Jamie Dixon on St Johns

http://www.zagsblog.com/2009/05/13/dixon-says-big-east-in-for-a-change/#more-16547
NEW YORK - Jamie Dixon says change is coming to the Big East next year.

While Louisville, Pitt and UConn dominated the conference a year ago — going a combined 46-8 –  Dixon says a new group of teams could move up this year.

“Cincinnati, St. John’s, Seton Hall,” Dixon said Wednesday at a coaches clinic at Madison Square Garden. “Those are going to be more experienced teams. There are some very experienced teams and it’s not the teams that were at the top of the conference last year.”

Pitt is losing DeJuan Blair, Sam Young and Levance Fields to the pros (Read my feature today on SNY.tv), while Louisville (Earl Clark, Terrence Williams) and UConn (Hasheem Thabeet, Jeff Adrien and A.J. Price) will also lose top players.

Dixon said the key to success in the Big East is retention, the ability to keep players over a numbers of years who can succeed as juniors and seniors.

“It’s going to be the seniors and juniors that win the games,” Dixon said.

St. John’s will have seven juniors next year: Malik Boothe, Justin Burrell, Dele Coker, Sean Evans, Paris Horne, D.J. Kennedy and Rob Thomas.

The Red Storm also bring back redshirt senior Anthony Mason Sr., as well as a recruiting class that includes talented guards Omari Lawrence, Malik Stith and Dwight Hardy.

“From year to year you see a number of programs that make that one-year jump because they just have a bunch of upperclassmen. They have experienced guys,” Dixon said. “Year after year, that’s the challenge because you have to replace guys.”

guys, ive said it many times before...with a good coach, we have the talent to finish in good standing in this league (i consider good standing top ...maybe 5th with what we have returning...i just dont think normieboy can get it done

retaining players doesn't get you anything.

retaining good players does.

Norm recruits for Dixon just by being here.

I think the players are good

we deffinetl have good returning talent!...anthony mason jr...paris horne dj kennedy..the whole problem we had last year was depth...i think with our additions n returning players we've solved r biggest problem...everybody is saying in inside but last year we outreabounded a lot of good teams n had the games close 4 atleast a half but stamina got 2 us n we ran out of steem in the second half...last yr pitt n uconn were great games 4 atleast the 1st half if we just keep that up we'll b str8

http://www.zagsblog.com/2009/05/13/dixon-says-big-east-in-for-a-change/#more-16547
NEW YORK - Jamie Dixon says change is coming to the Big East next year.

While Louisville, Pitt and UConn dominated the conference a year ago — going a combined 46-8 –  Dixon says a new group of teams could move up this year.

“Cincinnati, St. John’s, Seton Hall,” Dixon said Wednesday at a coaches clinic at Madison Square Garden. “Those are going to be more experienced teams. There are some very experienced teams and it’s not the teams that were at the top of the conference last year.”

Pitt is losing DeJuan Blair, Sam Young and Levance Fields to the pros (Read my feature today on SNY.tv), while Louisville (Earl Clark, Terrence Williams) and UConn (Hasheem Thabeet, Jeff Adrien and A.J. Price) will also lose top players.

Dixon said the key to success in the Big East is retention, the ability to keep players over a numbers of years who can succeed as juniors and seniors.

“It’s going to be the seniors and juniors that win the games,” Dixon said.

St. John’s will have seven juniors next year: Malik Boothe, Justin Burrell, Dele Coker, Sean Evans, Paris Horne, D.J. Kennedy and Rob Thomas.

The Red Storm also bring back redshirt senior Anthony Mason Sr., as well as a recruiting class that includes talented guards Omari Lawrence, Malik Stith and Dwight Hardy.

“From year to year you see a number of programs that make that one-year jump because they just have a bunch of upperclassmen. They have experienced guys,” Dixon said. “Year after year, that’s the challenge because you have to replace guys.”

Oh, I agree with Dixon that St. John's will be improved.  They'll definitely be over .500 this year and may even bring down some notorious top programs.  That being said, can I see this team finishing in the top 5 in the conference?  Or better yet, can I see this team making the NCAA Tournament?  Absolutely not.  While Dixon is correct in terms of successful teams having veteran players, I still don't think our veteran players have enough talent to become a top team in the conference.  If I was a guessing man, I'd say St. John's will finish 8th in the conference with 19 or 20 wins.

Not to beat a dead horse, but St. John's still does not have a legitimate point guard nor a legitimate big man down low.  You're asking a cluster of shooting guards and small forwards (who don't shoot well, mind you) to basically lead this team in an incredibly difficult conference.

It's a problem of what is acceptable improvement.  Let's say the administration is happy with being a bubble team, and they just might be, given that there are no loud proclamations of "NCAA of bust!" Well, this might be a bubble team next year.  And the year after, they might be a little less than that, or about the same.  Or even a 11-12 seed in the NCAAs.  Does that mean the program has made it?  Can Norm bring in heads who can hang with the rest of the conference in that next year? 

Because those teams like Pitt and Villanova, like U Conn and Marquette, they're just reloading. 

I do think that people are sleeping on what a good coach can do with talent.  Example: yes, Marquette's going to be young, but they bring in a number of top 100 talents and have a coach who correctly dissected what St. John's does on offense and clowned the Red Storm. 

Buzz Williams did own Norm Roberts last season. It will be an interesting season for Marquette to see what he can do with unseasoned talent.

I also think we'll be an improved team even if its only due to other teams falling more than us rising. I do think this team has some potential but I don't know if we're going to tap that potential or not. I've heard Norm talk the talk with what he wants to do with the team but I've yet to see the walk the walk.

If we play up tempo we need to rebound the ball a lot better defensively and if we play up tempo we can really run some teams up and down but it all starts on the glass. We have the depth now to run a little freer but I don't know if we will.