2023-24 Rankings

[SLYFOXX1968]

I think RP would smile at all the comments here . It’s readily apparent that 20 plus years of mostly bad BB has weakened the fan bases ability to aspire to anything other than mild goals .

For example , winning 2 games in the BE Tourney or, making the NCAA and winning a game or 2

I’m sure Pitino has set much higher goals than that. It’s in his nature to do so .

We just saw 2 Mid Tier teams , SDiego State and Florida Atlantic make the Final 4 .

Kansas State made the Elite 8 with 9 new players who had never played together .


The year before we saw St Peters make the Elite 8 beating Purdue , Kentucky along the way .


The point being , the Portal and the equity in College BB today , mean don’t count out any team before the final Whistle in the last game .

That being said, don’t under estimate the Coaching ability of Rick to take our next team beyond the consensus here .

We will just have to wait and see .

 

[SJUWillRockNYC]

We haven’t made the Tournament yet and guys on this website are talking about seeding!
Let’s give it a rest and see how this season pans out! I am just as optimistic as most of you but this is one tough league!

I'm getting sick of some on here saying oh we haven't a game yet, let them play some games first.

Look. Sju hasn't been much of anything in 23 years. Now we have a HOF coach, who has built a really nice roster that looks like an NCAA tournament but people aren't allowed to get excited because others say so?

Nah F that, people are excited that Rick is our coach, and some b.e. team specifically.won't be putting 90-100 on us anymore. Every team will be in a 40-mimutes with us no matter wth they are.

There's nothing wrong with excitement and I hope people on here keep it up.

 

[ADORAZ]

I'm getting sick of some on here saying oh we haven't a game yet, let them play some games first.

Look. Sju hasn't been much of anything in 23 years. Now we have a HOF coach, who has built a really nice roster that looks like an NCAA tournament but people aren't allowed to get excited because others say so?

Nah F that, people are excited that Rick is our coach, and some b.e. team specifically.won't be putting 90-100 on us anymore. Every team will be in a 40-mimutes with us no matter wth they are.

There's nothing wrong with excitement and I hope people on here keep it up.

Excitement is great, but this is about expectations. My question is let's say we finish the season as an 8 seed and narrowly lose the first game of the Tournament vs the 9. Would you then consider the season to be a disappointment? That's where I'd disagree. I absolutely think Pitino needs to win some Tournament games during his time here for his tenure to be successful, but I'm not placing too much emphasis on a one game sample during his first year with an almost entirely new roster. This season IMO is about making the Tournament and locking up some major 2024 players. Anything more would be the cherry on top.

 

[NCJohnnie]

Excitement is great, but this is about expectations. My question is let's say we finish the season as an 8 seed and narrowly lose the first game of the Tournament vs the 9. Would you then consider the season to be a disappointment? That's where I'd disagree. I absolutely think Pitino needs to win some Tournament games during his time here for his tenure to be successful, but I'm not placing too much emphasis on a one game sample during his first year with an almost entirely new roster. This season IMO is about making the Tournament and locking up some major 2024 players. Anything more would be the cherry on top.

Dancing and a single digit seed would be a nice year as far as I’m concerned. Not to say we won’t do better but that would make me happy given our recent history.

 

[Andrew]

If we get to an 8/9 NCAA game, I will bet on Pitino.

 

[Stevep502]

6 weeks ago i would have agreed that making tourny as a 8/9 seed would be min to call it a successful season.

but Pitino has put together a great 1st year roster, with the little time he had.
As 6 of the 14 are seniors or grads, we’ll have a very experienced team.

call me crazy, but we Lose Soriano, Dingle, Jenkins, Alleyne, slazinski & Conway after this year.
with this roster, a HOF coach & who we lose, Im dreaming of sweet 16

 

[SJUWillRockNYC]

Excitement is great, but this is about expectations. My question is let's say we finish the season as an 8 seed and narrowly lose the first game of the Tournament vs the 9. Would you then consider the season to be a disappointment? That's where I'd disagree. I absolutely think Pitino needs to win some Tournament games during his time here for his tenure to be successful, but I'm not placing too much emphasis on a one game sample during his first year with an almost entirely new roster. This season IMO is about making the Tournament and locking up some major 2024 players. Anything more would be the cherry on top.

My heart says bust, only because we have not won a tournament game in 23 years, and getting that win would be a huge relief.

My brain says success, because he had to rebuild an entire roster in less then 3 months, that's unreal.

 

[ADORAZ]

6 weeks ago i would have agreed that making tourny as a 8/9 seed would be min to call it a successful season.

but Pitino has put together a great 1st year roster, with the little time he had.
As 6 of the 14 are seniors or grads, we’ll have a very experienced team.

call me crazy, but we Lose Soriano, Dingle, Jenkins, Alleyne, slazinski & Conway after this year.
with this roster, a HOF coach & who we lose, Im dreaming of sweet 16

I hear you, but keep in mind we lost our entire roster this year besides one starter, yet we're now talking about how experienced our roster is and how this will be the final year for some. Anytime we've had experienced rosters, this fan base has been in "must win a Tournament game" mode because it was the final years of our previous coaches, recruiting was failing, coaches still hasn't proven themselves, fan base confidence was shot, etc.

Pitino year one is totally the opposite situation of say Lavin's final year (to Mullin's first year). Regardless of whether we win a Tournament game this year I have zero doubt that with Pitino and the transfer portal our roster can be just as good next year. That's why I'm not going to overreact if we lose in a one game playoff, for this year I'd just be very happy to make it.

 

[mattc]

Teams with Top 25 talent and HOF head coaches don't go into a season happy with just making the tournament.

 

[ADORAZ]

Teams with Top 25 talent and HOF head coaches don't go into a season happy with just making the tournament.

We're fans though, not the team. We don't control the results. I'd hope the team themselves have higher goals but every year you have dozens of teams with National Title ambitions but only one team actually accomplishes that. If I had too high expectations I'd be pretty miserable as a sports fan (just look at my avatar- Braves lost the first round of every playoff over a 20ish year stretch- 7 or 8 times- then won it all). Still enjoyed being a fan during the those decades, though.

This fan base has been pretty negative over the past two years, with the exception of the past few months. That's totally understandable. I contributed to that negativity- I made a thread in December about how we should hire Pitino. It's locked now but I'll link it:

Next Coach?

Hi all, Adam here. I haven't been active on redmen/red.fans since last season for a couple reasons. First, my wife gave birth to our daughter (first child) and I've been cutting back on some activities given how time consuming it's been. That said, we're both thrilled that she's here and...

red.fans

All I'm saying is if we don't win a Tournament game this year hopefully this board won't become negative again, which is what typically happens when expectations aren't meant. Year one, especially if we actually make the Tournament (a very difficult feat for any coach year one) wouldn't be the time for that.

 

[austour]

Teams with Top 25 talent and HOF head coaches don't go into a season happy with just making the tournament.

True but I'm not sure the roster is guaranteed top 25 talent. Heck I'm not even sure it's better than 5th in the BE. Pre season postive consideration is leaning 90/10 for the Pitino factor over the roster.

 

[Amaseinyourface]

True but I'm not sure the roster is guaranteed top 25 talent. Heck I'm not even sure it's better than 5th in the BE. Pre season postive consideration is leaning 90/10 for the Pitino factor over the roster.

Right. If we had sure fire top 25 talent with Rick, we wouldn’t be wondering if we can sneak into the end of the rankings to start the season. We have really solid talent with a HOF coach, which is putting us in the realm of a preseason top 25 team.

 

[ADORAZ]

Right. If we had sure fire top 25 talent with Rick, we wouldn’t be wondering if we can sneak into the end of the rankings to start the season. We have really solid talent with a HOF coach, which is putting us in the realm of a preseason top 25 team.

Exactly. The highest that any pundit has us right now is #24 or #25 (mostly due to Pitino), and then you have some like Lunardi who don't even have us in the bracket (but will I think post-Wilcher).

#24/#25, the highest of any pundit, would make us a 6 or 7 seed vs 11 or 10. That'd be a game vs an at-large team, which we'd only be slight favorites against.

At this rate I'm almost wondering if we'd be better off starting outside the rankings (UConn was preseason #26 this year).

 

[mjmaherjr]

Exactly. The highest that any pundit has us right now is #24 or #25 (mostly due to Pitino), and then you have some like Lunardi who don't even have us in the bracket (but will I think post-Wilcher).

#24/#25, the highest of any pundit, would make us a 6 or 7 seed vs 11 or 10. That'd be a game vs an at-large team, which we'd only be slight favorites against.

At this rate I'm almost wondering if we'd be better off starting outside the rankings (UConn was preseason #26 this year).

Good point. Since we already know he’s locked in on recruiting right now I’d rather have lower preseason rank then outperform for this year

 

[Rocket]

True but I'm not sure the roster is guaranteed top 25 talent. Heck I'm not even sure it's better than 5th in the BE. Pre season postive consideration is leaning 90/10 for the Pitino factor over the roster.

Pre season postive consideration is leaning 90/10 for the Pitino factor over the roster.??

Soriano, Dingle, Luis, Jenkins, Allyene, Glenn Taylor and Zuby Ejiofor are all D1 players who started or played significant roles last year. Brady Dunlap and Wilcher are 4 star talents. 90/10 they are at St. John's because of Rick Pitino but more 60/40 they are a top 25 team imo.
There are 10 players that can contribute points which is 7 more than last year.

Molding them into a upper echelon Big East team is the only challenge but the talent is certainly there.

 

[austour]

Pre season postive consideration is leaning 90/10 for the Pitino factor over the roster.??

Soriano, Dingle, Luis, Jenkins, Allyene, Glenn Taylor and Zuby Ejiofor are all D1 players who started or played significant roles last year. Brady Dunlap and Wilcher are 4 star talents. 90/10 they are at St. John's because of Rick Pitino but more 60/40 they are a top 25 team imo.
There are 10 players that can contribute points which is 7 more than last year.

Molding them into a upper echelon Big East team is the only challenge but the talent is certainly there.

Well of course if the roster was bad Pitino wouldn't be enough, but if there was another coach with this roster there would not be top 25 consideration. You could say that there would be potential but the nation would be in show me mode. Because it's Pitino they err on the side of the opposite of caution. But there's still less returning stats and/or high level recruits than a wide range of rosters including a 3-4 in the BE and and a bunch more nationally. I'm not denigrating the players. I see tons of potential and am pleasantly surprised with what transpired. My glasses have shifted from gray to clear but I won't be putting on the rose colored ones Pitino has afforded us all until fall.

 

[Amaseinyourface]

Pre season postive consideration is leaning 90/10 for the Pitino factor over the roster.??

Soriano, Dingle, Luis, Jenkins, Allyene, Glenn Taylor and Zuby Ejiofor are all D1 players who started or played significant roles last year. Brady Dunlap and Wilcher are 4 star talents. 90/10 they are at St. John's because of Rick Pitino but more 60/40 they are a top 25 team imo.
There are 10 players that can contribute points which is 7 more than last year.

Molding them into a upper echelon Big East team is the only challenge but the talent is certainly there.

FWIW Zuby was neither a starter or a significant contributor. There are still plenty of valid questions about our frontcourt outside of Joel. For the record I love the group, but it’s not a sure thing.

 

[SJUWillRockNYC]

We're fans though, not the team. We don't control the results. I'd hope the team themselves have higher goals but every year you have dozens of teams with National Title ambitions but only one team actually accomplishes that. If I had too high expectations I'd be pretty miserable as a sports fan (just look at my avatar- Braves lost the first round of every playoff over a 20ish year stretch- 7 or 8 times- then won it all). Still enjoyed being a fan during the those decades, though.

This fan base has been pretty negative over the past two years, with the exception of the past few months. That's totally understandable. I contributed to that negativity- I made a thread in December about how we should hire Pitino. It's locked now but I'll link it:

Next Coach?

Hi all, Adam here. I haven't been active on redmen/red.fans since last season for a couple reasons. First, my wife gave birth to our daughter (first child) and I've been cutting back on some activities given how time consuming it's been. That said, we're both thrilled that she's here and...

red.fans

All I'm saying is if we don't win a Tournament game this year hopefully this board won't become negative again, which is what typically happens when expectations aren't meant. Year one, especially if we actually make the Tournament (a very difficult feat for any coach year one) wouldn't be the time for that.

You know Pitino has only one goal, the man is a winner, he isn't fine with just the F4, it's a championship. That doesn't mean that he expects a championship this year, but it's still his goal. The team needs to have that same mind set, nothing is ok except a championship.

I'm not going to worry about all of that.

Here's what I'll be doing this year coming up: I'm damn straight going to enjoy the sh*t out of watching Rick on the sideline, and a team on the floor playing some damn good basketball. A coach that knows what he's doing, a coach that WIL NOTTTTT get out coached next year.

I so damn bad want to kick the snot out of some teams this coming year, God I can't wait.

PAYBACK IS A REAL MOTHER, BELIEVE THAT.

and I can't for when SJU has MSG rocking, and I hear the roar of that huge crowd for the Redmen.

Is everyone ready? This is our time baby. REDMEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's been way to damn long.

 

[paultzman]

I guess I go with “cautiously optimistic” with so many new pieces even with HOF guy in Pitino. Gun shy maybe

 

[MCNPA]

I’m very optimistic. This is a different type of coach and a different type of roster. We won’t be out-coached first of all.

Second is that this roster is constructed very differently than any other SJU rosters I can remember. This one was crafted to run two+ full lineups worth of guys who can shoot the ball. We have relied on 1-2 guys over the last decades, being able to somewhat consistent score the ball. Lots of athletes, but not a lot of basketball players.

Our biggest question really is just Pitino getting them on the same page in enough time to gel. Some teams may have more overall highly ranked players, but I think we have a purposefully built mix of players, including lots of contributors and double digit scorers at high major programs. We have a team where everybody can hit FT’s at a high level. We have fantastic depth at most important spots.

Get us one more big man and I think sky is the limit as we will have few major weaknesses.