On St. John's, from Jon Rothstein's preview at MSG.com:

4. HOW WILL ST. JOHN'S ADJUST WITH SO MANY FIRST YEAR PLAYERS?

History suggests not well. Steve Lavin has accomplished a minor miracle with the talent he's brought to the Red Storm in his first full recruiting class but with junior guard Malik Stith as this team's only seasoned player, one has to wonder how this extremely young group of players will perform in college basketball's most rugged conference.

In 2006-07, Jim Calhoun had a freshmen class at UConn that included A.J. Price, Jerome Dyson, Stanley Robinson, Curtis Kelly and Hasheem Thabeet --- and the Huskies finished 17-14 and missed the postseason. St. John's also might have the toughest non-conference schedule in the country as the Red Storm will play road games at Duke, Kentucky and Detroit while hosting UCLA and Arizona, and playing the winner/loser of Texas A&M vs. Mississippi State in the Coaches vs. Cancer classic. Wow.