Selection Sunday

Bleacher Report's Rankings of Every Team in Field of 68:

St. John's: #36

Record: 21-12, 8-10 in Big East

How They Got Here: St. John's started out 12-0 against a painfully weak nonconference schedule. (Even with the February blowout loss at Duke, the Red Storm still have an NCSOS outside the top 200.) They proceeded to put together a sub-.500 conference record. Normally, that would be a massive no-no. But they swept Marquette and Creighton during the regular season and won a home game against Villanova. And in the Big East, where no one was terrible this year, that's a solid 8-10 record.

Reason to Believe: In terms of raw talent, this is one of the best starting fives in the country. Shamorie Ponds, Auburn transfer Mustapha Heron and Arizona transfer Justin Simon were all top-50 recruits who are now upperclassmen. LJ Figueroa was a JUCO All-American. And Michigan State transfer Marvin Clark is no slouch. Consistency has been a major issue all year, but there's a lot of potential here.

Reason to Worry: St. John's has talent, but it doesn't have height. This team routinely gets destroyed in rebounding margin. In each of their 12 losses, the Red Storm lost the battle on the boards. And we're not talking about a difference of one or two. The average difference in those games was 12.7 rebounds. Also, aside from a strong turnover rate, this team is bad on defense.

March Madness Ceiling: The Johnnies will lose as soon as they run into a team capable of dominating them in the paint, which shouldn't take long. They got those key wins over Creighton, Marquette and Villanova because those are perimeter-oriented teams who didn't, or couldn't, capitalize on the Red Storm's fatal flaw. Best of luck winning more than one game with that problem.
 
[quote="oldschool Redmen" post=331668]Since it's the play in game, is this actually an ncaa tourny game?
Would a win snap the streak of 17 years without an ncaa win?[/quote]

The streak is actually 19 years. :( :eek:hmy:
 
To me this reminds me of 31 years ago, 1988. SJU got in as an 11 seed, I believe that year they were either the last or one of the last at large teams. Got very lucky, finished poorly, 8-8, then blew a BE quarterfinal to Villanova in what most people thought they needed to get in. They had control of that game. Got in anyway. Fought hard in Boise against Vern Maxwell and Florida and lost on a last second 3 by Mad Max...
 
"Snubbing UNC-Greensboro for St. John's: The Spartans (28-6, 15-3 Southern) were undoubtedly worthy of making the field of 68 given their overall profile in which they only lost to Quadrant 1 (top-30 home, top-75 away) opponents. And if Belmont is getting in with five losses and the same amount of Quad 1 wins (2) then UNC-Greensboro should've been considered. Look at the Red Storm (21-12, 8-10 Big East) from a blind résumé standpoint. They had a worse NET score of 73, a worse non-conference strength of schedule of 216 and lost five Quad 2 or Quad 3 games compared to UNC-Greensboro's zero. The committee shouldn't have just given one really good mid-major love, it should've given it to two."

NCAA tournament underseeded and overseeded teams: 5 things selection committee got wrong in USA Today
 
[quote="fordham96" post=331777]To me this reminds me of 31 years ago, 1988. SJU got in as an 11 seed, I believe that year they were either the last or one of the last at large teams. Got very lucky, finished poorly, 8-8, then blew a BE quarterfinal to Villanova in what most people thought they needed to get in. They had control of that game. Got in anyway. Fought hard in Boise against Vern Maxwell and Florida and lost on a last second 3 by Mad Max...[/quote]

I clearly remember that NCAA Tournament game. It was an 11:30pm EST start after the local news telecast. I recall staying up and watching the game in its entirety. Florida had at least two players missing, and I still remember Billy Packer insisting Carnesseca should press and speed up the game as Florida was lacking depth and Maxwell was the only one bringing up the ball. It was in a high altitude setting (Utah--home of the Utah Utes) as well.

I also thought St. John's was done after losing to Providence during the last game of the regular season and to 'Nova in the Big East Tournament Quarterfinals. The team finished off the season horribly, and I didn't even tune into the Selection Show as I thought we wouldn't make it. My oldest brother told me we had made it and I was surprised as heck.

We had some good early wins against an upstart Loyola Marymount, Kansas, swept Georgetown, and beat Villanova. I believe we mainly got in on our reputation at the time. It felt like a kick to the stomach to this 15-year old once Maxwell nailed the game-winning trey on us in that first round NCAA game.
 
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I hope pundits come out of the woodwork and say we have no business in the tourney. We need bulletin board material for the players. This is how they have to see it: they don't think you stand a chance...you were the last team in. You barely made the field and Belmont got in before you. Are you going to go out with a whimper and lose again to ASU? Or are you going to go get the 1st NCAA W in 19 years for this program?

This team is so hard to predict but it sometimes seems they do the opposite of what you'd expect aside from the Duke blowout. The opposite would be to go on a hot streak after finishing the season terribly. If you can't get up for this then you shouldn't be here.
 
[quote="Mike Zaun" post=331759]ASU fans on message boards don't seem too worried. Many calling us "very beatable". Let's pound them.[/quote]

Lets be honest. We are very beatable lol
 
The draw is fine for some minor success. Couldn't ask for more than that. Both ASU and Buffalo are teams that we can beat. Not that we will, teams are seeded where they are for a reason. The nature of this team makes it hard for me to envision any type of deep run. Mostly just happy they squeaked in as I couldn't envision anything good coming out of this team playing a first round NIT game at Carnesecca.
 
[quote="Room112" post=331816][quote="Mike Zaun" post=331759]ASU fans on message boards don't seem too worried. Many calling us "very beatable". Let's pound them.[/quote]

Lets be honest. We are very beatable lol[/quote]

We aren't very beatable. We beat ourselves :)
 
Nothing like a local paper that hasn't covered us all year, from a writer I've never heard of, doing a complete hit job on the selection committee, and our program, one day after getting in the NCAA Tournament.

[URL]https://www.nydailynews.com/sports/college/ny-sports-st-john-column-20190317-story.html[/URL]

Now, there may very well be some good points here, but couldn't this have waited until we are eliminated? It's almost like they prepared this article, thinking we'd be going to the NIT, and had nothing else prepared.

It's almost like they wanted to tempt the wrath of the whatever from high atop the thing (West Wing reference).
 
[quote="SJU61982" post=331867]Nothing like a local paper that hasn't covered us all year, from a writer I've never heard of, doing a complete hit job on the selection committee, and our program, one day after getting in the NCAA Tournament.

[URL]https://www.nydailynews.com/sports/college/ny-sports-st-john-column-20190317-story.html[/URL]

Now, there may very well be some good points here, but couldn't this have waited until we are eliminated? It's almost like they prepared this article, thinking we'd be going to the NIT, and had nothing else prepared.

It's almost like they wanted to tempt the wrath of the whatever from high atop the thing (West Wing reference).[/quote]

One thing that has had a worse four year stretch then SJU basketball is the Daily News. And that's saying something!They are a zombie paper, with almost no staff and no content, gasping along on their former name.

As someone who started every day from when I could read to about ten years ago by getting a News and reading it back to front It has been sad to watch.
 
Anyone think having Cragg as AD helped us squeak in? Isn’t the head of the selection committee from Duke
 
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For all the people, who think we shouldn't be in, name a bubble team that got left out that was more deserving. NC State? Clemson? TCU? Texas? Those teams are no better than we are, and they aren't more deserving than we are. No one would be complaining if the NCAA hadn't made such a big deal about the NET. NC State's NET was decent - but that was compounded by the fact that their OOC was the worst among any power school - and that's saying something. The Selection Committee wasn't going to reward a bubble team with such a bad OOC.

We benefited from a top-heavy tournament with a lousy bubble and very few stolen bids.
 
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