This year, the dwindling numbers of people who watched St. John's games were:
- long time die hards
- recruits looking at the former Redmen
- players' relatives
- watching the other team look incredible in winning.
It wasn't a particularly pretty year from the jump, but the 7 man freshman class (and redshirt freshman Rob Thomas) was expected to give some hope for the future. They were athletic! They were local! They were the hard work of recruiting and recruiting the right way come home to roost!
They spent much of the year getting their heads handed to them in demoralizing losses. Coach Roberts was on the hot seat coming into the season, but the administration saw something they liked, and as of this writing plans to give the coach an extension so he can see his rebuilding project through. Broken or not, it remains to be seen if Coach Roberts can shore up the team's deficiencies enough to put up the kind of record that will keep him employed at St. John's. And it remains to be seen whether his upcoming extension comes with the stipulation that he hire an x and o coach, especially offensively.
There were injuries, and freshmen to work in, true. But other teams have worked in frosh and avoided having 10 10-point or more blowouts. With two of those being 20 point blowouts. With 5 games where the team couldn't crack 50 points.
U Conn also worked in 6 or so frosh. But they had sophomores like Jeff Adrien and AJ Price to lead the way; they were more talented and taller; and by Ken Pomeroy's stats, were both unlucky to the tune of about 3.6 wins and were an elite defensive team. They were horrific shooters, and have passed on the being decent scorers.
These are not things the Johnnie freshmen can hang their hat on. St. John's offense was, charitably, putrid. The defense was less than it was in previous years, and I will point that out quickly in the next post.
This is the first in a series of posts about the 2007-08 St. John's Red Storm men's basketball squad. I'll go through each player's overall and conference stats and talk about some things they need to improve. I am sure the staff and better basketball minds can think of other steps they can take to improve this team to watchability. There won't be any straight projections, but there will be conjecture.
Have issues or comments? Drop them in the comment section, I'd love to hear them.