“Our team is young and talented,” says Dunlap, with a rather textbook response. But, no one expected the punchline. “And we have a strong coaching staff, too. Coach Keady is like having Yoda around.”

The crowd around him bursts out into laughter and Keady, himself, cracks a smile.

That’s the knowledge hierarchy that exists in St. John’s basketball.

If Keady is Yoda, the elder statesman, that makes Dunlap or head coach Steve Lavin Obi Wan, the great, older minds, which would, seemingly, make the spry, young group of first-year players one, collective Luke Skywalker.

Keady’s legendary head coaching career spans 26 years, including six Big Ten titles with Purdue and six National Coach of the Year awards, along with experience in the Olympics and at the NBA level.

As a good friend of head coach Steve Lavin, Keady was brought on as a special advisor last season, and the importance of that move is showing itself this season, as Lavin recovers from prostate cancer surgery.

“I wanted that grandfather presence with our team,” Lavin said last October when Keady was brought onto the staff. “Coach Keady has the experience, energy and a great deal of perspective to offer us. He was the most influential person in developing my coaching philosophy.”

Keady, who must speak to the players through Coach Dunlap and fellow assistant Rico Hines because of his status as a “special assistant,” is integral in planning and observing practices, much of which information is passed along to Lavin, as he recovers.

The 75-year-old makes lists of positives and negatives in practice and communicates those to the coaching staff, which is then imparted on the players. He also works with game and practice film.

“He’s helped us a lot,” says freshman forward Moe Harkless. “He doesn’t talk much during practice, but he’s real observant. As Coach Dunlap says, he has better vision than 20/20.”

Despite his extensive and illustrious career as a Division I head coach, this season brings unique challenges that Keady has not encountered at the collegiate level.

“I’ve never been a part of a team with this many freshmen and junior college transfers,” he says. “The biggest thing for them is going to be adjusting to life in the Big East, playing at the arenas and traveling and the competition.

“Malik [Stith] is already starting to tell them the things they should expect, but the only real way to get used to it is to experience it.”

Though a timetable is still not set and is based on Lavin’s healing and the recommendations of doctors, Keady and the rest of the coaching staff await his return.

“Believe me, he wants to be back and we want him back.”

Confident St. John’s Freshman D’Angelo Harrison Leads Red Storm by Example

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Forget the capacity crowd inside Carnesecca Arena that is awaiting his entrance at Red Storm Tip Off. Put aside the fact that this is his first experience with the full-on media blitz in the high-stakes market of New York City. Disregard, even, that this is a freshman who, just weeks ago, found out that his team will start the season with eight scholarship players.

Isn’t there something that could unnerve St. John’s guard D’Angelo Harrison?

Dangelo Harrison Midnight Madness Entrance
Harrison brings his Texas-sized confidence to a historically young team at St. John's. Photo: Redstormsports.com
On the surface, there certainly does not seem to be.

He stands outside the press room at Taffner Fieldhouse and takes questions, one arm leaned against the wall, the other motioning as he speaks confidently and maturely about his team’s progress, to this point.

“Everybody on the team is buying into what everybody has to say,” he says. “We wish certain guys could be here, but we could still do big things with what he have.”

Harrison, a 6’3” guard from Sugarland, Texas, is as confident on the court as he is off, as is evidence by his entrance at Tip Off, an emphatic, running entry, throwing his arms in the air to pump up the crowd, with Meek Mill’s “I’m A Boss” bumping in the background.

Once he gets to mid-court, he high-fives teammates and continues to get the crowd into it, with the red-tinted smoke from a fog machine settling in over the arena.

But, there is an important distinction to be drawn.

It becomes apparent rather quickly that Harrison’s confidence is not synonymous with “cockiness” or “selfishness.” The bravado that he brings to the floor is a catalyst, the foundation for a player who could become an emotional leader.

“He plays with intelligence and intensity,” said head coach Steve Lavin when Harrison signed his letter of intent. “He puts tremendous pressure on opposing defenses because he is constantly in the attack mode.”

The Texas sharpshooter has a scoring instinct similar to former Red Storm guard Dwight Hardy and will be the team’s go-to guy from beyond the arc. Harrison averaged 31 points per game in his senior year at Fort Bend Dulles HS (TX), including performances when he posted 56, 46, and 43.

“I tell him every day that he could be the best shooter in America. I really believe that,” said assistant coach Rico Hines. “And that’s how we work him out.”

Harrison will most likely be the starting shooting guard when St. John’s takes the floor for their season opener against William & Mary at Carnesecca Arena on November 7th and, for as prolific a scorer as Harrison was in high school, his match may be standing right next to him in the backcourt this season.

Redlands CC (OK) transfer Nurideen Lindsey, who played his high school ball at Overbrook High in Philadelphia, was ranked as the second best junior college prospect in the 2011 recruiting class and, while at Overbrook, challenged the scoring record of NBA legend Wilt Chamberlain.

As half of one of the most dynamic young backcourts in the Big East, Harrison sees it, not as a matter of who will get the majority of the touches, but, instead, how they will work as a unit.

“It raises the level I play at, brings it up to here,” says Harrison, holding his hand parallel to the ground, at eye-level. “Where I played [in high school], two people used to guard me when I didn’t have the ball. So, now, you help off me, Dom [Pointer] can score, you help off Dom, Nuri[deen Lindsey] can score.”

Harrison stays impressively loose throughout this one-on-one interview, giving the sense that he is speaking what he truly believes, goofing around and shooting inside jokes at teammates as they walk by, off into the locker room.

“I tell him every day that he could be the best shooter in America. I really believe that.” -St. John’s Assistant Rico Hines

Though yet to play a minute of Division I college basketball, D’Angelo Harrison may have struck the elusive balance between business on the court and leisure off of it.

“Coach Rico stresses it a lot, Dunlap all the coaches, trying to help us grow,” he says, elaborating on his team’s vision. “We gotta grow because we’re about to play Duke, Kentucky. We’re just eight guys together, hanging out in the locker room, listening to music, dance, you know stuff like that. It’s been a really good experience for me so far.”

And this St. John’s team will need a balance like that to succeed in a season where the odds have been stacked against them from the start. Fielding a team that is the youngest in the program’s history, half of the team is less than six months removed from attending their senior prom.

“It’s crazy. It didn’t hit me until it got here in the summer. I’m actually going to be a part of this,” says Harrison.

With head coach Steve Lavin’s timetable for return remaining undefined and based on his healing, leaders like Harrison and Lindsey have emerged, and the formula boils down to something simple:

“We work hard every single day,” he says. “Every single day.”

2011 Red Storm Tip Off Marks Beginning of New Era for Steve Lavin, St. John’s

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In the nearly eighteen months that have passed since Steve Lavin officially took the reins as the head coach at St. John’s, there has been a reinvention: a reinvention of personnel, a reinvention of image, and, most importantly, a reinvention and infusion of a new energy into a long-dormant fanbase.

Steve Lavin will lead a young St. John's team in the 2011-2012 season, which unofficially begins Friday night.
Though not without its setbacks along the way, the 2011 Red Storm Tip Off on Friday night at Carnesecca Arena will mark the official beginning of a new era in St. John’s basketball. As much as last year’s successes helped to change the basketball culture, this will be Lavin’s “first team,” one that he crafted almost entirely by hand, and will lead into the future.

And for all the optimism about this new beginning that rightfully surrounds this program, the statistics say that it won’t be easy.

The Red Storm will be replacing over 96% of their scoring and 97% of their rebounding from the 2010-2011 season, filling the void with six players who have never played a minute of Division I basketball, a point guard who has been predominantly a backup thus far in his career, and a former walk-on, who was recently awarded a scholarship.

One Top 100 signee has decommitted and two others have enrolled at prep school to work toward eligibility for the second semester.

St. John’s non-conference schedule, the bulk of which takes place prior to the second semester, was rated as the toughest in the Big East, according to ESPN, with matchups against Arizona and UCLA, along with road games against Duke, Kentucky, and pesky mid-major Detroit.

But, if these last 18 months have shown anything about the attitude of this program in the face of adversity, it is that they are without fear, all embodied in their head coach, Steve Lavin, who will be making an appearance at Red Storm Tip Off, just over a week after undergoing prostate cancer surgery.

Aside from the fact that he took a team he inherited to the program’s first NCAA Tournament in almost a decade, that he turned a dry recruiting base into a pool overflowing with interest from Top 100 prospects, or that the Red Storm are now, once again, in the national college basketball conversation, Lavin has brought back fans that have long become disinterested, and that new fire should be on display at Tip Off.

This is the second year that the event has been held at Carnesecca Arena, a night meant to be something of a pep rally for students, a showcase for fans, and a preliminary run-through for the players. There will also be filler entertainment, including a performance from Harlem-based rapper Vado, as well as give-aways, and contests.

Tip Off will also showcase the women’s team, led by head coach Kim Barnes Arico. The veteran-led ladies team will begin their push for a third-straight NCAA Tournament berth.

A number of St. John’s recruiting targets will be in attendance, including 2012 Red Storm commits Darrick Wood of Bridgton Academy (ME) and Ricardo Gathers of Riverside Academy (LA). Amir Garrett, who was one of three from the Class of 2011 to be ruled ineligible, but is currently at Bridgton, will be in attendance. Norvel Pelle of Phelps School (PA), another of the three, is also expected, according to Wood and indications on Pelle’s Twitter page.

Also expected to be in attendance are the following:

Chris Obekpa | 6’8″ F | Our Savior (NY), 2012
Jason Boswell | 6’6″ F | Trinity Catholic (CT), 2013
Jermaine Lawrence | 6’8” F | Cardozo (NY), 2013
Tyler Wilson | 6’1” G | Cardinal Hayes (NY), 2013
Dayshon Smith | 6’0” G | Putnam Science (CT), 2013
Jaquan McKennon | 5’9″ G | St. Raymond (NY), 2015

Doors open at 7pm. Tickets are free, but space is limited.

Amir Garrett Enrolls at Bridgton Academy, Will Work Toward Eligibility

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Adam Zagoria of SNY.tv is reporting that St. John’s signee Amir Garrett has enrolled at Bridgton Academy (ME) and will work toward college eligibility, in an attempt to qualify for the second semester and play for St. John’s.

Garrett will join St. John's commit Darrick Wood at Bridgton Academy. (Photo: SI)
“I would say that that’s the plan,” Bridgton coach Whit Lesure told Zagoria. “I know our college counselor was with him today and visited with me quickly.”

After being ruled academically ineligible by the NCAA less than a week ago, Garrett will join St. John’s commit Darrick Wood at the North Bridgton, Maine prep school.

Garrett will remain committed to St. John’s, unlike his former fellow signee JaKarr Sampson, who is returning to Brewster Academy for a post-grad year and will reopen his recruitment.

Recent developments have been in-line with what Garrett’s father, Darrow, told CBSSports.com’s Jeff Goodman last week, saying, “[Amir] will play at St. John’s in December. Mark my words.”

Bridgton Academy is not new to St. John’s, having turned out junior guard Malik Stith, along with St. John’s graduates Paris Horne and Justin Burrell.

With Sampson decommitted and Garrett and Norvel Pelle ineligible, the Red Storm will have eight scholarship players on the active roster to begin the 2011-2012 season. Guard Jamal White, a transfer from Long Island University and former walk-on, was granted an athletic scholarship, following the rulings of ineligibility.