St. Johns Revival?

Longtime diehard St. John’s Basketball fans are envisioning a sudden St. John’s resurgence.

The light at the end of the tunnel isn’t luminary, albeit sure as hell visible.

In a city that bleeds basketball while simultaneously smothering high-end recruits in hype, hyperbole and hearsay (see Telfair, Sebastian for more on that one), the Johnnies should be inking top-tier prospects.

Norm Roberts and company are burning to right the ship, upgrading the astern with homegrown talent.

Lightning-quick local products blessed with moist jumpers, handle, guile and pin-point passing ability and a propensity for penetrating the teeth of defenses have evaded the local team’s grasp.

After a dismal 2008-09 campaign during which stud 6-7 swingman Anthony Mason Jr.’s season ended before it started (Mase Jr. succumbed to a season-ending right foot injury. He’s since been granted a medical hardship by the Big East), the SJU coaching staff is currently going out guns-a-blazin’ to reel in local talent.

Let’s be serious.

Roberts knows SJU doesn’t demand a GPS system to unearth top-flight recruits when they’re essentially a train, bus, or subway ride away from the Queens, N.Y. campus.

Since Ron Artest’s versatile, enforcing, football-basketball style took the world by wildfire, St. John’s has yet to produce a wunderkind known to the hoop masses.

It happens every summer, like clockwork. Highly touted prospects from the big apple bid adieu to the urban landscape. They trek to the Western woodworks and established basketball breeding grounds far from home. Staying local has become an afterthought for Big East caliber recruits.

The days when Chris Mullin left the nets burning, Mark Jackson electrified the Garden, and the late, great Malik Sealy soared are long gone.

Roberts has become a verbal punching bag for reporters and fans, the latter of which have aggressively called for his job.

During New Heights’ “Summer in the City” at jam-packed St. John’s University this past weekend, a surplus of twenty college coaches absorbed some dizzying, down-to-the-wire battles showcasing some of the nation’s elite young guns.

The event concluded the breakneck-paced July recruiting period, one which took coaches all around the world like Weezy and Lloyd.

With the St. John’s staff hounding down youngins while more and more cats openly consider St. John’s as a potential hardwood home, Roberts smells a revived recruiting era in Queens.

“We’re trying to recruit the best kids in New York, no matter what,” Roberts told me prior to the 2008-09 campaign.

“We’re always going to tr y to. The key is, the kids are not always going to stay home. I think people tend to forget that they don’t look at it from the opposite side. You know, sometimes kids that live in a rural area will say, ‘I’m sick of living in this rural, country area. I want to go somewhere in the metropolitan area.’ Sometimes you have the city kids say, ‘I’m sick of living in the city, I want to go somewhere else.’”

Roberts continued, “That’s what happens. What we’ve got to do, is get the guys that are the best, the guys that want to stay home, that want to be here and make them as good as they can possibly be.”

A ziplock-tight second half sword fight between geographic rivals New Heights and Long Island Lightning was arguably the most suspense-filled barnburner on Friday afternoon.

New Heights ended up gutting out the win in dramatic fashion.

The ‘Heights managed to neutralize 6-foot-8 beanstalk Sidiki Johnson ( who committed to Arizona). Johnson scored 11 first-half points but ended up with just 15 as New Heights put the clamps on the big neophyte in the second half.

In that first half, Johnson showed why he’s emerged as a highly sought after item on the recruiting agora. The St. Raymond’s forward has opened up his jumper–a shallow sling shot that few at this level can defend.

Johnson can also dial in from downtown. He gets to the cup with ease, finishing strong while absorbing fouls.

John Calipari, Bruce Pearl, Bobby Gonzalez and a slew of other major Division-I coaches were all witnesses throughout the tail end of the three-day event.

Jayvaughn Pinkston, a 6-6 manchild with a fundamentally sound game and feathery touch, turned heads.

Pinkston was perhaps most appealing to Pearl, the Tennessee game general who’s been in active pursuit of the hybrid forward. Other potential suitors for the kid from Brooklyn-based Bishop Laughlin include Arizona, Marquette, Rutgers, Villanova and St. John’s.

While Pinkston is likely to bolt for the countryside, one budding prospect who could stay local is Jermaine Sanders.

A 6-foot-5 junior guard from NYC perennial power Rice HS (the alma mater of UConn guard Kemba “EZ Pass” Walker and newly-minted Miami guard Durand Scott), Sanders’ game has taken off this summer. Coaches are showing more love than Jenna Jameson.

At Rice last season, Sanders was Pippen to Scott’ s Jordan, Robin to Scott’s Batman, Manolo to his Scarface.

Now it’s his turn.

Sanders, who’s versatile, high-octane game has met the fancy of a number of Division-I programs—Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Marquette, St. John’s, and Maryland to name a few—put on a show before Roberts during the National Invitational in Springfield, Mass., earlier in the month.

The New Heights product bucketed his team’s first 11 points, quieted down for a bit, then proceeded to ratchet up the one-man wrecking rate in the second half. This was en route to knocking off Vermont-based VBG.

He reeled off a personal 6-0 surge with a strong take, mid-range jumper, and stickback.

The flurry of rangy shooters who can stroke it from Lake Champlain simply had no answer for Sanders.

Sanders, a creative scoring cyborg in the embryonic stage of his career, has shed the tag of shooter. His upgraded physique has helped him add to his all-around game.

Against VBG, he in haled rebounds and operated offense. He ran the floor. He cradled the rock, triggering the transition game.

He got free for easy layins. He contested every shot with his lengthy arms.
Sanders said he’s interested in St. John’s, intrigued by the school’s proximity. SJU currently stands as one of his favorites.

Roberts did a commendable job recruiting Brooklyn prodigy Lance “Born Ready” Stephenson (who’s ducking the long arm of the ever-growing NCAA investigation squad at Cincinnati), a la Billy Sunday in He Got Game.

In the end, Roberts couldn’t close the deal.

With his latest work (He’s bringing in an influx of potential with Omari Lawrence, Dwight Hardy, Justin Brownlee and Malik Stith), however, more change than our baller-in-chief demands could be hitting St. John’s sometime soon.