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An Uncertain Future at St. John's

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peter

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An Uncertain Future at St. John's
« on: March 12, 2009, 02:10:12 PM »
http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/an-uncertain-future-for-st-johns/

For many teams, the uncertainties at this time of the year come in the form of bubbles and brackets. They are the fortunate ones. For the others, the uncertainties involve the state of the program and job security of the coaches.

When St. John’s season ended (barring an unceremonious College Basketball Invitational or CollegeInsider.com Tournament appearance) with an embarrassing loss to Marquette in the Big East tournament on Wednesday, the Red Storm perhaps found itself swirling again in the wrong kind of uncertainty.

Norm Roberts, who is completing the fifth year of a five-year deal, is 64-84 at St. John’s. His contract automatically rolls over after this year, but it could be terminated by the university at minimal cost....

Although many St. John’s fans, nostalgic for the good ol’ days of Johnnies hoops when they ruled the Big East and T-Rex roamed the earth, are restless because they believe Roberts’s teams have not shown enough progress, Roberts has a couple of things working in his favor.

One is recruiting. While Roberts constantly evoked his team’s youth this season as an explanation for losses, the truth is the vast majority of his players are sophomores who played extensively as freshmen. Maybe they’re just not collectively talented enough to consistently win in the Big East. But next year Roberts is bringing in a little help in the top-100 recruit Omari Lawrence, a wing player from the Bronx playing at South Kent in Connecticut this season.

Perhaps most significantly though, St. John’s might still be in the hunt for the superstar recruit Lance Stephenson. Stephenson, from Lincoln High School in Brooklyn, has been on coaches’ radars for years and is a top-10 guy and a dynamic guard who is expected to be a one-and-done player at the collegiate level. Some are skeptical that Stephenson would choose to spend that one year at St. John’s, even if it’s in his hometown, but the Red Storm is still on his short list, so who knows.

Getting a player like Stephenson would almost certainly give St. John’s an immediate boost in the win column, as well as drastically raising its profile. All of which could help recruiting thereafter. But if Roberts is let go, the Red Storm would most likely be officially out of the Stephenson sweepstakes.

The other factor that could end up in Roberts’s corner is the economy. With the nation in a deep recession and universities struggling to bring in the money they’ve become accustomed to, a lot of athletic directors will find it difficult to justify (to their bosses and to their fans) paying buyouts to fired coaches and dropping bags of cash to land someone (presumably) better.

For the record, here are St. John’s season-by-season records under Roberts:

2008-9: 16-17
2007-8: 11-19
2006-7: 16-15
2005-6: 12-15
2004-5: 9-18
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newsman13

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Re: An Uncertain Future at St. John's
« Reply #1 on: March 12, 2009, 11:35:32 PM »
just this aside...getting stephenson doesn't guarantee others will come.  when st john's had mullin, wennington, jackson, berry, etc...lazy looie followed up after berry left with marco baldi as their only recruit.
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peter

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Re: An Uncertain Future at St. John's
« Reply #2 on: March 13, 2009, 10:49:25 AM »
Don't know if anyone saw this from Newsday.  Might be more tea-leaf reading, but interesting that there might be a brain and a pulse out in the decision-makers there:
http://www.newsday.com/services/newspaper/printedition/friday/sports/ny-spstorm1312544151mar13,0,90580.story

But a person close to the program said it's not certain that Roberts, who has a 64-84 record, will be back. Monasch and Harrington wanted to see more progress this season. Although St. John's beat Georgetown for its first Big East Tournament win since 2003, it scored 10 first-half points, a tournament-record low, in the rout by Marquette.

Paris Horne and D.J. Kennedy emerged as solid scorers, but the Red Storm has little frontcourt presence. Its only two committed recruits for next season are guards.
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patrick

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Re: An Uncertain Future at St. John's
« Reply #3 on: March 13, 2009, 04:33:39 PM »
When next season starts Justin will be 21 and Paris will be 22. Those 2 plus Coker have played 3 post high school seasons. I really hate the excuse about us being so young. True they're sophmores, they're not young sophmores
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patrick

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Re: An Uncertain Future at St. John's
« Reply #4 on: March 13, 2009, 04:36:42 PM »
By the way is anyone else sick of seeing just the records for us as opposed to conference records? We won 16 this year because our schedule was weaker then my son's hoop schedule
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