St. John's Gets NCAA Tournament Bid Much To LSU's Chagrin

The chances for an NCAA Tournament bid didn't look good for the St. John's men's baseball team after losing to Seton Hall in the Big East championship game on Sunday, but the Red Storm were given one of the final at-large berths to make the field of 64 for the fourth time in five years.  National power LSU cried that the selection of St. John's is a farce and says the NCAA should take a look at how they select the 64 team field.

LSU (36-20) is claiming that they play in a tougher conference and should have been picked over the Johnnies.  St. John's (35-20) finished second in both the Big East regular season standings and championship series.  It is arguably the best team in the northeast.

For the record, LSU finished 9th in the SEC and didn't make their own conference tournament finals.

The Tigers are screaming that their #23 RPI and 12-3 finish entitles the team to be picked ahead of the Red Storm, who go into the NCAA's with a respectable #54 RPI.

"I would say that this year, as a committee, we didn't use RPI as the hammer that maybe it was in previous years," said Tim Weiser, the chairman of the 10-member NCAA Selection Committee.

If LSU wants to find a culprit, the school should look at some of the automatic-bids awarded to winners of conference championships.



New Mexico (20-39) and UALR (24-32) won their respective conference title games (Mountain West and Sun Belt) and will be coasting into this year's tournament field. 

St. John's is a second place team in the Big East conference.  It's hard to argue with all the the RPI's and the fact that seven SEC teams were selected to the tournament that LSU doesn't have a case, but don't blame St. John's.

Sure, Big East baseball will probably never be compared to the SEC, but other factors in St. John's success should be taken into consideration.

For one thing, LSU is a ninth place team. They should know only Big East basketball gets nine or more teams into a tournament. 

Secondly, the Red Storm play in colder weather.  They don't see a home field game until mid-March after they've played about a dozen games on the road.  By seasons end, St. John's has played nearly two-thirds of their games on the road.
 
"The debate is a consistent one: How do you measure a second-place team versus, for example, a ninth-place team?," said Weiser.  " We've got a divided group in that regard."

While LSU sulks, St. John's rejoices about it's # 3 seed in the regional hosted by top-seed Virginia.

"It felt pretty good," said St. John's head coach Ed Blankmeyer.  "It made it a lot easier to enjoy the rest of [the selection show]...It was exciting for me, and I felt very happy for the players."

The Red Storm is no NCAA interloper.  This will be the 33rd appearance in the NCAA Tournament for St. John's--the eighth most by any school.

Last year, St. John's was also in the same bracket as #1 Virginia and beat them in the first game before losing the rematch with the Super Regionals within their grasp.

This year the Red Storm will face # 2 seed East Carolina on Friday before tangling with #1 Virginia and #4 Navy over the weekend.

For now, put all the conspiracy theories to rest.

Trip to Denver Just Another Traveling Call For St. John's

When you mention 'traveling' to St. John's players, they aren't reminded about Justin Brownlee's well publicized walk with 1.7 seconds left against Rutgers in the Big East tournament.  More than likely, they are thinking about being up in the air--flying.  They've been doing all season.  Now, for the first time in nine years, the Red Storm are soaring in the rarefied air of the NCAA Tournament.

The Red Storm haven't been to the NCAA Tournament since 2002.  Now, they are the most experienced team unit in the field of 68 and are flying high without the benefit of any wings.

The 2,000 mile flight to Denver should prove nothing more than a relatively short commute for this squad.  They may have logged more air miles than any other team this season.

This week will be the fourth trip out west for the Red Storm (21-11) team and head coach Steve Lavin thinks his team is built for the NCAA's.

"One of the reasons we went out to St. Mary's to open our season, and went out to the Alaska Shootout, and went back out to play UCLA, was to prepare our players for all the different conditions you could possibly face in the postseason," said Lavin.

Sixth-seeded St. John's plays it's NCAA tournament game against 11th-seeded Gonzaga (24-9) on Thursday and brag that they are built for traveling--air travel. 

The team had logged over 22,000 miles on their three western jaunts.  Even George Clooney's "Up in the Air" character, Ryan Bingham, would skip a hotel promotion party for all those frequent flier miles.

Publicly, the nine seniors on the Red Storm aren't concerning themselves with jet-lag and time changes, but they are taking battle-tested Gonzaga seriously.  The "Zags are making their 13th straight tournament appearance and coming off a nine-game winning streak.

The Red Storm's biggest hurdle should be overcoming the loss of their best all-around player, D.J. Kennedy to a season-ending ACL injury.

At Monday's pep rally and bon voyage sendoff for the Johnnies in Carnesecca Arena, the St. John's swingman was the team's loudest cheerleader and biggest inspiration.  The team knows this one plane trip takes them somewhere special and makes up for four years of watching the Big Dance from the bleachers.  These are the last games of a magical season and their college careers.

"The change in time, we're used to that," Justin Burrell said.  "Jet lag, we're familiar with---we've dealt with it so often this year."

Ryan Bingham couldn't have put it  better.

Red Storm Will Dance Without D.J.

The St. John's basketball team lost more than the game to Syracuse yesterday, they lost D.J. Kennedy, an intricate part of the rags-to-riches Red Storm team. The numbers 1.7 on the time clock may be forever forged in the minds of the St. John's players, after their controversial win over Rutgers the day before, but 14:25 is a number they would like to erase from their minds--it is the moment their star player went down.

Kennedy crumpled to the floor under the basket, only 5:35 into the game, clutching his right knee after going up for a rebound in St. John's quarterfinal match-up against Syracuse.  An MRI later showed a torn ACL.  His collegiate basketball career was now over. and the Red Storm's NCAA tournament chances diminished.

Not so fast say the other players.  While the loss of Kennedy will probably drop the Red Storm from a probable #4 seed in the NCAA's to a #5 or 6, the eight remaining seniors say the same resiliency which carried this team throughout the season will continue into the Big Dance.

This is an experienced squad which turned it around this year.  They worked hard towards playing in their first NCAA tournament and erasing the tag 'Never Made it to the Big Dance' from their bios. The  remaining seniors endured a brutal 2011 schedule and a four year wait which must have seemed like an eternity. Now it's show time.

St. John's head coach Steve Lavin--who inherited this once-wayward team-- realizes the loss of Kennedy--who he calls "The Glue"-- is a big blow to the Johnnies' chances in the NCAA's, but is counting on the team to not let up.

"They've accomplished some very special things, and then we're not satisfied," said Lavin.  "So I don't underestimate this group's ability to continue to find ways to win.  I think we'll have to recalibrate, 'cause the loss of D.J. Kennedy is devastating...but the will and spirit of this group is strong that I have confidence we'll make a run of it."

If yesterday's 79-73 loss is any indication, Lavin should be confident.  No. 18 St. John's (21-11) went toe-to-toe with No. 11 Syracuse (26-6) until the waning moments. The whole team picked up the slack after Kennedy went down.

Kennedy, who was the team's third leading scorer and best rebounder, leaves big shoes to fill and senior Sean Evans was more than a capable replacement.  Evans scored 11 points and grabbed 12 rebounds against a bigger Syracuse team.  Dwight Hardy, Paris Horne and Justin Brownlee all chipped in with double-digit points but they know the road will be bumpier without Kennedy.

"I feel like we can win it all, that's how I feel being the competitor I am," said Justin Burrell. "It'll be a lot tougher, but I think we can do it."

The Johnnies have been on a magical ride this season.  The senior-laden team plays an aggressive physical brand of basketball.  They are a machine filled with interchangeable parts who know how to share the ball and the glory.  Now, one of those parts will be hobbling on the sidelines, cheering them on.  These guys know they have come too far over four years to let up now.

And for St. John's fans, nine years seems like forever since they had a vested interest in Selection Sunday or actually penciled the name 'St. John's' in on their bracket sheets.

Put it this way, the last time a St. John's team danced, Justin Timberlake was in a boy band and they listened to him on a Walkman.

St. John's Surges Past No. 4 Pitt, 60-59

Six nationally ranked teams have entered Madison Square Garden to face the St. John's men's basketball team and five have left the building on the losing end.  The Pittsburgh Panthers were the the latest squad to fall to streaking Red Storm, 60-59.  You would be hard-pressed to call it an upset.

Dwight Hardy, the red-hot St. John's guard, drove from mid-court to the baseline, head-faked Gilbert Brown and rolled in a basket from underneath the net with 1.2 seconds left to get the win. Hardy finished the game with 19 points.

The victory was sweet revenge for the senior-laden St. John's team who have never beaten Pitt in four years.  Last year the Johnnies were swept by the Panthers, lost by 23 in 2009 and were pounded by 24 in 2008.

The Red Storm (17-9, 9-5) are getting back at a lot of teams this season, especially at the Garden. The ranked teams who have fallen to St. John's reads like a potential Final Four.  Georgetown went down in January.  So did Notre Dame and Duke.   Connecticut bit the dust last week.  Don't forget road victories against ranked teams like West Virginia and Cincinnati.

Ironically, Pitt--the No. 1 rebounding team in the conference--lost a rebound after Hardy missed a free throw with 11.3 seconds remaining and a 59-58 lead.  The ball went to Hardy for the third straight time and he delivered the winner.

Hardy, who has emerged as a leading candidate for Big East Player of the Year, is averaging 27.8 points a game and shooting 56% on threes the last four games.

The Red Storm's head coach Steve Lavin can't say enough good things about his guard from the Bronx.

"He's been carrying us," Lavin said.  He's Big East Player of the Year.  A runaway."

In the head coach's own Lavinese, he continued, "It's a team effort but he [Hardy] is Baryshnikov...Fred Astaire.  He was Frank Sinatra today."

There is little doubt that St. John's deserves to be selected to the NCAA tournament next month.  The team's has the toughest schedule in the country and after flirting with a top-25 ranking all season the team should crack the top 20.

Pitt (24-3, 12-2) might have just played themselves out of a #1 seed come tournament time.

St. John's rounds out their regular season against DePaul, Seton Hall and South Florida.  The team travels to Philadelphia against top-ranked Villanova on Feb 26.  Wildcats beware!

The Big East Tournament comes to St. John's home-away-from-home court in Madison Square Garden in March.  The brutish conference is expecting to put up to 11 teams in the NCAA tournament.  If St. John's wins the trophy, nobody will call it an upset.

St. John's Basketball: 5 Reasons Johnnies Ready to Storm Big Dance

Next month the NCAA selection committee will meet to determine which 68 teams will make up the field for March Madness and St. John's is ready to crash the party.

A huge victory over then-No. 10 UConn at the Garden and two tough road wins against good Cincinnati and Marquette teams in the past week have turned the Red Storm into an opponent no team may want to face in the Big Dance.

Just a couple of weeks ago, St. John's lost three games in a row and were precariously looking down at another NIT bid.  Fundamental mistakes, sloppy play and second-half collapses emptied the stands and turned the fans' chant of "We Are St. John's" into "Who Are These Guys?"

All that has changed in a big way for the Red Storm (16-9).  The Westminster Dog Show may have left the building but St. John's basketball is now the big dog in Madison Square Garden.

The Johnnies are 7-1 at their home arena.  Beginning with their MSG Holiday Tournament Championship and rolling over ranked teams Georgetown, Notre Dame, Duke and UConn, St. John's had flexed it's muscle at home and now they are taking their winning ways on the road.

The Red Storm are playing and winning in ideal tournament conditions:  top-notch competition, traveling, winning road games in short spans of time and playing under big crowds.

Here are five reasons the St. John's basketball team should be feared--did I actually say feared?--by teams in the NCAA tournament.

Road Wins-  For once the Red Storm can actually call themselves road warriors.  This week's two decisive wins in three days in the hostile confines of Cincy and Milwaukee are just a rehearsal for the Big Dance.  A 3,000-mile jaunt to Pauley Pavilion--a game that could have been won by St. John's--and the distraction of Steve Lavin's homecoming was nothing compared to the 6,000 flight up to Alaska where the Red Storm won the Great Alaska Shootout at the beginning of the season.  No team has more frequent-flier miles this season.

Free Throw and Three-Point Shooting-  Once the bane of the St. John's team, it is now one of it's most consistent strengths.  As a team, they are shooting nearly 72% from the line and making a third of their shots from over the arch.  This is a team that missed 22 treys in one game earlier in the season and looked the Washington Generals second team at times.

Dwight Hardy-  The 6'2" guard from the Bronx has been on fire.  Last year's sixth man is currently fifth in the Big East in scoring and lit up UConn for a career-high 33 points last week showing up fellow Bronxite, and McDonald's All-American Kemba Walker.  Hardy was named Big East Player of the Week for the second time.  The go-to guard makes almost 90% of his free throws.  Nice clutch player to have in the final minutes.  Hardy brings back memories of great New York City players and is adding to the legacy of St. John's guards in the tradition of Erick Barkley. 

Experienced Teammates-  The senior-laden team is filled with players that are interchangeable.  Sometimes it seems like no five players have been in the game at the same time.  There is Justin Burrell clogging the inside and D.J. Kennedy picking up the slack for Hardy.  Nine tournament-hungry seniors make up this tight-knit squad who have learned to hold on to a second half lead.


Battle-Tested-  No team in the nation has played a tougher schedule that the Red Storm.  Their S.O.S. hasn't bobbed over No. 3 in weeks.  Their RPI now stands at #17.  The Big East is potentially sending 10 or 11 teams to the Tournament and it seems like the Red Storm has faced them all.  St. John's has 4 wins over top-13 teams.  Their Big East schedule reads like the Sweet Sixteen weekend of the Tournament and the Johnnies are 8-5 against these teams.  Don't forget that the Big East Tournament is played at Madison Square Garden.


If that isn't enough, there is the coaching.  First year head coach Steve Lavin took over this an experienced but undisciplined bunch of players and molded them into a team stronger than Gene Keady's brow.  They are playing like a senior-dominated team should--unselfish and fundamentally sound.

Those set-backs against local rivals St. Bonaventure and Fordham in December?  Fugeddaboutit.  Remember the Miami Heat a few months ago?  Sometimes it takes time for a group to gel.

And speaking of gels. It looks like Lavin has eased of the hair retainer, slipped off his tie and resorted to wearing white sneakers while his team rolls. Liking the new casual coach.

The Red Storm are playing their best basketball at the right time.  Their last appearance in the NCAA's was in 2002.  These players don't need to be reminded about that fact, even though Lavin continues to use the tournament as a motivating carrot.

Lavin delivered a 'fire and brimstone" speech during the Marquette game to "put the light under their fanny."

"I just jumped them in that timeout.  'This is what will get you beat in the NCAA tournament when you come out lackadaisical against quality teams,'" he said.

The coach should know, he was there enough times when he was at UCLA.

St. John's Basketball Team Is Already On The Bubble

Nobody was rooting harder for 15th-ranked Notre Dame to upset #2 Pittsburgh on Monday night the the St. John's University's men's basketball team.  The players gathered in the home locker room Monday night, watching the Fighting Irish beat the Panthers and increase the Red Storm's own chances of getting an NCAA Tournament berth this year.

Although the 10 senior Red Storm players were encouraged by the upset, they still know it's a long and hard road to getting the school's first NCAA bid since 2002 and Saturday's disappointing loss to Cincinnati was a shocking reminder how tough life is in the Big East.

It's tough being a St. John's fan these days and very tiring.  The team flirts with a national ranking one week, only to be ranking the next.  A 15-point St. John's lead can slip away faster than a comb through head coach Steve Lavin's hair.  It's all or nothing with this squad.

St. John's (11-7, 4-4) is smack dab in the middle of the Big East schedule and still hanging around.  The senior-laden team is hungry to make their first appearance in the NCAA Tournament and the goal is realistically in sight.  They have waited four years for this opportunity.

The Big East conference is arguably the toughest in the nation and the Johnnies have a chance to make a huge statement against #21 Georgetown (14-5, 3-4) tonight.  St. John's is currently in ninth place in the 16-team conference.

The Red Storm have the 24th-ranked RPI in the nation and have quality wins against Georgetown, Notre Dame and West Viginia in their noisy arena.  If St. John's can finish in the top half of the Big East, chances are they will receive an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament.  Most mock tournament brackets currently have the Red Storm bubbling in.

It's all a big IF.  The Storm came out of the Big East gate on fire.  The team won their first three conference games then dropped four of five--including the disaster against the Bearcats.  There are still 12 games to go and their tight-rope chances sway with every resulting game.

Upcoming, the Red Storm face ranked conference teams Connecticut, Cincinnati, Pitt and solid teams like Marquette as well as stubborn ones like Jersey rivals Rutgers and Seton Hall.  Throw in non-conference foes like Duke and UCLA and the stretch-run looks harder than Gene Keady's stare.

The RPI boost from Notre Dame's upset win over Pitt is nice, but shooting 12-of-26 from the line against Cincy is beyond bad, it's horrific.  The poor free-throw shooting cost them a crucial win against a ranked opponent.  You get to the tournament by winning, not watching other teams get the 'W'.

It is only January and the Red Storm have to worry about 'must win' games.  If the team plans a second half surge, they have to get down to basics--making free throws and less turnovers.  These guys are seniors, they should know.

Lavin knows how to get teams into the Big Dance.  He took six of the seven teams he coached at UCLA to the NCAA's, including five to the Sweet 16 and another to the round of 8.

Lavin has acknowledged all the talk about bracketologies,  RPI's  and all the other factors swirling around his team; variables which get a team into the NCAA Tournament.  The head coach, after spending six years at a broadcast table until this season, is taking it one game at a time.

"We have eleven single-game seasons," said Lavin.  "Everyone wants to participate in the NCAA Tournament, but understanding how to get there is the important part."

Everyone is talking about next year's Red Storm recruiting class and how great a job Lavin did.  The coach can only play the hand he was dealt but the glory days start now.

The Big Least, Big Red and little Pingping

By Tony Mangia

Nicest weather in five months and I'm stuck in bed all weekend with a chest cold. At least I had the NCAA brackets to tide me over and what a wild ride it was! I'm still holding on to seven teams in the Sweet Sixteen--amazingly I'm in a better position than most of my friends!

The Northern Iowa/Kansas regional was a classic Davis and Goliath match-up although the Iowans almost choked at the end. Forty percent of the ESPN Tournament Challenge had Kansas in the finals, so I guess there was a lot of hair pulling in the office pools. Speaking of Goliath; didn't a few of those Northern Iowa players resemble the 40 year-old men who played for the Soviet bloc Olympic teams of the seventies? It looked like half of them were balding and covered with facial and body hair that no teenager I ever knew had. Maybe it's that Midwestern, corn-fed farm-boy thing. Rural life makes a young man grow up strong, fast and hirsute. The Panthers really are a good team--"big, strong like yak," as Sergei would probably say. And some those Kansas players; where'd they get all the money for those $200 custom tattoos? One kid was covered with about 10 grand worth of body art. I guess those summer landscaping jobs pay well. Too bad the Jayhawks players didn't ink instructions on how to block out and hit three pointers on their forearms--it would have made the team booster's money well spent.

I'll make my comments on the mighty Big East Conference's NCAA Tournament brief: even shorter than Tiger Woods' Thanksgiving night explanations. Four teams went down in the first round--three of them to way-lower seeds! Funny how some people were griping that two or three more teams from that conference should have gotten in. Some pundits claim it's because the teams beat the hell out each other during the season and, by the 12th round (tournament time), they are out of steam. What, the other conferences play 'Dancing with the Stars?" I think they should let in more Ivy League schools anyway--less body art and furry guys.

The media--especially CBS's exasperated announcers-- make a big fuss about the 'Cinderella' teams. Everyone loves the underdog and upset teams like Northern Iowa, St. Mary's, and the Big Red of Cornell are about as rare as tourists in Times Square after the first round but, this year, with many of the top seeds already punched out, the little guys stand a chance of getting into the Final Four. Parity and neutral playing sites play big factors in affording mid-major conference teams their shots at glory and at least make the emo-end-of-night video recaps on CBS more heartwarming.

Speaking of the little guys, I was sorry to hear about the passing of He Pingping last week at the ripe age of 21. At 29 inches, the Chinese He was named the world's shortest man according to the Guinness Book of World Records--even though Khagendra Thapa Magar, 18, of Nepal has whined that at 20 inches, he is the rightful title owner. That's what set Pingping apart. He was who He was. Who could forget the little man hustling gawkers for cigarettes in exchange for a photo of himself or He checking out the ladies from the knees up.

TYSON MAY FACE TOUGHEST FOE

PETA, the animal rights group, is trying to clip the wings on Mike Tyson's upcoming pigeon-racing show on Animal Planet. PETA claims there are wages placed on the races and it violates New York's anti-gambling laws. The group has sent a letter to the Brooklyn DA in protest and claims it "disturbs the birds." I bet Tyson treats his rats-with-wings better than he once did a Robin--Robin Givens, that is. PETA should petition that Aqueduct Racetrack gambling quagmire, also known as racino, instead. Wonder if any of the PETA people have the guts to splash red paint on the ex-heavyweight champ?