It was 6:33 p.m., and time was running out on the St. John’s basketball team. The Selection Show for the NCAA Tournament was…
It was 6:33 p.m., and time was running out on the St. John’s basketball team. The Selection Show for the NCAA Tournament was a half-hour old, and the news had not been good so far.
Early on, the first at-large play-in pairing had been revealed, and it was Temple-Belmont. That was good news for backers of March Cinderellas, less so for the players and coaches and family members gathered on the second floor of Bent Hall, the business school building located right across from Carnesecca Arena.
Then, Villanova — Big East regular-season and tournament champs — was revealed as a No. 6 seed. The league’s most respected team was being disrespected by the committee. And the second floor at Bent Hall got a little more anxious.
“Maybe we deserved that,” senior Marvin Clark II would say later. “We put ourselves in this predicament.”
And then, in a flash: joy.
Then, in a flash, the players were on their feet and the second floor was flooded with cheering. St. John’s and Arizona State will play Wednesday night at Dayton Arena, with the winner earning an extra two days of tournament at least, drawing Buffalo in Tulsa, Okla.
