Sports

Vitale: Lavin right man for St. John’s

College basketball has been missing something in recent seasons, says Dick Vitale.

“The Garden has been dead. It’s been dead,” the longtime ESPN analyst repeated for emphasis. “[St. John’s] coach [Norm Roberts] worked really hard and tried to get it done, but it just didn’t happen in terms of fan interest, he didn’t create the enthusiasm and the energy.”

As the 2010-11 season tips off, that’s a job now charged to Vitale’s former ESPN colleague Steve Lavin, who took over as St. John’s head coach after Roberts was fired after five seasons. Lavin already has made in-roads with a successful recruiting season, which has excited the depressed fan base. But they also will want to see results — and soon — for a university that has not made the NCAA Tournament since 2002.

“That’s the one thing about New York, you have to win,” Vitale said, “I think Steve Lavin is doing everything initially right, and now he has to take it to step two and that’s win because he was left a veteran team that definitely should have a chance to make the NCAA Tournament.”

Jay Bilas, the ESPN and CBS analyst, said he is impressed with the leftover talent at St. John’s.

“He’s got players. D.J. Kennedy can play anywhere; Dwight Hardy, Paris Horne, Sean Evans are all very good,” and Bilas said. “They’ve got good players, so they’ll do a very good job this year. I think they can finish in the upper division of the Big East.”

Being mentioned in the same breath with Syracuse, Villanova and Pittsburgh certainly would be a step up for the Storm. St. John’s opens its season on Tuesday at 2 a.m. EST against St. Mary’s (Calif.) — part of ESPN’s 24 hours of consecutive coverage, which is highlighted by Butler-Louisville and South Carolina-Michigan State, all teams beginning their chase of defending national champion Duke.

“Duke has the best personnel and best team to start the season. Now that doesn’t mean it will end that way,” said Bilas, a member of Duke’s 1986 national championship team.

“But one thing [Duke coach] Mike Krzyzewski has done through the course of his career is he has teams ready to play at the highest level the earliest as a general principle. His teams will look great at the gate, but this is a younger team than he had last year in key spots, especially in leadership.”

Duke lost top scorer and team leader Jon Scheyer to graduation, but bring back Kyle Singler and Nolan Smith. Add to that New Jersey’s Kyrie Irving, one of the top freshman in the country, and sophomore transfer Seth Curry, brother of former Davidson star Stephen, and the Blue Devils have more question marks, but also the potential to be better than last year.

“Irving is more talented than Scheyer, but you are giving up a lot of experience,” Bilas said. “They still have a lot of questions about who does the dirty work, who is the leader, but I think Duke, along with Michigan State, is a cut above to start the season out.”

justin.terranova@nypost.com