Lance Stephenson Could Help Revitalize St. John’s

By Zach Smart
for HOOPSADDICT.com

Published: June 2, 2009

Basketball is our city’s game.

So how come, for the better of a decade, there’s been a search warrant out for top-profile players at St. John’s University? Why does SJU needs a GPS system to find top-flight recruits when they are just a train, bus, or subway ride away?

In the heart of the traditional basketball breeding ground, the once-prosperous program should shoulder an arsenal of the city’s elite talent.

They should surface as one of the top teams in the Big East every year, I don’t care how front-loaded the squads that Jay Wright, Jim Calhoun and Jamie Dixon bring in.

SJU should be a perennial power.

The Johnnies should be one of the more reputable programs across the eastern seaboard.

Norm Roberts should bring new meaning to the word local presence. Roberts and his nucleus of assistants should be at every significant NYC event. Over the summer, the SJU staff should be fixtures at West 4th St., Dean St., Rucker Park, IS8, wherever they can find a solid local run and register their presence.

Roberts’ ear should be glued to his cell phone, for as many long conversations his job permits.

Roberts should be talking to legendary NYC talent evaluator Tom Konchalski and other folks in the know.

The Johnnies should ink five-star recruits from each of the five boroughs year after year, competing with the likes of first-class schools like North Carolina, Kansas, UCLA, and Duke.

Roberts and his ailing program needs to stop scheduling games against NJIT (Division-II team sporting Division-I jerseys) and seek immediate revival.

Don’t get it confused. Omari Lawrence and Malik Stith are two players I see making an immediate impact, but who is the prized piece of this year’s recruiting class? To truly put the exclamation point on a solid infusion of talent, the Johnnies need a superstar, some sort of basketball deity who can create offense and score buckets by the bundles at will.

Unfortunately, Lance Stephenson is an afterthought at this point.

The Johnnies, I thought, were going out guns-a-blazin’ to reel in Lance “Born Ready” Stephenson. The whole operation of recruiting this dazzling 6-foot-6 guard from Lincoln (who is both taller, stronger, and more athletic than Marbury and Telfair were) has been about as straight as Jim McGreevy.

Memphis, Arizona, and Maryland–back in the picture after a source told the New York Daily News UMD was scratched from Stephenson’s list a month ago–are still in active pursuit of Stephenson.

Maryland, of course, was caught in a heap of controversy when Under Armour (the company known for its close ties with the Terps) gave Stephenson a tour of their headquarters during his visit.

If this guy is a one-and-done anyway, why couldn’t he have just gone to St. John’s? He could have taken the O.J. Mayo route and (no offense to Taj Gibson, high-flying Davon Jefferson, or Daniel Hackett) decided on a school where he can be the one-man cyborg.

Stephenson toyed with ideas of revitalizing the program and “bringing New York back” and it was rumored that he would stick by his word and pen with the Johnnies. Now Stephenson is out of the reach of Roberts and St. John’s, as another one of the city’s premiere talents gently snubs the Jamaica, Queens school.

The days when Action Jackson shined, the late Malik Sealy soared, and Chris Mullin shot Madison Square Garden into a power outage are long gone. Now, the hoop tycoons from the great wide open sell players on the notion of leaving the city streets and hardscrabble basketball courts for the fresh suburban air, tall trees with leaves crumbling under the weight of autumn, burgeoning basketball culture and fanfare, and the blazing blue-eyed beauties from down south.

This program needs more change than our president promises to provide our country.

Bring New York back.

2 Comments on "Lance Stephenson Could Help Revitalize St. John’s"

Dustyj on Tue, 2nd Jun 2009 5:03 pm

Why would St. Johns want a pedophile, who has repeatedly disrespected the program by giving us the run around just to keep his name in the NY papers when he knew he would never attend St. Johns. Born Ready? I don’t think so, more like Born Loser.

Dustyj on Tue, 2nd Jun 2009 5:08 pm

And also, you do realize that it looks like O.J. Mayo is going to cost USC big time, so think that is pretty weak example.

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Lance Stephenson Could Help Revitalize St. John’s

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