Stith will be gone at year end.
That would be unfortunate. A roster of 7-10 freshmen + 2 sophomores, 1 who is a newcomer? Maybe a JUCO? A scoring point and a scoring ballhandler? Makes for a tough year - and unprecedented youth in recent history. That might be only comparable to that decimated Indiana U team when Tom Crean started.
When Crean started though he didn't have anything close to the #2 class in the country. He had a good number of former walk ons I think.
I think he had 2 walk-ons, and a recruiting class of 7. Not as highly rated, but the #2 class - like the top-25 class (rated by some) Norm Roberts brought in 4 years ago - has to do with the quantity of players as well as the quality. The new Johnnies should do better than that, but Luke Winn's Freshman Realism Project (
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/luke_winn/11/17/freshman.realism.project/index.html) work applies to the incoming class. He focuses on Memphis, but many of the rules will apply to St. John's. (Though Memphis has veterans, and St. John's will have Dwayne Polee as its lone vet.)
(Which is to say that the team could use a few vets, even a role playing bulldog defender in the making in Stith. Big difference-maker? I don't know, and we'll never really be able to know whether he stays or goes.)