St. John’s “probably” would have reached the NCAA Tournament and produced the No. 1 pick in the NBA Draft last season had Queens product Maurice Harkless returned to college for his sophomore year rather than go pro, Steve Lavin said Thursday afternoon at the school’s basketball media day.
“We probably win 23, 25 games last year if we have Harkless,” Lavin said, when asked about the team’s prospects and its performance a year ago. “He would’ve been the No. 1 pick in the draft this year, so we basically would’ve had the best player in the country on our roster. But you take those bullets and you move on. You got to keep recruiting and keep developing kids in your program.”
“Last year, obviously, [going] 17-16, we didn’t anticipate Maurice Harkless would be [almost] a lottery pick.”
Without him and the late-season suspension of star D’Angelo Harrison, St. John’s settled for the NIT. The expectations are much higher this year, as Harrison rejoins a roster that has lost very little from last season while adding newcomers Max Hooper, a sharpshooting transfer from Harvard, touted freshman point guard Rysheed Jordan and talented big man Orlando Sanchez, providing depth to an already deep roster.
The 6-foot-8 Harkless enjoyed a solid rookie season with the Magic, averaging 8.8 points and 4.2 rebounds in 26 minutes a night across 76 games last season. Harkless, a local star at Forest Hills High School in Queens, was drafted 15th overall following his standout freshman year at St. John’s — he was the Big East Rookie of the Year — by the 76ers, who then traded him last August to the Magic in a blockbuster three-way deal that sent Dwight Howard to the Lakers and Andrew Bynum to Philadelphia.