Even with all the attention surrounding the #15 St. John’s Red Storm, players say only a few small things have changed.
“I’m sitting in class, the girl I’ve been interested in for the whole semester kind of gives me a smile that on a different day when I walk in, probably wouldn’t have gotten one before,” forward Justin Burrell joked. “The lunch lady gave me a couple extra fries in the bottom of the bag. Stuff like that.”
That relaxed, “take-things-as-they-come” attitude continues to pervade the St. John’s locker room and keep them from being caught up in the glitz and glamour that comes with being the 15th ranked team in the country.
After moving up 10 spots in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches’ Poll this past week, the Johnnies are heavily favored in their two remaining regular season games, Thursday at Seton Hall and Saturday versus South Florida at Carnesecca Arena.
These two final regular season games force the Red Storm to switch gears. Coming off an important road win over #14 Villanova, the Red Storm must take care of business against two sub-.500 opponents to secure a double-bye in the Big East Tournament.
“These games are actually harder,” Burrell said. “If you see throughout college basketball when a team that…is supposed to win a game, if you see those games, it’s sometimes close because teams overlook or don’t come out with the same intensity.”
Thursday’s match-up with Seton Hall at the Prudential Center will be an interesting one for St. John’s because, though the Pirates have won just five Big East games (with four of those wins coming over DePaul, Rutgers, Providence, and USF), they traveled to the Carrier Dome in late January and beat Syracuse by 22 points.
“We’re a real mature team. In this league, anyone can beat anyone,” said senior forward Sean Evans. “We’re going to go in there, same focus as if we were playing the number one team in the conference or the last place team in the conference.”
Senior guard Jeremy Hazell, who missed 13 games for the Pirates this year with a broken bone in his left wrist, is a volume shooter who can put points up in a hurry. Now healthy, Hazell is averaging 18.5 points per game, including outbursts of 28 points in their big win at Syracuse, and another 28 early in the year in a win over Cornell.
Last year at Carnesecca Arena, Hazell dropped 10 points on 4/6 shooting in the first 12 minutes before leaving the game with a deep cut in his right hand. Despite Hazell’s absence, Seton Hall won 59-50 behind 16 points from forward Jeff Robinson.
Along with Hazell, junior forward Herb Pope can play impact basketball on the inside, averaging almost a double-double, with 10 points and 8.2 rebounds per game. Guarding Pope, who also happens to be a friend of Justin Burrell’s off the court, will be the duty of St. John’s Big 3 forwards: Brownlee, Burrell, and the reemerging Sean Evans.
“To this point, there hasn’t been any indication of a letdown,” said Coach Steve Lavin. “I think, in a lot of our losses, it was more confidence, or not understanding how to salt a victory away, or not counter-punching when a team made a run on us and the inability to come back late in a game.”
“Every game we come out, we’re going to try to win and our goal is to win a national championship, as is any other college team in the country.” -Sean Evans
It seems the Johnnies have struck a balance between a short term vision and clear recognition of long term goals. Lavin has called every game “the most important game of the year”, but the team is still cognizant of their national rank and NCAA Tournament prospects.
“We’ve worked hard to put ourselves in this position and we don’t ever want to forget the brick and mortar, the fundamentals, and the degrees of focus that it took to get to this point,” said Lavin.
And as the Red Storm rolls into Newark Thursday night, they will be bringing the brick and mortar, hoping to build their way to a national title run.
“We don’t play just to play, we play to win,” said Evans. “Every game we come out, we’re going to try to win and our goal is to win a national championship, as is any other college team in the country.”
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