Steve Lavin has turned the SJU basketball 2013-14 season right around.
Back on January 17th, Steve Lavin and St. John’s were in very dire straits. As I wrote on January 17th, they were having a very tough season. They had just fallen to Providence, 84-83, in double-overtime, which was their fifth-straight loss. The Johnnies were 0-5 in Big East play with an embarrassing loss at DePaul (RPI 116) on their resume.
A month ago, it looked like St. John’s was destined for no postseason, and maybe NIT at best.
With a thrilling win at Seton Hall last night, in front of about 150 people. (Literally, there was NO ONE at the game. There must be a massive blizzard slamming Newark right now) Winners of seven of their last eight, head coach Steve Lavin has his Red Storm basketball team back to .500 in conference play.
The Red Storm are 16-9, 6-6 Big East. Heading into the 68-67 win over the Pirates, they owned a RPI of 61, with the 35th-toughest schedule in the nation (11-3 home; 2-4 road; 2-2 neutral). St. John’s is 1-4 vs. the RPI Top 12 after the 70-65 victory over Creighton (RPI No. 12, 19-4) on Feb. 9 at The Garden.
Four of St. John’s losses have come to teams rated in the RPI’s top 13 — a neutral game vs. Wisconsin (RPI No. 7, 19-5), at The Garden vs. still-unbeaten Syracuse (RPI No. 3, 23-0) and Villanova (RPI No. 5, 21-2), and at Creighton. St. John’s is 5-7 vs. the RPI Top 100, 7-9 vs. the RPI Top 150, and has return a game at #6 Villanova on Feb. 22.
That contest at the Wildcats doesn’t look like it will be a W. I wouldn’t bet on it, but if Coach Lav pulls it off then he has a second big signature win to complement the conquest of Doug McDermott and company at the World’s Most Famous Arena. But the Nova game is the only extremely difficult test of the last six.
They have a home date with DePaul, Butler, who have an even worse RPI (120) than the Blue Demons, and a couple of decently challenging games with Xavier and Georgetown. I’m projecting 3-1 there. The only remaining road game for Steve Lavin and company is at Marquette, so I’m predicting a 4-2 finish. Is above .500, 10-8 in conference play enough? Probably not. You need to get that RPI into the 40s, or better yet the 30s to grab an at-large berth in most seasons. However, they would be right there on the bubble heading into the conference tournament, held at a venue Steve Lavin is very familiar with.
If SJU were to then pick up a conference tournament win, two just to be safe, given the scenario I projected, it’s should conceivably enough for Steve Lavin to go back to the dance.
Paul M. Banks owns The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports. An MBA and Fulbright scholar, he’s also a frequent analyst on news talk radio; with regular segments on ESPN,NBC, CBS and Fox. A former NBC Chicago and Washington Times writer, he’s also been featured on the History Channel. President Obama follows him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)