The official start of the NCAA Division I men's college basketball season is Saturday, which offers St. John's a chance to begin anew.
After a season riddled by scandal and suspension, one in which the Red Storm fired coach Mike Jarvis in December and went 1-15 in the Big East, the new coach, Norm Roberts, brings subtle and obvious changes.
The Red Storm may not have much more talent than the team that went 6-21 last season, but Roberts promises things will be different. He said that his first responsibility was off the court, where he emphasized that his players display courtesy and manners.
"I think that people understand that we cannot be judged just on wins and losses this season," Roberts said. "I think they understand that it's a process. Let's build a foundation and get it going in the right direction."
If Roberts, who was an assistant coach at Kansas last season, is going to return St. John's to national prominence, he is going to have to do it through recruiting. Climbing out of the basement of the Big East is daunting, and it will be especially difficult next season when the conference expands to 16 teams.
The league will add Louisville, Cincinnati and Marquette next year and lose two perennially weaker teams, Miami and Virginia Tech.
"The conference is probably playing at the highest level it's ever played at, or at least close to it," Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim said. "It's going to be very difficult for all of us."
The Red Storm has six new scholarship players among the 10 scholarship players on its roster.
The sophomore point guard Daryll Hill (14.8 points a game last season) is the team's leading returning scorer. Three of the new players are from junior colleges and were signed by Jarvis' staff. The other three newcomers are freshmen signed by Roberts after he was hired in April.
Roberts has also received oral commitments from three players for next fall's freshman class, including Anthony Mason Jr. of Memphis, the son of the former Knick. Roberts and his staff have worked diligently to make inroads in the city high schools, a critical pipeline for talent that Jarvis failed to exploit.
With his first practice Saturday, Roberts will begin working on establishing his system. He will have a good schedule to ease into it, as the Red Storm do not play a 2004 NCAA tournament team until Dec. 30, when North Carolina State visits Madison Square Garden.
Roberts' team will play an up-tempo high-low offense, and he emphasized they would play loose. "It's a good shot when it leaves your hand," he said.
Roberts said that the Red Storm would play an aggressive man-to-man defense, though not predicated on pressing and gambling. "One thing I can promise, we will guard, " Roberts said. "We will defend."
For the first four weeks of school, Roberts' players played pick-up games to get into shape. After that, he began a 10-day conditioning program of 6 a.m. workouts that the staff nicknamed Code Red. In an effort to teach discipline and build team unity, Roberts made the players run 30-second sprints with 30 seconds of rest in between, 30 times.
If a player failed to do so, the rest of the team ran until that player did it. Also, Roberts set a rule that if a player missed a class or a study session, he would add a day to Code Red. Roberts had to extend it only one day.
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