Top 25 Forecast

The storm is coming and no I do not mean the snow storm Wednesday, New Yorkers, I mean your very own St. Johns Red Storm. St. Johns is getting the national attention many thought they would once they hired Steve Lavin. 10-4 overall, 3-1 in the Big East including two road wins and one upset of a Top 15 team and of course two titles, Great Alaskan Shootout and Holiday Festival, not to mention all their fine recruits.

After their impressive win verse Georgetown, St. Johns grabbed hold of the 7th best RPI rating but following their loss to Notre Dame Saturday, they find themselves now at 12th. Continuing with rankings, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi, Mr. Bracketology himself, moved St. Johns from their number eleven seeding to number eight this week. All the recent attention is great but this group of seniors is looking to make their first appearance in the Top 25 Coaches and AP polls. They received their first votes of the season gaining four supporters. What does St. John’s need to do in order to be a consensus top 25 team?

The Red Storm have a tough schedule ahead of them, first battle being against number 4 Syracuse and finishing with number 1, Duke. In between they face Notre Dame at home and Georgetown once more on the road as well as Louisville and Cincinnati all of whom have been ranked in the top 25 at one point this season. To break into the Top 25 you better believe St. John’s will have to create some upsets.

The biggest upsets in this stretch would be Duke and Syracuse. Duke has been on a roll despite their little scare verse Maryland last night and Syracuse hasn’t had much problem with opponents this season either evident by their unbeaten record.

Notre Dame lost tonight to Marquette, an unranked team and face the Johnnies on Saturday at Madison Square Garden. Cincinnati suffered their first loss this season to Villanova. That was their first nationally ranked opponent this season. They started off 15-0 but have one of the weakest strengths of schedules in the country on their resume being sub 300. Louisville and Rick Pitino have played great basketball all season long. The Cardinals started off with a win verse Butler the national runner up from a season ago. They hit bumps in the road against Drexel and Kentucky but have been impressive the rest of way paced by emerging sophomore Peyton Silva.

If St. John’s can play the way they did in their five game win streak this season they are capable of finishing this tough stretch 4-2. If that happens they will be 14-6 with victories against five nationally ranked opponents. That should be enough to crack the Top 25 and if they play tough against Syracuse and Duke that looks better to the voters and a win verse either team would look phenomenal. If they finish 3-3 it’s still a good run but diminishes their chances to become ranked.

St. Johns needs to step up here, this is their moment to shine, and Coach Lavin’s moment to show that St. Johns being picked 6th by pre-season in the Big East wasn’t a mistake. A top 25 ranking would pave the way to the team goal of playing in March Madness.

While fans have the luxury to look ahead the Red Storm can not. Less than 48 hours away till St. John’s looks to defend it’s home court against in state conference rival Syracuse.