Georgetown-St. John's: Nostalgia is about all That's Left

That thing to the right is "Thunder" the now "discontinued" mascot for the Red Storm. It's a ~~donkey~~ stallion. He's been "discontinued" for about 3 years. I just can't figure out why.

Quiet night in the Big East. The Georgetown-St. John's game was the only one on the slate. Not much to say about it, except to read or listen to older folks speak wistfully of such games from 20 years ago.

This game started out with some potential as St. John's came out shooting well (for them, it constituted astoundingly well). Georgetown was actually down by 10 with 4 minutes in the 1st half. Then in the final 2 minutes of the half, the Hoyas closed it to within 1 point with an 8-0 run.

St. John's came out in the second half to quit, as Georgetown started the second half with an 11-0 run. The big problem for the Red Storm was that their best player, Lamont Hamilton, picked up his 4th foul less then 3 minutes into the second half. He had to sit, and even when he finally came back -- he quickly fouled out.

For Georgetown, it was a big game for Jeff Green. He had a career high of 24 points and led the team with 8 rebounds as well. Taking advantage of St. John's just giving up early, the Hoyas shot 16-21 in the second half. It was ugly.

Norm Roberts and John Thompson III were hired by their respective schools within a couple weeks of the other. While the rebuilding at St. John's after NCAA penalties and the havoc wreaked by Mike Jarvis being in charge, turned out to be far bigger than anyone realized; St. John's has yet to make any significant progress. Part of it is simply that NYC hoops right now is down. The major high school talent is not in the area at the moment.

A lot of it, though, is that St. John's has just not developed well. Players haven't progressed. The talent still shows flashes of the potential, but never any consistency. That's on Norm Roberts and his staff. This was supposed to be the year they make a step up. Now, it becomes 'wait until next year.'