St. John’s learning how to play ‘survive and advance’
THE funny thing is this: The more interesting St. John’s makes this quest for a slot in the NCAA Tournament’s brackets, the better prepared the Red Storm may be to stay there once they get there. It was the scion of that other great Queens basketball dynasty, Jim Valvano, who coined the “survive-and-advance” mantra that rules the day in March.
St. John’s is simply expanding the parameters to February.
The Johnnies escaped with a gut-check of a 77-73 overtime win over Butler on Tuesday night at Carnesecca Arena. They held off the Bulldogs with Shamorie Ponds forcing OT on a late free throw after a Jersey kid named Paul Jorgensen had given Butler a one-point lead. We are officially past that point of the season at which it matters that the Johnnies are a good 10- to 12-points better than the Bulldogs on paper. What matters now is winning. And surviving. Surviving and advancing. “That definitely felt like a March Madness type of game,” said Marvin Clark II, who scored 18 points and provided a game-long burst of senior leadership.
Losing this game wouldn’t have eliminated the Johnnies from NCAA Tournament consideration, but it surely would have been one more black mark the committee would have slapped next to St. John’s name when it ponders its fate on St. Patrick’s Day, which also happens to be Selection Sunday. The Johnnies can’t afford many more of those black marks.
The 5,602 folks fending off the frosty night were frantic.
“LET’S GO, JOHNNIES!” they pleaded, a cheer that started in their ankles, and it grew to something born of pure desperation in OT, when an andone from Ponds gave the Johnnies the lead for good at 71-68.
A loss would’ve made St. John’s 5-7 in the Big East with Villanova looming on Sunday, and it would’ve reduced the options to two if the Johnnies want to end this season in the varsity tournament: beat the defending champs at the Garden on Sunday to offset a string of inexcusable home losses, or win the Big East Tournament.
Their margin for error still isn’t great. But they survived. They ad- vanced another few days closer to Selection Sunday. And they won the kind of game you have to win in March, if you want to make your stay in the NCAA Tournament more than a fleeting cameo.
If the Red Storm make a habit of winning games like this, if they get in the field of 68, they have a real chance to stick around for a round or two. This is how you do it, even if most of the hollow-eyed and sore-throated fans who gave a weary cheer at game’s end would’ve preferred the 20-point blowout the Johnnies seemed headed to earlier in the game.
“That’s going to help us down the road,” said Mustapha Heron, who poured in 28 points and looked ultra sharp after a bad knee bruise had sidelined him for Saturday’s loss to Providence at the Garden. “This will prepare us for March tremendously.”
If the rest of St. John’s roster is experiencing the NCAA hunt for the first time, the fact that Clark (at Michigan State) and Heron (at Auburn) have actually tasted the tournament can only help as the Red Storm play games such as these. And their team DNA says they will play plenty more games such as these the rest of the way. Better to be used to them. “I know for sure they’re resilient.,” coach Chris Mullin said of his Johnnies, now 18-7 and 6-6 in league play. “They care about winning. The mindset is there, it’s about doing it on game day. Every game in this league is a few plays from turning out the other way.”
It’s the same deal in March. If you get there you can stay there if you can figure it out at the end. Survive and advance then, survive and advance now. No time like the present to learn how to be a tough out.