This was supposed to be the year Red Storm fans saw their beloved basketball team return to Big East prominence and gain some attention coming into March as that team you didn’t want to run into in the tournament. With the return of last year’s leading scorer D’angelo Harrison (returning from suspension), Jakarr Sampson (Big East Freshman of the Year), Chris Obekpa (led the NCAA in blocks per game with 4.03 last year), and the favorite for Freshman of the Year this year, Rysheed Jordan, the stars seemed to align for the Johnnies. Coach Steve Lavin was handed an incredible amount of raw talent and asked to make some magic with it.
As the season got started with the annual tip-off event, many were hyped and ready for a successful season. The team was introduced in the event by Coach Lavin and rap star Lupe Fiasco decided to join in on the fun by giving a concert to all in attendance at the event. The season started with a bang against #20 Wisconsin in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The Badgers got off to a quick 11-2 run to start the game and would continue their first half dominance closing out the first half with a 12 point lead. A St. John’s run created a 58-54 deficit with around 8 minutes left but Wisconsin’s experience and maturity helped close the game out. The Johnnies wound up losing 86-75 to open up the season 0-1. With Sampson and Harrison being the only players to score in double figures, it was a very disappointing game for a team who many expected to pull off the upset. The next four games were against much easier opponents with the only close game being a 4 point win against sharpshooting Bucknell.
After this stretch, St. John’s would face another real test with a few big conference schools in the Barclays Center Classic. The first game pit St. John’s against Penn State out of the Big 10. While the Red Storm went down by 7 at the end of the first half, they wound up forcing the game to overtime and gave away the game due to scorer Tim Frazier scoring 10 points in overtime alone. In the second game of the tournament, the Johnnies picked up a quality win against Georgia Tech playing in the ACC. After running all over Fordham, St. John’s faced their biggest test of the entire season in the battle of New York against Syracuse. Syracuse was #2 at the time and is now #1 with a 24-0 record, most Johnnies believe they should be 23-1 because of this game. As the Johnnies love to do, they started off slow and got hot after the halftime break. After recovering from a 12 point defect at halftime, the comeback kids were tied at 53 with 9:16 left in the game. After a series of lead changes and momentum runs, star forward CJ Fair and mature freshmen Tyler Ennis displayed poise and passion down the stretch to take the game. Along with help from a few careless turnovers down the stretch, the Red Storm gave away a game that would’ve put them on the national spotlight once again.
The Red Storm finished out the non conference portion of their schedule at 10-3 with their three losses against two ranked teams and tough Penn State team. The kickoff of the Big East competitions were the lowest point of the season as it seemed the team played with almost no motivations. Suffering a 10 point loss to Semaj Christon and the Xavier Musketeers, St. John’s went into play a Georgetown who has had an up and down season losing to the likes of Northeastern and Seton Hall but also beating ranked teams like VCU and Michigan State. The Red Storm had an awful first half being outscored 42-16. This was the point where the team had to find out where the magic they supposedly had gone. Although they outscored Georgetown in the second half, they still wound up losing 77-60. The next game was another tough game against #6 Villanova. They wound up losing by 7 in a game where the Red Storm lost control of it in the last few minutes and their immaturity was still showing. After the game, the team decided to play with a chip on their shoulder but it wound up in a 77-75 loss to DePaul and a 84-83 loss to Providence in double overtime. The team had started off conference play at 0-5. The team had enough.
After getting their first conference win against a weak Seton Hall, they went on to beat a quality Butler team by 17. The team was now on a 3 game win streak going into a matchup against Wooden Player of the Year favorite Doug McDermott and his #20 Creighton Blue Jays. The Johnnies and Blue Jays were battling the entire game with each team making large runs to control the game for a period of time. At one point the Red Storm were down by 18 but tied it up and didn’t let momentum shift…for a while. It was a matchup of complete opposites with a fast-paced, athletic team like St. John’s squared up against the half court, sharp-shooting team from Creighton. The game concluded with a game winning three pointer with 2.4 seconds left by McDermott. These were just three of his 39 points on the night. St. John’s felt like they played a great game and in their usual comeback kid way, they had a much better second half than first half.
This game seemed to inspire the Johnnies to play that much harder and the next game against a Marquette team who started the season off at #17 in the nation, the Red Storm played with fire in their eyes slamming down dunks, performing alley-oops, and making vicious blocks all night long. The team won by an easy 15 points without showing weakness all night. The next game was against scorer Bryce Cotton and Providence who beat the Johnnies in double overtime last meeting. After opening up to a 53-37 lead, St. John’s won by 10 points.
The Red Storm had now won five out of their last six and were facing a surging Creighton who was now up to #12 in the nation. The Johnnies had now been playing with that magic everybody expected them to have at the beginning of the season and were almost expecting a win against a team that had beat them last time. As the two teams met again, St. John’s took the lead early and never let up again. As Creighton made late game surges to tie the game and keep it close, the Johnnies never let up with Harrison clinching the game due to an ice cold, pull up three pointer. The Red Storm didn’t allow McDermott to score or even take a single shot in the final 8:40 of the game.
The Red Storm are now sitting at 15-9 with a 5-6 record in conference. They are winners of six of their last seven games and have been playing their own version of showtime basketball. Suddenly, one of the most athletic and exciting teams in the nation is now on everybody’s NCAA tournament bubble watch and are still playing with a chip on their shoulders. With all their players beginning to play their roles the way they were expected, the Johnnies are in a position to make a surge into the tournament.
Leading scorer D’angelo Harrison is now having his best season averaging 18.3 points per game, 4.3 rebounds, and only 1.2 turnovers a game which is down from an average of 2.25 between the last two seasons. Harrison has raised his three point percentage from 31.5% last season to 36.9% this season. Harrison has become the St. John’s all time three point leader and is climbing up the scoring ranks. The long and athletic small forward Jakarr Sampson is averaging 12.5 points a game and 6.3 rebounds per game. He is also shooting nearly 49% from the field and has become the Johnnies top lockdown defender. He was the major defensive stopper in the Creighton game and was matched up with Doug McDermott in the final stretch. Freshman Rysheed Jordan started the season off slow but has lately began to turn it up being named Big East Freshman of the Week twice in the last three weeks averaging almost 10 points, 1.7 steals, 5 assists, and 3.2 rebounds per game during that stretch. The 6’5 super athletic point guard is now beginning to show exactly why he was rated the number three point guard coming out of high school last year and was heavily recruited. Sophomore Chris Obekpa is displaying why he’s one of the nation’s top shot blockers swatting away 3.3 shots per game in only 20.5 minutes a game.
With these four players playing their game and players like the efficient Phil Greene IV, defensive minded Sir’Dominic Pointer, enforcer God’sgift Achiuwa, versatile big man Orlando Sanchez, and the more than capable point guard Jamal Branch all playing to the best of their abilities, this team is hard to stop. As the team tries to keep up its exciting brand of basketball and prove that they can be New York’s team again as they advertised to start the season, the Johnnies have been picking up fans very quickly. With seven more games left in conference, St. John’s has a chance to show the real version of the team people thought they were at the beginning of the season.
As long as the Johnnies don’t lose the games they should easily win against teams like Seton Hall, Butler, DePaul, and Marquette, they should maintain this newfound energy and momentum into the big games. With games left against Georgetown, #6 Villanova, and under the radar tournament team Xavier and their possible first round pick Semaj Christon, the Johnnies must win at least two out of these three games.
Although the NCAA Tournament is no sure thing and winning the Big East Tournament will be a tedious and unlikely task, if there’s any team who can rebound from their poor start it’s the comeback kids of St. John’s. These boys have an amazing knack for being able to surprise everyone and make incredible, odd defying comebacks. I think that these boys can do it again and can definitely scare a few teams and even upset a few teams in the NCAA Tournament this march. Keep an eye out for these Johnnies because they believe they’re ready to march their way into the big dance and the city of New York is all behind them!
Written by Rahul Lal
Sports Talk With Rahul Lal 