Sports

Red Storm has eyes on NCAA tourney despite trying season

From the 0-5 start in the Big East to the hot streak that followed, the rash of unexpected losses of loved ones to the birth of Orlando Sanchez’s daughter the day before the second Villanova game, it has been an unpredictable year for St. John’s.

The unexpected has become normal.

Yet as St. John’s prepares for its Big East regular-season finale in Milwaukee against Marquette, the Red Storm are exactly where Steve Lavin hoped they would be at this time of the year — in position to play their way into the NCAA Tournament and create March memories.

“I just like where the team is right now,” Lavin said on Thursday. “We’re fortunate to be one of those teams that’s playing its best basketball at the end of the year. We’re in a good place.

“I have great admiration for this group in the way they have managed everything.”

The Johnnies (19-11, 9-8 Big East), who have won 10 of their last 13 games, find themselves squarely on the bubble, tied with Marquette for fifth place in the conference. They can finish in a three-way tie for third with Xavier and Providence if the Friars lose Saturday at Creighton, but can only finish as high as fifth because of tie-breakers, and as low as seventh.

“We’re approaching this like winner-takes-all, as if it’s our last game,” junior guard Phil Greene IV said. “We’re going to come out hungry, ready to fight.”

Most importantly, St. John’s is at full strength after the whirlwind last few weeks that saw Sanchez miss a game to be with his wife and newborn daughter, freshman Rysheed Jordan sit out a game after the tragic death of his aunt, Niaja Kane, and center Chris Obekpa miss a game and play through an ankle injury in three others. Everyone has practiced fully this week and Obekpa says his ankle is close to 100 percent.

It’s not just Jordan who has been grieving, Lavin revealed after Sunday’s win over DePaul. Junior forward Sir’Dominic Pointer lost two people close to him and Sanchez lost his basketball mentor, Hector Baez, who passed away from colon cancer in his native Dominican Republic on Feb. 22. Sanchez and his wife, Flor Esthefani Sanchez, also gave birth to a daughter, Ysabel Angela, on Feb. 21, a blessing amid the tragedy.

“That type of stuff brings us together as a family,” Greene said. “We come closer when someone is hurting. We embrace it and put our arm around them just to let them know that we are their family away from home.”

Lavin said when he came to St. John’s his goal was to make the program into a sustainable winner, and after reaching the NCAA Tournament in his first year with a group of seniors, he said he feels his first recruiting class has made progress each year, winning 13 games three years ago, finishing over .500 and reaching the NIT last year, and now knocking on the door of 20 victories with time to spare.

This season, of course, isn’t finished. The Johnnies hope to reach their preseason goal of qualifying for the field of 68. A win over Marquette would go a long way to reaching The Big Dance, granted the momentum carries over into next week’s Big East Tournament.

“We just have to do it,” Obekpa said. “Everybody knows what time it is. It’s time to take care of business.”