Breaking down ways St. John’s can make NCAA Tournament
St. John’s has gone from dead and buried to very much alive in the span of just over a week.
It is back in the NCAA Tournament picture after impressive wins over No. 12 Creighton and Butler by a combined 37 points.
Most Bracketology projections currently have Rick Pitino’s team as one of the first four teams out, meaning the Johnnies are close to reaching the tournament for the first time since 2019, but not quite there yet.
So much can happen between now and Selection Sunday on March 17.
The Post breaks it all down with a primer on the weeks to come as the bubble talk ramps up:
Rooting guide
You can bend yourself into a pretzel attempting to analyze how each game every night will impact St. John’s.
There are so many teams on the bubble with a variety of résumés to keep track of.
The simplest approach is following the teams that St. John’s has played.
How they perform can directly impact the Johnnies.
Two teams in particular — Villanova and Utah — are important to keep an eye on.
Right now, St. John’s owns three Quadrant 1 wins, a key metric based on the NET (NCAA Evaluation Tool) rankings that the selection committee uses as its primary metric.
That number, however, can easily increase to five. Only 13 teams in the country own more than five Quad 1 wins.
Villanova has a NET of 32 and Utah’s is 53.
St. John’s home win over Villanova becomes a Quad 1 if Villanova’s number rises to 30 and its neutral site win over Utah also turns into a Quad 1 if the Utes rise to 50.
The Wildcats, on the bubble like the Red Storm, are incredibly important.
The one major issue with St. John’s resume is that it only has two wins over at-large tournament teams: Creighton and Providence.
That number gets doubled if Villanova, which St. John’s swept in convincing fashion, is in the field.
The Big East rival closes the regular season at Providence, at Seton Hall and home against Creighton, giving it ample chances to boost its resume before the Big East Tournament.
Utah’s schedule is easier, facing Pac-12 also-ran Cal on Saturday at home before trips to last-place Oregon State and fringe bubble team Oregon next week.
At this point, Villanova and Utah wins are wins for St. John’s.
the second half of St. John’s win. Getty Images
On the other hand, it is important that Butler doesn’t fall out of the top 75 of the NET — it is currently 68 — because that would take away a Quad 1 win from St. John’s.
Another team to monitor is West Virginia. The road win over the Mountaineers becomes a Quad 2 if their NET increases from 144 to 135.
Quad 2 wins aren’t as important as Quad 1s, but everything counts when it comes down to the committee picking one team over another.
Take care of business
Yes, it’s DePaul and Georgetown, the league’s two punching bags. Two games St. John’s can win with its ‘D’ game. But winning isn’t enough when it comes to metrics.
The Johnnies need to hammer these teams. Bludgeon them. Beat them into submission. St. John’s NET ranking of 40 is solid for a bubble team, but huge margins of victory tend to improve this metric, which takes into account offensive and defensive efficiency along with game results, strength of schedule, game location and the quality of wins and losses.
Villanova recently moved up four spots in the NET after crushing Georgetown by 30 points at home.
Since the selection committee began using the NET in 2019, only six teams have failed to reach the dance with a NET ranking in the 30s: N.C. State (33), Clemson (35) and Texas (38) in 2019; Texas A&M (36) and Oklahoma (39) in 2022; and North Texas (38) last year. Rutgers (40) missed out last March as well.
If the Johnnies can raise their NET ranking into the mid-30s, that would certainly help their cause.
Tournament time
The consensus among most Bracketologists is that St. John’s needs another significant victory over a tournament team.
That opportunity will come in the Big East Tournament. At the moment, the Johnnies are slotted seventh in the league, which would mean playing in the out-bracket round against Georgetown first then meeting fifth-ranked Marquette in the quarterfinals.
But it is unlikely to remain that way if they knock off DePaul and Georgetown as expected to close the regular season.
It is more likely that St. John’s finishes either fifth or sixth. It is only one game in the loss column out of fifth, behind Providence and Villanova.
A fifth-place finish would get them a bye to the quarterfinals and a meeting with on-the-bubble Seton Hall at the moment.
Sixth would mean taking on Creighton in the quarterfinals (as long as the Johnnies knock off last-place DePaul on the opening night of the tournament).
St. John’s owns the tiebreaker with Villanova and loses one with Providence. If all three teams finish tied, Pitino’s team would have the edge.
Either way, the quarterfinals should offer the Red Storm a chance to add a key win to their résumé. It could determine if they go dancing or not.
