St. John’s season ended in gut-retching fashion Wednesday night in a 73-71 loss at Memphis in a first-round NIT game. Now comes the hard part.
As the Red Storm flew back from Memphis yesterday afternoon, the administration was ironing out the logistics to be as respectful as possible to outgoing coach Norm Roberts.
As The Post reported last week, Roberts will not be retained for a seventh season. An official announcement could come as soon as today.
COMPLETE MARCH MADNESS COVERAGE
Roberts told The Post yesterday that he was proud of his team and was looking forward to spending some time with his family this weekend.
“I was more proud of them than when we beat Connecticut [in the Big East Tournament],” Roberts said. “The way we played [Wednesday] night in that environment, we were down, we came back. A lot of teams didn’t go into the NIT and play hard. We did.”
Athletic director Chris Monasch will attend the Red Storm women’s NCAA Tournament game against Princeton in Jacksonville tomorrow and university president Father Donald J. Harrington is in Europe for a scheduled board of trustees meeting which could leave the timing of an official announcement in flux.
Roberts is 81-101 in six seasons, but he inherited a program that was at a low point. The NCAA had found violations including under-the-table payments to former center Abe Keita and players had solicited sex from a woman at a Pittsburgh-area strip club.
“I feel we’ve done the job they asked us to do,” Roberts said. “They asked us to restore pride, we did that. They asked us to improve the talent level, we did that. They asked us to graduate the players and we did that. They [the players] do the right things on and off the court.”