Once the mecca of the basketball world, the sight of New York City’s game on the collegiate and professional levels for most of this millennium has been a pitiful one.
While the Nets are helping restore some promise in Brooklyn as they fight to hold on to an Eastern Conference playoff spot, the Knicks remain an embarrassment around the NBA, though brighter times look to be a certainty in the very near future, whether it comes in the form of a top draft pick or a free-agent shopping spree.
At a purer level (though the NCAA is one of the most corrupt organizations on the planet), St. John’s is providing some much-needed life to the Big Apple’s basketball landscape as the Red Storm help kick off the 2019 NCAA Tournament in Dayton, Ohio, on Wednesday night with a First Four matchup against Arizona State.
The two schools are competing for the No. 11 seed in the West Region, where the winner goes on to face No. 6 Buffalo in the round of 64.
It’s a rare trip to the Big Dance for St. John’s, a program that was once one of the jewels of the Big East back in the 1980s — a time when Madison Square Garden was still the epicenter of the game.
But the Red Storm’s relevancy extended far before the glory days of the Big East. After legendary head coach Lou Carnesecca took over the program in 1965, St. John’s made the NCAA Tournament 19 times in 24 seasons. The Queens school didn’t hit its highest peak, though, until the mid-’80s when a national standout guard in Chris Mullin helped St. John’s to a Sweet 16 appearance in 1983 and a run to the Final Four in 1985.
While Mark Jackson ensured the school remained on the map after Mullin’s departure, St. John’s quickly faded to irrelevancy after Carnesecca left the program in 1992.
Over the next 26 seasons, with coaches ranging from Fran Fraschilla to Mike Jarvis and Steve Lavin, St. John’s made the NCAA Tournament just seven times. That number plummets to just three since 2000.
In an attempt to bring back some of that old-school mojo, St. John’s brought on Mullin as its head coach in 2015, which looked like a questionable decision when he was met by three successive losing seasons. But with the returning Shamorie Ponds (19.5 PPG) along with a duo of supporting scorers in Mustapha Heron (14.9 PPG) and LJ Figueroa (14.3 PPG), Year 4 was expected to end a three-year tournament drought.
It wasn’t easy.
After starting the season 14-1 behind an easy out-of-conference schedule, the Johnnies began to sink during the Big East portion of their campaign. They went 6-10 in their final 16 games, 15 of them coming in conference play. A 32-point loss to No. 23 Marquette — a team they beat twice during the regular season — in the Big East Tournament quarterfinals only damaged hopes of reaching the tournament.
For a team whose strength of its non-conference schedule was ranked 214th in the nation (69th overall) along with a NET rating of 72nd, a 21-12 record was going to fall under siege by the selection committee.
It was just enough, and by the skin of their teeth, as St. John’s received the final at-large bid by the committee on Selection Sunday.
Arizona State provides a similar résumé to St. John’s. The Sun Devils had three Quadrant 1 wins compared to St. John’s’ four, along with a strength of schedule that was ranked 70th and a NET rating ranked 63rd in the nation.
Check out how the teams stack up against each other below. You can catch the game on TRU TV or online at March Madness Live:
