St. John’s returns home after traveling out of the continental US to play in the Rainbow Classic. This year we face off against Marist, who left a bad taste in my mouth from the last time we played them. We also will have the possibility to play either Hofstra or Virginia Tech in the second game of the tournament. The great thing about the Holiday Festival is there is still a buzz in the city left over from Christmas and anticipation of the new year. It is also a time where we usually see the team return back to home and really get a measure of where the team stands going into Big East Conference play. For some fans this might be the first game they’ve attended all season while others will bring loved ones, friends, or perhaps get together with their former college mates and root for their alma mater. As everyone loves getting back to the playing in the Garden as you are on the main stage in the Mecca of basketball.
Before this season started there was so much buzz about St. John’s amongst their fans with the addition of seven freshman as St. John’s was hopefully turning a new leaf by getting back to the glory days. Fans debated back and forth and made their predictions of how this young team would fare. The optimists wanted 16-19 wins thinking their team would qualify for Big East Tournament for the second straight year, the realists predicted getting to .500 would be tough for this team to make, while the pessimists were predicting just dreadful things.
We saw a young team of Huskies last season have their ups and downs showing flashes of brilliance while looking like a high school team the next despite being under the great tutelage of Jim Calhoun. Now not to draw comparisons to the two schools but many of our own fans claimed this team wouldn’t be that good due to youth and inexperience. I for one think thats no excuse to say that a team won’t do well because they are young but it does hold some truth to it.
After 7 games we sit 1 game above .500 with a 4-3 record as most would say is rather disappointing. I thought we would be at the very least 5-2 at this point assuming a loss on the team’s first road game in Miami and losing one game in Hawaii. Granted I also think this team could be undefeated at this very point too as I think none of the teams we’ve played have been that great. It’s safe to say we lost some games we should have won and could have won. We’ve seen large rotations, questionable lineups, odd substitutional patterns that at times that have caught the attention of most fans. Fans haven’t been happy citing this as a major reason why we’ve lost some games chalking it up to the coach’s fault. These same fans said we wouldn’t be successful due to inexperience however how will these young guys get experience if they don’t play? We all know that we need these kids to grow up and grow up fast some would say in a New York minute. We’ve seen the freshman slow to react defensively resulting in fouls and plenty of them as the game is a bit “fast” for them early on. You might be shaking your head as you are reading this saying stop making excuses and I’m not. We’ve seen guys struggle when they make the jump to the pros from college(to a higher level) and they need to catch up to the speed of the game. Some will adjust faster than others but the only way to get these guys ready is to throw them into the fire. We’ve gotten burnt doing this so far but this is the right move to make as our main focus is to get better and climb in the Big East standings. No one had plans for this team to make the NCAA tourney or the NIT this season but we were looking to move up on the Big East. It’s better to throw some of these guys in the fire now than during conference play.
Records are swiped clean at 0-0 when you enter conference play and this is where we will be looking to make our move up in the standings. We’ve seen some very good things out of this team and we’ve seen some bad but its too early to give up and if you aren’t behind this team than you are truly against it.
This brings us back to the Holiday Festival the midterm exam the final test before we enter Big East play. We’re coming back to NY with a full healthy roster something we haven’t seen in 3 seasons and we should see a better St. John’s team than we saw in Jamaica. There might be times where this team plays well and the next it will play bad but we must remember its still our team. Like so many firsts this season this will mark the first time some of our players will be playing at MSG but this is the first time for all that we’ll make the Garden, The Jungle.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.