Editor’s note — 3/1/13, 11:17 am: St. John’s head coach Steve Lavin has just announced that sophomore guard D’Angelo Harrison has been suspended for the remainder of the 2012-13 season. Harrison will miss the Red Storm’s last three regular-season games, the BIG EAST Championship at Madison Square Garden and any 2013 postseason appearances.
“I had a productive meeting with D’Angelo yesterday,” Lavin said. “He has a bright future in basketball and I’m optimistic his time away from our team will be of value.”
No reason for the suspension was given.
Currently sitting in ninth place of the Big East conference, the St. John’s Red Storm’s NCAA Tournament hopes are already dim. At 16-11 with a conference record of 8-7 and three regular season games remaining, the road is not going to be easy.
It will take big wins at the Providence Friars and the 21st-ranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish — and then at home against the 22nd-ranked Marquette Golden Eagles — to even put them into the conversation. A dismal 63-47 loss to the Pittsburgh Panthers last weekend gave their tournament resume a hit.
If it’s going to happen, the Johnnies will need sophomore guard D’Angelo Harrison to put the team on his back and carry them into the Big East tournament with momentum in their favor.
Harrison has averaged 17.8 points per game for the Red Storm, including 13 games with 20 points or more this season. However, the Texas native’s presence was nonexistent in the heartbreaking loss to the Panthers, during which he scored just six points in St. John’s worst loss to date.
The team’s last NCAA Tournament came two years ago in 2011, but the school has appeared just that one time in the last 10 years. A sixth-seed in the Southeast Region, they suffered an unfortunate upset defeat at the hands of the 11th-seeded Gonzaga Bulldogs. Head coach Steve Lavin, now in his fourth year at the helm, would like an opportunity to avoid a repetition of that end while recognizing that the task will be difficult.
“It’s clear we have some work to do,” Lavin told reporters. “We have the three quality wins — over Connecticut, Notre Dame and Cincinnati — and our strength of schedule. But we need to get some wins both in the regular season and the conference tournament if we’re going to continue to build a case or have an argument for us being in the NCAA Tournament.”
The Red Storm’s 53-52 victory over the Cincinnati Bearcats (ranked 14th at the time) was their most impressive, during which Harrison was a clutch performer in the stunning upset. His 15-point, seven-rebound performance is still one of his best of the year and St. John’s will need more games like that from the 6-foot-3 scorer. They already hold an upset win over Notre Dame, but Marquette has won five of their last seven and Providence is vying for a first-round bye in the Big East tournament (only the top 10 teams in the conference are awarded one).
In his bio, Harrison calls himself “fearless” on the court. The team will need him to prove it in these next three games to have even a glimmer of hope at participating in the NCAA Tournament.
Louis Musto is a contributor for the Sports Journey Broadcast Network. You can follow him on Twitter @LouisMusto.