http://www.nypost.com/seven/03122009/sports/college/programs_a_disaster_159121.htm NORM Roberts insisted that his team shouldn't be judged on one game, and when your team has just been thrashed by 29 points, at home, by a team missing its best player and on a four-game losing streak . . . well, that's a wise course of action.
"I'm not going to let one game dictate what we've done this year," Roberts said yesterday, maybe half an hour after Marquette had slammed the trunk shut on St. John's season with an unsightly 74-45 beating that, I kid you not, wasn't nearly as close as the final score indicated. "I think there's been production this year. We've had a pretty good year this year."
St. John's fans, you are now allowed to step away from the newspaper for a few seconds to crush a few more antacid pills after reading the last part of that quote.
Back?
Good. Because now we can dissect the first part of the quote. And if Roberts, AD Chris Monasch, President Rev. Donald Harrington or anyone else remotely involved in the administration of this listless basketball program truly believes that anyone is going to overreact, they haven't been paying attention.
Two things on that:
What does it say about the state of this program that the Johnnies played what may well have been the worst half in the history of the Big East Tournament - at one point, they had eight points and eight fouls, which is just about mathematically impossible - and yet when they ran off the court trailing 38-10, they weren't showered in boos but something much, much worse: relentless, deafening indifference.
But here is something else to think about: Neither Roberts nor his program needs to be judged solely on yesterday's calamity.
Consider this: St. John's played 10 conference games, including this one, against teams that weren't forced to play in yesterday's trophies-for-all-the-kiddies extra round of Big East play, meaning teams that finished in the top eight. And it isn't just that they were 0-10 in those games. No. Digest these numbers for a second: 21, 23, 12, 19, 17, 13, 14, 29, 19 and 29. Those are the margins of those 10 losses. That is an average gap - average! - of 19.6 points. Which means that when Roberts says, "Nobody is going to tell me things aren't bright," you have to wonder if maybe the man needs a new flashlight.
Even as feel-good as the two wins over Georgetown in the season's final week may be, if you look at them closer what they really reveal is a sobering truth to where St. John's is right now, and where it aspires to be, a chasm every bit as wide as that 19.6-point crevasse. Monasch has been defiant in his assertion that this will be an NCAA tournament team next year, the closest Roberts' feet have ever been nudged to an open fire in five years on the job.
But to expect St. John's to make a leap from middle of the Dregs Eight to the middle of the Varsity Eight - the leap you need to make to be considered a viable NCAA team in the Big East - is daunting at best, delusional at worst, even if Lincoln's Lance Stephenson does sign on for the ride.
There is such a dearth of Big East-caliber talent on this roster, it almost hurts the eyes of anyone who watches, and who sees what a real Big East team like Marquette looks like. Except, it seems, Norm Roberts himself, who believes these same players will all come back and magically transform into something only two or three of them are right now: legitimate Big East players.
And of all teams, St. John's ought to know what lies between here and an NCAA bracket. Its three brightest wins came against two teams - Georgetown and Notre Dame - that had every reason to believe they should be elite teams this year and were simply swallowed in the vortex. See, you can be good in this league . . . and it still doesn't matter.
Keeping Norm now is the wrong decision, but at least it is one the administration can defend if it really wants to. But linking his retention to an NCAA bid next year? That borders on impossible. And crosses over into irresponsible.