[ad_1]
Somehow, these last few days made this season feel worse. More painful. More disappointing.
It would be one thing if St. John’s was one-and-done in the Big East Tournament. If it snuck past DePaul on Wednesday night and was overwhelmed by Villanova 24 hours later.
That would be easier to deal with. Even tolerable. Instead, Johnnies fans saw their team run DePaul — an improved DePaul that entered the tournament playing so well — off the Garden floor. They saw Julian Champagnie, Posh Alexander and Co. outplay the eighth-ranked Wildcats for large stretches, build a 17-point lead and come within a bounce or a favorable whistle of a huge upset.
It makes you wonder: Where was this team? Where was this defense? Where was this intensity and focus and discipline? Why did it only appear in a handful of games?
After the gut-wrenching loss, coach Mike Anderson acknowledged this should have been a tournament team. He lamented that it took so long for this group to come together. Villanova’s Jay Wright said his team was not surprised by the 17-15 Johnnies — it knew how good it’s opponent can play — and felt the large deficit was more about what St. John’s was doing compared to what the Wildcats weren’t.
That is an indictment on Anderson. Clearly, the pieces were in place to at least go Dancing. To finish in the top half of the league. To avoid playing on the opening night of the tournament.
It took him too long to figure out what he had. His rotations were too erratic, his substitution patterns too inconsistent. Not enough adjustments were made to fit the roster. As good of a job he did his first two years, and I thought the 62-year-old Anderson overachieved, he was closer to the other end of the spectrum this winter.
You can’t use the newness of the roster, not when so many other coaches dealt with similar situations in this, the era of the transfer portal. Yes, the 17-day COVID-19 pause was unfortunate, but others dealt with that, too. Sure, freshman guard Rafael Pinzon missing two months was significant, especially when you consider this team felt a guard short. But just look across the Hudson River. Seton Hall had several new players. It had a lengthy pause. It lost its top scorer, Bryce Aiken, in early January, and the Pirates won’t even have to sweat Selection Sunday.
If you watched the first few days of the tournament, you saw how well St. John’s played — particularly on defense, limiting the stars on DePaul and Villanova — the only teams that were clearly superior were the Wildcats and UConn. There is no reason the Red Storm shouldn’t be sitting in the same position as Seton Hall and Marquette, waiting on an opponent and location on Sunday rather than hoping for an NIT bid.
But that’s the sad, sobering reality. This team couldn’t win a close game against a decent opponent, going 5-11 in games decided by single digits and 2-9 when those games involved a Big East opponent. It couldn’t come through in the clutch, whether that’s on the coach, the players or a combination of the two. But mostly, it didn’t bring its game — the game we saw over the first two nights of the Big East Tournament — anywhere close to enough times.
This year now goes right up there with the frustrating 2013-14 season, when a Sweet 16 team on paper fell a win short of the tournament. You can argue which season is more disappointing. I feel that group, featuring JaKarr Sampson, D’Angelo Harrison, Chris Obekpa and Sir’Dominic Pointer, was more talented in a weaker Big East. That two of the most anticipated seasons of the last decade resulted in NIT berths speaks volumes of this snakebitten program.
That’s unfortunately how this team will be remembered: for what could have been, maybe should have been. Wednesday and Thursday night showcased the potential that existed within this roster. It also added another layer of disappointment to a season full of what-ifs. For long-suffering St. John’s fans, it made this underachieving year even worse.
[ad_2]