St. John’s faces a must-win game Thursday afternoon at the Garden, a game it likely has to win to reach the NCAA Tournament. But the Red Storm have been playing these games for six weeks since the end of January, when they began the Big East season 0-5.
“That’s our advantage,” sophomore forward JaKarr Sampson said Tuesday, in advance of the Big East Tournament quarterfinal against fourth-seed Providence. “We’ve been in this position before and we’ve been down before, so I feel like it’s actually a good thing, a positive.”
Time will tell.
The fifth-seeded Johnnies enter the tournament on a roll, with two straight wins and 11 victories in their last 14 games. After winning nine of 10 games to put themselves on the right side of the bubble, St. John’s lost two straight, to Villanova and Xavier, amid off-the-court issues out of the team’s control.
In the span of 48 hours last month, three players — Rysheed Jordan, Orlando Sanchez and Sir’Dominic Pointer — lost five people close to them, and Sanchez’s wife gave birth to a daughter.
St. John’s knocked off cellar-dwelling DePaul to right itself and, at full strength after playing shorthanded for three contests, survived at Marquette last Saturday. The Johnnies pulled out a memorable double-overtime victory in which they blew a six-point lead with 11.4 seconds left in regulation and got stops at the end of the two extra sessions to prevail in arguably their most impressive win of the season.
“DePaul we gained our footing and Marquette we returned to the team that had blown out Georgetown and had gone on that run to win nine out of 10 [games],” St. John’s coach Steve Lavin said. “I like where the team is now. … Those lightning bolts can sometimes make you stronger if you absorb them and it brings you together as a team, and I think that’s what happened.”
Like the Red Storm (20-11), the Friars (20-11) are fighting for their NCAA Tournament lives. The teams split the season series, Providence winning at Carnesecca Arena on Jan. 16 in double overtime, 84-83, and St. John’s winning in Rhode Island on Feb. 4, 86-76. The Johnnies will look to contain Providence star senior Bryce Cotton, a playmaking point guard who would be the league’s player of the year if not for Creighton superstar Doug McDermott.
“He’s the head of the snake for them,” Sampson said of Cotton, who averages 21.7 points and 5.9 assists a game. “He makes them go.”
There was a lot of talk from St. John’s players on Tuesday about winning the tournament, feeling it has the pieces along with confidence to be the last team standing at the Garden Saturday night. Of course, that can’t happen unless the Johnnies take the first step Thursday afternoon and beat Providence.
“This is one where you lose and you go home,” Pointer said. “This is one of those where I like to say we’re going to be in the NIT or the NCAA. We’re trying to make the NCAA. We have to win this one, we have to win the next one.”
Lavin has spoken recently about the program making progress under his watch, reaching 20 wins now twice in four years, qualifying for postseason play last season after getting to the NCAA Tournament in his first year. Returning to the tournament would be another big step.
“It’s very important,” Pointer said. “As a freshman: nothing. As a sophomore: NIT. Now we’re juniors and hopefully we get to the NCAAs. It’s progress. It’s setting us up for the future, get a couple recruits and keep it moving.”