From the moment St. John’s suffered its embarrassing 32-point defeat to Division II St. Thomas Aquinas in last year’s exhibition opener, all expectations were eviscerated.
Chris Mullin’s return to Queens and St. John’s only could elicit so much excitement, with the school-legend-turned-coach helpless on the sidelines as his freshman-filled roster arrived outmanned and outmatched for most games.
The Red Storm (8-24) failed to win double-digit games for the first time in 11 years, finishing with the school’s second-worst winning percentage since 1919. They lost by an average of 15.7 points and suffered a school-record 16-game losing streak, finishing with their worst-ever record in the Big East (1-17).
After inheriting a roster stripped of more than 95 percent of the previous season’s scoring, Mullin was prepared for the onslaught, but it didn’t make his debut season much easier to endure.
“Your patience is tested, your day-to-day philosophy is tested because you want to speed up that process and you can’t,” Mullin said Tuesday at Big East Media Day at the Garden. “It’s a good test on what you proclaim to do and be. The good thing is, a year later you see the development of these guys, their confidence, their bodies are changing. … All the guys that got minutes last year and were really diligent in their preparation, they took a lot of losses, but I thought for the most part we handled it the right way and with the right approach.
“After last year, I packed a lot of Aleve for my headaches, but I plan on that happening less this year.”
Experience alone improves the Johnnies’ outlook. Needing nine new players to put together a team last year, Mullin now has nine players returning who were with the program last season.
“I think it was a very helpful year, even though we didn’t do really well because we were a lot of freshmen and we all had a lot of minutes and not a lot of freshmen do that,” sophomore guard Federico Mussini said. “I can tell the chemistry is really good this year, and we have a lot of talent. I think it’s going to be a good year for us.”
Picked to finish eighth in the Big East preseason coaches’ poll, St. John’s at least can expect to again have one of best interior defenses in the conference, led by sophomores Yankuba Sima and Kassoum Yakwe, who finished as the top two shot-blockers in the league last season. St. John’s also added JUCO All-American Bashir Ahmed and 6-foot-10 Tennessee transfer Tariq Owens.
“Bigger, stronger, longer, things tend to get better,” Mullin said.
Even more promising are two guards yet to touch a collegiate court.
Marcus LoVett Jr. — ruled ineligible last season as a partial qualifier — and Shamorie Ponds likely will form the Red Storm’ s starting backcourt, providing much-needed playmaking and scoring ability. Ponds, who averaged 29 points as a senior and led Thomas Jefferson High School to its first PSAL title since 1954, was named the Big East’s Preseason Freshman of the Year.
St. John’s could use their production. Last year, the Red Storm ranked 286th in the nation in scoring (67.9 points per game) and tied for 314th in field goal percentage (40.6).
“They’re both really talented guards,” Mullin said. “They seem to function really well together. Marcus might be a little more of a pure point guard, Shamorie more of a scorer, but Shamorie’s a good passer, a willing passer. When we’ve used them together, they’ve looked good together.”
After last season, improvement is the only option. Though relevancy remains a challenge, the fight looks a lot fairer.
“It’s legitimate that they feel good about themselves and I think that’s as important as anything,” Mullin said. “Our returning players know what they went through. I don’t think they need any motivations [and] goals. A lot of the guys coming in they watched last year’s team and the reason they came was to make a difference.”