@RogRubin: St. John's, going against Minnesota, seeks to be "taken seriously." NYDN column: http://t.co/sMEkVjertt.
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In college basketball there are no must-win games in November. If there were, this would be one.
St. John’s meets Minnesota at the Garden Wednesday night in an NIT Season Tip-Off semifinal and it is no small opportunity. Games like this meeting with the Gophers – NCAA Tournament resume-builders – are the ones the Red Storm couldn’t win last year. It cost them last March. In the ‘who did you play and who did you beat?’ view of the selection committee, the answer was not enough good teams.
No. 10 Gonzaga and Georgia play the other semifinal, meaning another opportunity could await.
“This will be our biggest game. Coach (Steve Lavin) stresses to live in the present and Wednesday will be one of the biggest games of our careers he said,” senior D’Angelo Harrison said. “We were all like ‘he’s right.’ Having that in the back of your head, and knowing what 2-0 can do for this program, and having people finally take us seriously would be big for us.”
So the Johnnies know that right now they are not taken seriously, or at least not seriously enough. They also know it’s their own doing.
They lost the two non-conference resume games to Wisconsin and Syracuse last season. Against the three top Big East teams – Villanova, Creighton and Xavier – they went 1-5, including a pair of three-point lossess. And in the conference tournament quarters against Providence, a virtual play-in for the NCAAs on their home court, they lost by five.
St. John’s should be better than it’s been. Point guard Rysheed Jordan will play in the NBA. Center Chris Obekpa is a draft pick on most national websites that track these things. Harrison is a preseason first-team all-Big East pick. Seniors Phil Greene and Sir’Dominic Pointer have started a combined 140 games.
“They might have the most talented starting five in the Big East,” Villanova coach Jay Wright said. “I expect them to be good.”
But what are these Johnnies to this point? At best, good players who can’t seem to win the big one. At worst, they are overconfident underachievers. Their belief – all those five starters could exit the program after this season to graduation and the draft – is that their experience and drive to reach the NCAAs in their last crack at it will be the difference this time around.
“We have to approach it as a winner-takes-all, like a tournament game,” Greene said.
Duke will be a power non-conference opponent, but a date with rebuilding Syracuse may not have the heft it did a year ago. And the Big East was only worthy of four bids last season and it’s still too soon to say whether they’ll be worthy of as many this season. So St. John’s may need these chances to show it belongs in the NCAAs.
There is one other concern worth mentioning about these Johnnies: They must prove their mental toughness.
On campus Tuesday, when asked about the tendency to play down to the level of opponents, both Harrison and Greene joked that is the Storm’s “curse.” If so, they’re the ones who put the hex on.
They might see an example of mental toughness across the court Wednesday. Both St. John’s and Minnesota were disappointed at being bypassed for the NCAAs in March and received No. 1 seeding in the NIT. The Gophers responded by winning five games and taking the title at the Garden. The Johnnies unraveled fast and were humiliated by Robert Morris at Carnesecca Arena in their next game, something they all seem ashamed about now.
That shame is actually a good sign. The most-valuable lessons come in defeat.
This game is not a must-win for St. John’s. They will have their share of chances to build a resume. And every team is alive for the NCAA Tournament until it loses in its conference tournament in March. But a win on Wednesday would sure help the Johnnies.