St. John's Gets NCAA Tournament Bid Much To LSU's Chagrin

The chances for an NCAA Tournament bid didn't look good for the St. John's men's baseball team after losing to Seton Hall in the Big East championship game on Sunday, but the Red Storm were given one of the final at-large berths to make the field of 64 for the fourth time in five years.  National power LSU cried that the selection of St. John's is a farce and says the NCAA should take a look at how they select the 64 team field.

LSU (36-20) is claiming that they play in a tougher conference and should have been picked over the Johnnies.  St. John's (35-20) finished second in both the Big East regular season standings and championship series.  It is arguably the best team in the northeast.

For the record, LSU finished 9th in the SEC and didn't make their own conference tournament finals.

The Tigers are screaming that their #23 RPI and 12-3 finish entitles the team to be picked ahead of the Red Storm, who go into the NCAA's with a respectable #54 RPI.

"I would say that this year, as a committee, we didn't use RPI as the hammer that maybe it was in previous years," said Tim Weiser, the chairman of the 10-member NCAA Selection Committee.

If LSU wants to find a culprit, the school should look at some of the automatic-bids awarded to winners of conference championships.



New Mexico (20-39) and UALR (24-32) won their respective conference title games (Mountain West and Sun Belt) and will be coasting into this year's tournament field. 

St. John's is a second place team in the Big East conference.  It's hard to argue with all the the RPI's and the fact that seven SEC teams were selected to the tournament that LSU doesn't have a case, but don't blame St. John's.

Sure, Big East baseball will probably never be compared to the SEC, but other factors in St. John's success should be taken into consideration.

For one thing, LSU is a ninth place team. They should know only Big East basketball gets nine or more teams into a tournament. 

Secondly, the Red Storm play in colder weather.  They don't see a home field game until mid-March after they've played about a dozen games on the road.  By seasons end, St. John's has played nearly two-thirds of their games on the road.
 
"The debate is a consistent one: How do you measure a second-place team versus, for example, a ninth-place team?," said Weiser.  " We've got a divided group in that regard."

While LSU sulks, St. John's rejoices about it's # 3 seed in the regional hosted by top-seed Virginia.

"It felt pretty good," said St. John's head coach Ed Blankmeyer.  "It made it a lot easier to enjoy the rest of [the selection show]...It was exciting for me, and I felt very happy for the players."

The Red Storm is no NCAA interloper.  This will be the 33rd appearance in the NCAA Tournament for St. John's--the eighth most by any school.

Last year, St. John's was also in the same bracket as #1 Virginia and beat them in the first game before losing the rematch with the Super Regionals within their grasp.

This year the Red Storm will face # 2 seed East Carolina on Friday before tangling with #1 Virginia and #4 Navy over the weekend.

For now, put all the conspiracy theories to rest.

Steve Lavin Must Toughen Up For Big East

St. John's University's new head coach Steve Lavin has had his ups and downs with his senior laden team in non-conference play so far.  Now comes a big test against West Virginia (8-2) and it won't get any easier.  His slicked back hair is about to get mussed.  Welcome to the Big East Conference coach Lavin.

The Red Storm (7-3) heads down to West Virginia tonight for Lavin's first Big East conference game against a physically big and tough team.  The Mountaineers have three New Yorkers who play rough and tumble Big East type basketball.  Kevin Jones (Mt. Vernon), Truck Bryant (Brooklyn) and Danny Jennings (Staten Island) should be a handful for the experienced St. John's squad.

St. John's won two tournament titles in the opening weeks of the young season in Alaska and New York and beat formidable opponents like Davidson and a good Big Ten team from Northwestern, but two deflating losses to St. Bonaventure and Fordham reminded fans of the underachieving Red Storm teams of the last head coach, Norm Roberts.  Maybe the jet-lagged team--they travelled over 12,000 miles before Dec.1--have their land legs back.

The Johnnies entered the season with high hopes and a lot of Big East experience.  Four seasoned seniors and highly-touted freshman, Dwayne Polle II make up the nucleus of a team which feels it could make the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2002.

The seniors--Justin Brownlee, Justin Burrell, Dwight Hardy and pre-season Big East second-team player, D.J. Kennedy--will lead the charge and have been through plenty of Big East scrums.  It is a capable crew but they will need to learn how to focus and finish a game.  Too many times the players watch half-time leads dwindle to losses.  Turnovers and foul shooting are still problems too.

Lavin has brought lots of optimism to St. John's.  Next year's recruiting class is being called one of the top five in the country and arguably the best in the prestigious St. John's basketball history.  That is all and well for next year.  Now comes the reality of playing one of best collection of Big East teams in the conference's thirty year history.  Currently, five Big East teams reside in top ten national polls.

The Red Storm's brutal schedule includes Villanova, Georgetown (twice), Notre Dame (twice), Syracuse, Louisville, Connecticut and Pitt.  All of those teams are in or hover around every top-25 poll in the country. Even the middle-of-the pack teams will be battling it out for an NCAA bubble spot in March.  It isn't going to be easy for any team.

We all know now that Lavin can recruit on the East coast---even after being out of coaching since 2003---now let's see how he handles the ruggedness of Big East basketball and dealing with the referees.

Lavin, who is unfamiliar with Big East refs, will have to get on-the-job training in dealing with them.  The coach, who was issued only three technicals in seven years as head coach at UCLA, already has two in his first ten games at St. John's.

The new head coach comes to St. John's bringing hope for the future and tournament dreams to a solid transitional team of experienced players.  It is time for the Red Storm to find out what kind of team it really is.

The Mountaineers--a Final Four team last year-- are a physical bunch.  It should provide a good barometer of what the Red Storm can achieve.   Let's see how tough Lavin and the Red Storm really are.  Let the real season begin!