The junior varsity portion of St. John’s schedule is over for now.
Beginning Friday night with the Barclays Center Classic, the Red Storm will face major conference opposition in three of their next four games, and the other foe — much-improved Fordham — is coming off one of its biggest wins in recent memory, a thrilling victory over Manhattan in the Battle of the Bronx on Tuesday.
The 4-1 Johnnies have won four games in a row, all at Carnesecca Arena against mid-major or lower competition. The most impressive victory was a come-from-behind 67-63 win over Patriot League favorite Bucknell, but the last two wins — over Monmouth and Longwood — were far from impressive.
“I’m really pleased with where our team is at, at this stage,“ St. John’s coach Steve Lavin said Wednesday on WFAN. “I think we’re there, we are on the brink now with this group of players — the firepower, the balance of size, strength, skill and quickness. We think we have a chance to do something special.”
St. John’s lost its lone contest thus far against major conference opposition when it fell in the season-opener to still undefeated Wisconsin, an early-season surprise with wins over Florida, West Virginia and Notre Dame. While the three other teams in this weekend’s tournament — Friday’s opponent Penn State, Ole Miss and Georgia Tech — aren’t comparable to the Big Ten powerhouse Badgers, in style or level of play, it will be an interesting test for the still-developing Johnnies, a “challenge” Lavin believes.
St. John’s got prized freshman point guard Rysheed Jordan back Tuesday after a one-game suspension for violating team rules, and the Philadelphia product performed well after a shaky start, with eight points, four assists and two steals. Chris Obekpa was the contest’s other bright spot, continuing to serve as a menace around the basket with six blocked shots, six points and eight rebounds.
Lavin was pleased with his team’s defense, holding Longwood to 33 percent shooting and tying a school-record with 15 blocks. Yet the club’s offense remains a work in progress. St. John’s is attempting 15.6 3-point shots per game, though it is only shooting 21 percent from beyond the arc. The Johnnies have gone to the free-throw line with more regularity in the last two games — an average of 24 times — and is averaging 69 points per game and shooting 43 percent from the field.
“Those are things we can work on,” said junior guard D’Angelo Harrison, who is averaging a team-high 19.4 points per game.
Beginning in the preseason, Lavin has repeatedly said the Red Storm wouldn’t jell until January or early February, and that seems to be evident through five games of up-and-down play.
“Each year there are three or four teams that blitz through the competition from start to finish of the season,” Lavin said after the Longwood game. “The rest of the teams in the country you can throw in a hat and what will determine their degree of success is how much progress they make over the course of the season. The teams that improve the most between tonight and the middle of March are the ones that best position themselves for a postseason run.”
The next few weeks could set St. John’s up nicely, granted the Red Storm continue to improve and can stockpile wins against big-named foes.