KNOXVILLE – The St. John’s players walked off the Garden court less than three weeks ago after having been thrashed by Connecticut in the Big East Conference Tournament championship game and headed for the team locker room, where the most bizarre of scenes unfolded.
“If you were part of the team and you were in the locker room, you would have seen that we were laughing and giggling that these teams stopped us and we did so many dumb things on the court,” said senior captain Tyrone Grant. “It was obvious to us, maybe not other people. We just went into the locker room and said, ‘Yo, we got another game in the NCAA Tournament. It’s time to show we got heart.”
Laughing and giggling?! The season had just officially entered the one-and-done stage after the Huskies had jumped out to a 13-0 lead and routed the Red Storm on their home court. One week earlier Villanova, which didn’t even make it out of the first round of the NCAA Tournament, had stunned the Red Storm in both teams’ regular-season finale.
There was no reason to believe this team could take the NCAA Tournament by storm. All the laughter in the world couldn’t disguise the fact that with the exception of a 62-59 win over Miami in the Big East semis – the team’s first win over a Top 10 team all season – St. John’s had not played particularly well down the stretch.
Imagining St. John’s advancing to the Final Four certainly would have been funny, if not downright insane. No one is laughing today.
Tonight, St. John’s will take the court against Ohio State 40 minutes from destiny; 40 minutes from taking their place among the great St. John’s teams of all time; 40 minutes from the program’s first Final Four appearance since 1985 and only the third all-time.
“I think that the kids themselves finally realized, it took a long time, what was going to be necessary for us to have a chance to advance,” said St. John’s coach Mike Jarvis. “We weren’t going to be able to do it with a 20-minute effort, or a 30-minute effort or with three guys trying to get it done.
“And I think what happened was at the end of the Connecticut game, when Ronnie [Artest] took a lot of the blame. He said, ‘I got overexcited and I tried to do too much myself and I’m not going to do it again.’ For him to say that, and for him to be so positive after a loss, might have been one of the biggest things that happened all year.”
Now St. John’s is poised for its biggest accomplishment of the decade. The Red Storm (28-8), seeded third in the South Regional, can cut down the nets in Thompson-Boling Arena with a win over the fourth-seeded Buckeyes (26-8), who upset Auburn 72-64 Saturday night.
“The thing that hits me right between the eyes is the way these guys consistency come back and accomplish more than I thought they were capable of accomplishing,” said Ohio State coach Jim O’Brien. “Every time I ask myself if they’re capable of doing a little more they somehow surprise me and do a little more.
“Now we’re asking them again,” continued O’Brien, the former Boston College coach who’s in his second season at Ohio State. “I know this St. John’s team. I know how tough players like Grant and [Lavor] Postell are. I know that program. This will come to down to who wants it more.”
It will also be a game of great matchups – Erick Barkley versus Scoonie Penn – and greater intensity. These are two teams that weren’t supposed to still be playing. The Buckeyes won just eight games last season. No team that has failed to qualify for the NCAA Tournament the previous year has made it to the Final Four the next.
St. John’s returned to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in five years last season, where it was dumped in the opening round by Detroit. The Red Storm suffered gut-wrenching losses to Top 20 teams such as Purdue, Stanford, Duke, Connecticut and Miami, but had only that one win over the Hurricanes in the Big East Tournament to suggest they were capable of modest success in the NCAA Tournament.
But a team with a new resolve took the court a week ago Thursday night against Samford and held the Princeton-like Bulldogs to just one backdoor layup in a 69-43 win. Then St. John’s handed Indiana its worse-ever NCAA Tournament loss, 86-61. And this past Thursday St. John’s held Maryland scoreless for almost 10 minutes in a 76-62 win.
“My cousin from Xavier, Ohio, Donnell Williams came to see me and I told him we were going to win – easily – and he didn’t believe me,” said Grant. “My old coach, Coach [Brian] Mahoney and Coach [Ron] Rutledge, and Coach [Lou] Carnesecca, I was real happy for them because they’ve been waiting for this for a while now.”
Waiting since 1985 when guys named Mullin and Wennington and Berry charged into the Final Four. You will not see the stars – Artest, Barkley, Bootsy Thornton – on this St. John’s team laughing. They have played with the cold resolve of professional assassins but don’t think for a second that they aren’t aware of what tonight means.
“You can see a look in their eyes when they pull up to an arena and all the TV cameras are there,” said Jarvis. “They may not show you what they’re feeling, but there’s a tremendous sense of pride on this team.”
Imagine the laughter tonight if St. John’s should win.