November 15, 2010, 2010-11 St. John's Red Storm men's basketball preview for Metro NYC Newspaper
Lavin era begins with high expectations
Justin Burrell sat at a table and talked about pain.
Burrell’s left wrist was in a protective cast. He had fractured his wrist while running suicide drills after slamming it off of Dwight Hardy’s knee. But that was not what causing Burrell anguish.
He was thinking about the past.
“I’ve been a Division I player for three years now, and there’s no worse feeling than NCAA tournament time and knowing your name won’t be called. I haven’t even got to experience the feeling of being in doubt or being hopeful that your name will be called,” Burrell said. “Unfortunately, I’ve known that my name will not be called and that’s the worst feeling that I could ever experience as a Division I basketball player.”
It would be easy for the power forward to enter his senior season pessimistic about his and his fellow seniors odds of participating in March Madness, especially with a new coaching staff. However Burrell used 16 words describe the St. John’s fresh mind-set.
“It is a completely different atmosphere,” Burrell said. “We know, as a team, we’re a very good team.”
As another season begins, there may be no more fascinating program in the NCAA than St. John’s. The historic power has a new coach in Steve Lavin, fresh off of seven years as a college basketball analyst for ESPN.
Lavin, who last coached 2002-03, compiled 145-78 record in seven years as the head coach at UCLA. Lavin guided the Bruins to six NCAA Tournament appearances. In his first year, UCLA qualified for the Elite Eight. Four times in his tenure UCLA reached the Sweet 16. The Bruins lost in the first round of the Tournament 1998-99.
Hired in March, Lavin has spent seven months breathing life into the St. John’s Red Storm Men’s basketball program. The Red Storm is on national television 11 times this season in an attempt to re-emphasize the St. John’s brand nationally. Their 2010-11 season opens Tuesday morning at St. Mary’s of California. The Gales reached the Sweet 16 last spring. St. John’s will participate in the Great Alaska Shootout Thanksgiving Weekend, and have dates with traditional powers Duke and UCLA, along with its Big East schedule.
“This is the most difficult schedule of my career. This is far and away the most difficult schedule,” Lavin said. “It provides opportunity to find out about your team.”
The brutal schedule is nothing when reviewing St. John’s recent history.
The third millennium has not been kind to one of the NCAA’s premier college basketball programs. St. John’s is 167-170 overall and 69-113 in the Big East dating back to the 1999-2000 season. The program has employed three coaches in 11 years: Mike Jarvis, Kevin Clark and Norm Roberts.
The Johnnies last qualified for the NCAA Tournament in 2001-02. The Red Storm participated in the NIT following the 2002-03 and 2009-10 seasons, and reached the College Basketball Invitational after the 2008-09 season.
Grady Reynolds, a JUCO transfer, was charged with assaulting a female student in a dorm room during the 2002-03 season. He was expelled from St. John’s in the middle of the 2003-04 school year for being one of six members of the basketball team involved in a sex scandal in Pittsburgh.
The school imposed penalties spanning the 2004-05 through 2006-07 seasons after an internal investigation revealed a member of the athletic department gave “improper benefits” to former power forward Abe Keita.
Still the hire of Lavin is the impetus of what appears to be the dawning of a new era at St. John’s. Lavin is eternally positive and a human perpetual motion machine. Already, Lavin has signed Dwayne Polee II, the California State Player of the Year in 2008-09. Polee will play this season, although Lavin does not yet know whether the freshman will start or come off the bench. And St. John’s 2011-12 recruiting class is ranked third by ESPN.com.
Lavin’s presence and hustling has drawn notice from rival Big East coaches as the Red Storm was predicted to finish sixth in the pre-season coaches’ poll and received one first place vote. The last time St. John’s finished in tenth place or better in the Big East was 2006-07, in which they placed 10th with a 16-15 (7-9 in conference) record.
So, yes, there are very real and very high expectations for St. John’s for the first time since the 1999-2000 season. St. John’s entered that year coming off of an appearance in the Elite Eight. The Red Storm finished 1999-2000 with 25-8 record (12-4 in conference), won the Big East Tournament but lost to Gonzaga in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
The outlook for St. John’s is positive. But is it possible to manage sky-high expectations with what reality may be?
“I don’t think you can do that in New York,” laughed Gene Keady, a special assistant/advisor to Lavin. Keady, the legendary Purdue coach, pointed to his former assistant as the primary reason he signed on with the Red Storm. Lavin worked for Keady at Purdue as a graduate assistant and as an assistant coach between 1988-89 and 1990-91. “We’re just like everybody else. We have high goals. We want to be the best. We want to get to the NCAA, and I think to get to the NCAA is a reasonable goal if the guys improve, get better and work together; maybe win 20 games. I don’t think that’s out of reach.”
Do the preseason predictions matter to the team?
“It means a little bit to the players but mostly that’s for our fans; for people who really don’t know the game too much to have an idea,” Burrell added. “But as players, that really doesn’t mean anything. We all know, coming out, you still have to play the game. It doesn’t matter where you’re projected. You have to play the game.”
The 2010-11 Red Storm will begin to find out just how good they are beginning tonight.
DENIS GORMAN
http://www.metro.us/newyork/sports/article/692125--lavin-era-begins-with-high-expectations--page0
posted by Denis P. Gorman at 3:06 PM
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