St. St. John’s has every reason to dream of ending March Madness drought

By March, St. It will be 25 years since John’s last game in the NCAA Tournament.

Ten long years have passed since The Dance reached its main point.

It’s been six long years since he was a part of March Madness.

Will this finally be the season this defeated fanbase has been waiting for? Will the Johnnys finally succeed? Will the results match the enthusiasm for change?

On paper, they have the personnel and coaches to do it. Rick Pitino brought back his four starters with remaining eligibility: juniors Zuby Ejiofor and RJ Luis and sophomores Simeon Wilcher and Brady Dunlap.

He added the nation’s fourth-ranked transfer class to that core — We’re bringing in Kadary Richmond from Seton Hall, Utah’s Deivon Smith, North Texas’ Aaron Scott and USC’s Vince Iwuchukwu.

The group narrowly missed making the Associated Press’ preseason Top 25 list. elected fifth in a very deep Big East by the league’s coaches. There are huge expectations for a program that has frequently failed over the past 2 ¹/₂ decades.

“Last year was Rick Pitino’s first year. “After he was hired, the roster was built very late and the team won 20 games, reached the Big East Tournament semifinals for the first time in 24 years and missed the NCAA Tournament,” CBS Sports analyst Jon Rothstein said in a phone interview. . “The team he will coach in his second season is much more talented than in his first season.

“You add Kadary Richmond, who is a Big East Player of the Year candidate and I think he’s also an All-American candidate. You add Deivon Smith, who hasn’t made it in a winning situation yet — the team he was on last year didn’t make the NCAA Tournament — but I think he clearly has the defensive development that allows them to play. It’s the way (Pitino) wants to play. And RJ Luis being healthy would be a game changer for them.

“If I were looking at the two teams that would make the biggest jump in the Big East from last year, it would be St. Louis. It would be St. John’s and Xavier, and I wouldn’t hesitate. “I think they will be the two most improved teams in the Big East.”

Pitino’s first season at Queens ended on a disappointing note with an NCAA Tournament snub. Despite reaching the Big East Tournament semifinals for the first time since 2000, he found himself too late. No one played back-to-back national champion Connecticut harder in the postseason than the Red Storm.

“It was a sad day,” said the 6-foot-10 Ejiofor, recalling the Election Sunday last March. “There were a lot of sad faces, especially for the older players, who were playing their last year of college basketball. We wanted to do it for them. We all thought we’d make it through and see our name called. It didn’t happen.

“Our job this year is to not let that happen again. … Our job is to get into the tournament and not just do that, but go forward.”

This time last year, St. John’s was full of uncertainty.

Pitino was entering his first season at a new school. The sole contributor was Joel Soriano. There were 12 new players.

The Hall of Fame coach has far fewer questions about his team now than he did last season. Richmond has one of the best players in the country in the 6-foot-11 Luis, now healthy, with the athleticism and versatility his first team lacked. He doesn’t yet know what the ceiling might be for these Johnnies, as he sees room for improvement in the newcomers.

“I love this team,” Pitino said. “I think they play hard, they have good chemistry, I think they’re good defensively. … We’re deep, we’re very athletic, we had two great exhibition games against very good opponents (in Rutgers and Towson).”

He added: “We were a really good basketball team in March of last year. Hopefully we can start a lot better but finish like that team.”

St. Doubts remain because of how long it has been since St. John’s rose to national prominence.

Depth, 3-point shooting and how well the new pieces fit in with the returning ones are question marks. Skeptics want to see evidence in the results.

But the potential is clearly evident. St. John’s fans can and should dare to dream.

“(We’re) among the best,” Richmond told The Post’s Steve Serby when asked where this team ranks relative to the rest of the Big East. “I will use us against everyone.”

“We are here,” he added. “This is my message (to the fans).”