St. John's vs Louisville January 23rd 2008

St. John’s @ Louisville

Things are getting ugly quick in Jamaica, Queens. With a blowout loss at home to Pittsburgh, the Johnnies have now lost 4 straight games. Their record in Big East play now stands at 1-5. With an upset victory over Villanova, Rutgers record in conference is also 1-5. That’s right St. John’s fans; we share a spot in the basement of the Big East conference with the Scarlet Knights. And if all this wasn’t embarrassing enough, chants of ‘Fire Norm’ could be heard from the STUDENT SECTION at MSG on Wednesday night. This season could not end sooner for the Red Storm.

I stressed way back on January 8th, the day of the Connecticut game, that the next 6 games for the Johnnies was going to be the toughest stretch of the season. At the time, St. John’s was 1-1 in conference. Being as realistic as possible, I was predicting they would go 2-4 over that stretch. That would have left them with a record of 3-5, before heading into ‘winnable’ games against USF, Providence, Rutgers, and Cincinnati. Well that prediction was as off as Lawrence Tynes’ kick at the end of regulation against the Packers. This team has gone 0-4 thus far and with Freedom Hall and a meeting with the dominant Hoyas ahead, you might as well make the Johnnies record 1-7 right now.

A few weeks ago, it might have seemed possible that St. John’s could give Louisville a fight and steal one on the road. The Cardinals had players sidelined with injuries or suspensions, and they had already let teams like Dayton and Cincinnati come into Freedom Hall and leave with a W. Ironically, the Bearcats are the only team St. John’s has beaten so far in conference, but this fans does not translate into the Johnnies beating the Cardinals as well. Rick Pitino will not let a Norm Roberts coached team walk into that gym and beat his team. Actually, even if Pitino wasn’t on the Louisville sidelines, I don’t know if Coach Roberts could get out of his own way and lead the Johnnies to victory.

The atmosphere at the Garden for upcoming St. John’s games will eerily resemble that of New York Knick games. There will be loud boo’s and chants calling for coaches heads. As a student of this school and a fan of the Knicks, I don’t see much light at the end of either tunnel until a change is made. But hey, if you are feeling as disgusted and embarrassed as I am, just remember this:

21 days until pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training.
-The Game-

On Saturday January 26th, the Red Storm of St. John’s University will travel to the state of Kentucky to take on the University of Louisville Cardinals. The game will be played at Freedom Hall, with tip-off scheduled for 3:30 PM. This Big East contest can be seen on the MSG Network and heard live on WFAN 660-AM.