Without Resurrection, There is Insurrection at St. John's
Steve "Onions" Shep
January 24, 2008
For Norm Roberts, it was a chance to come home. When he signed on as head basketball coach at St. John’s in April 2004, he took over a broken, self-sanctioned program reeling from the tenure of Mike Jarvis and events that transpired in the months following Jarvis’ departure. But Roberts was a Queens Guy; born in the borough, he attended Springfield Gardens High School, then played ball at Queens College.
However, Roberts has failed to gain traction on the road to restoring St. John’s to its historical perch near the top of the national basketball landscape. Beset with underachieving players and a boatload of transfers out of the program (Avery Patterson, Ricky Torres, Cedric Jackson), Roberts is left with an astounding nine freshman on his current roster.
Yet, on a recent Saturday at the corner of Utopia Parkway and Union Turnpike, his upperclassmen were the main perpetrators of a collapse against DePaul in which the Johnnies squandered a nine-point second-half lead en route to a 70-63 defeat to the Blue Demons. Junior swingman Anthony Mason, Jr. showed why he is the Big East’s most frustrating player: playing his own game, eschewing smart basketball for off-balance shots and no-look passes. The Red Storm’s only senior top-12 player, starting point guard Eugene Lawrence, had seven assists and five turnovers and spent the final 2:50 on the bench, replaced by freshman Malik Boothe.
DePaul used a 16-0 run in the second half to pace its victory, and, in the final minutes, some of the 4,451 fans began to turn their ire towards Mason, Jr., Lawrence, and their coach.
“I don’t play basketball for the fans,” Lawrence told the media after the game when asked about the crowd booing. “I play for St. John’s.”
“It’s New York City. New York people aren’t patient people… and that’s fine,” Roberts said after the DePaul game, recognizing that an embattled coach is in no position to challenge the few fans who have stuck with the Johnnies through an extended drought.
The Red Storm’s last N.C.A.A. Tournament appearance was six years ago.
And a Child Shall Lead Them
The latest savior for the St. John’s faithful is freshman forward Justin Burrell, a 6’ 8” forward from the Bronx. Burrell is averaging 12.4 points per game, and he tallied 18 points and 11 rebounds against DePaul.
In Burrell’s fourth career college game, a 68-56 victory here over Long Island on Nov. 28, a middle-aged fan sitting in the first few rows of a fairly empty Carnessecca Arena got on Burrell from the opening tip, yelling in a thick New York brogue, “Eat ‘em up, Burrell!”
This continued unchallenged and uninterrupted until a turnover on an entry pass in the final five minutes of the game, when the fan said, “Winners want the ball, Burrell.”
Burrell, jogging back down-court to play defense, stopped at about the half-court stripe, threw up his hands, and yelled out of frustration, “What do you want me to do?”
Burrell’s line for the night: a game-high 19 points (8-13 shooting from the field), 12 rebounds, and four turnovers. For most freshmen playing their fourth game, that would have been enough. But seemingly not for this fan base.
Expectations Over Reality
A 1-4 start to Roberts’ fourth Big East season has St. John’s fans wondering if it is time to fish or cut bait. The delusional among them — those who think the Johnnies’ rightful place is atop the Big East — have mentioned names like the coach of the number one team in the country, Memphis’ John Calipari, as a possible successor.
The reality, of course, is that St. John’s does not have that kind of budget. In order to turn things around, they will have to pick the right — probably young — coach to lead them back: either a prominent assistant or the head coach of a successful mid-major program.
The best models might be Jay Wright at Villanova or John Thompson III at Georgetown, but those coaches inherited easier situations. Their predecessors were each succeeding legends (Steve Lappas after Rollie Massimino, and Craig Esherick after Thompson’s father, John Thompson, Jr.), and neither school experienced the level of embarrassment St. John’s did when a Pittsburgh prostitute attempted to blackmail six Red Storm players by filing a scurrilous rape charge in February 2004.
Two months later, the Johnnies turned to a Queens native named Norm Roberts to resurrect their program. In three seasons, he has only recorded a winning record once; the Red Storm went 16-15 last season. In his fourth, his team is struggling. They are largely young and inexperienced, and Roberts appears frustrated on the sidelines.
About the only good news for the Johnnies’ coach is that no one has yet purchased the rights to www.firenormroberts.com.