It's almost basketball season, and in these last days, we share more hoops links on the Red Storm basketball team.
* BigEast.org has a profile of the Red Storm with links to Big East Media Day Video and an interview with Anthony Mason Jr. in the league's "16 teams in 16 days" feature.
* The Newsday has an article on how the sophomores must deliver for St. John's to be successful; the extended version of the article notes that the conference below West Virginia (i.e., the 9th spot) is a toss up, and St. John's could be the best of that group.
The newspaper's Arthur Staple also lists Anthony Mason Jr. in the Big East At A Glance article, listing him as a good player on a not-so-good team.
* In his season preview, CBS' Gary Parrish has St. John's ranked last.
* MISTAKE ALERT: The Hartford Courant states that Anthony Mason and... Eugene Lawrence will need a lot of help from newcomers. Lawrence needs no help from newcomers... he graduated already.
* Anthony Fucilli on Brightcove with an interview with head coach Norm Roberts. Roberts claims that the team will be able to play faster defensively and pressure defensively. Note: The team played a little faster last year... but that might have been the turnovers on offense creating more possessions. I haven't looked at the numbers to confirm that, but it's just a thought.
* Rivals.com has a roundtable discussing which coach is on the hottest seat... Norm Roberts' name features prominently in the discussion, along with Northwestern's Bill Carmody.
Note: I am not sure that either one gets fired this year unless their teams are markedly worse. That's not this blog's opinion on what should happen, but an educated guess on what will happen.