As a fellow St. John’s alum who majored in Sports Management, it pains me to see how bad a shape the basketball program continues to be in these days. Remember the days when you could scream emphatically, “We Are St. John’s!!!!!!”

It’s been a while since we could take tremendous pride in our Redmen. I refuse to use Red Storm because it’s not who they are in my book. How pathetic is it that there are so many supersensitive people who waste their team making a ridiculous deal out of team names. As if it’s some sort of bias associated with a nickname. This is freaking sports people! Not politics!!!!! When are these losers going to move on with their lives instead of bitching about stuff that really isn’t their business?

There. It had to be said.

Now onto the Redmen’s latest Big East defeat falling by 10 at Louisville. It’s too bad that Anthony Mason, Jr. plays on such a bad team because the son of the former Knick we called Mase has been utterly brilliant lately. His latest big performance today included seven three-pointers and a game-high 29 on 10-of-21 from the floor in St. John’s 67-57 road defeat at Louisville.

The 29 matched a career best established this past week in a blowout home loss to 13th ranked Pittsburgh. Problem was the rest of his teammates shot an inept 7-of-32 from the field for an ugly 21.9 percent.

That just won’t get it done against any halfway decent team. Especially in the Big East. So, can it get any worse for Norm Roberts’ club which deproved to 1-6 in conference play and 7-11 overall? Are you kidding?!?!?!?!?! They next get perennial rival Georgetown at the Garden on Wednesday. That could be ugly.

This team just doesn’t have much offensive creativity. It’s basically watch their only legit scoring threat while standing around. Is there any coaching being done? Granted. They usually play hard as evidenced by the spirit the five on the floor minus former Lincoln star Eugene Lawrence had in the final seconds playing to the buzzer.

I don’t want to hear about Lawrence moving into third all-time on the school’s assist list. While he can be effective at times, he just isn’t consistent enough running this offense. So much of how you play depends on your point guard. They’re expected to be the floor leader. There are too many instances where they’re jacking up shots early in the shot clock instead of moving the ball crisply. That reflects poorly on Lawrence who hasn’t distributed the ball nearly enough as the Brooklyn native did last year averaging a career best 5.6 assists.

Want to know the difference in this game aside from former St. Patrick’s star Derrick Caracter predictably torching the smaller Johnies inside for a team-high 17 including a couple of three-point plays during a 16-1 spurt which broke open a close second half? Points off turnovers. The Cards held roughly a 20-point edge in that category because the Redmen didn’t take care of the basketball and allowed too many transition buckets during that critical stretch where they went ice cold from the floor after slicing a Cardinal 15-point deficit to seven.

Like many games this season, Roberts’ team got close but then were answered by superior offensive play from their opponent. By the time they got back on track thanks to a great individual effort from Mason who scored inside and outside, it was too late as they trailed 56-35 with 8:30 left.

I think what’s most disappointing is how Rick Pitino’s Cards started the run which salted away the game improving them to 5-2 in the Big East and 15-5 overall. By setting up a couple of wide open trifectas including a big momentum-killing one from long range specialist Juan Palacios. You had to know they would do that.

Even with Mason draining a career high seven from downtown, it was still the Cards who made one more from long range hitting on 9-of-22 while St. John’s finished 8-of-22. Btw…Mason was 7-of-11 while the rest of his teammates were a putrid 1-for-11 with just sophomore Larry Wright (1-for-7 FG, all three’s) getting his only basket from behind the arc in garbage time.

Not surprisingly, Mason, Jr. was the only St. John’s player in double figures while the Cardinals had more of a balanced attack with three players getting at least 10-or-more including 15 and five boards from Jerry Smith along with three treys.

A pair of promising freshmen Justin Burrell and D.J. Kennedy had nine and seven respectively for the Redmen.

I will say this about Mason, Jr. This kid has worked extremely hard to comeback from an ankle sprain and really is ballin’. It’s ashame that his team isn’t a little better because he’s not getting enough exposure for how good he really is.

If you watched how he scored his baskets and got teammates involved late, it’s a credit to how hard he plays. He still was giving it a yeoman effort at the defensive end as well.

The small forward deserves more recognition. He’s been in double digits 11 straight games and continues to get better all the time. The good news is he’s got another year remaining. Maybe that can improve his draft stock. But much will depend on his teammates maturity level next Fall.

For now, it’s definitely a struggle for Mason and his teammates. We’ll see what they come up with against one of the best teams in the country Wednesday night.

McAlarney torches Villanova: If you live out on Staten Island AKA Shaolin, there aren’t many HS basketball players who go onto play for big time college programs. That former Moore Catholic star guard Kyle McAlarney is doing so for Notre Dame is just awesome stuff.

The junior guard continues to improve his game. Today, he lit up No.18 Villanova for a game best 30 points and five assists in a solid 90-80 road win for the Fighting Irish.

Now 20, McAlarney was a lethal scorer out here in his Moore days with former coach Rich Postiglione leaving the keys to the gym for his star player to get more practice time in. I saw him play a couple of times fortunately as SI76 covers HS sports like the pros out here. The kid is just deadly from long range. He was nailing NBA three’s during his HS days where during an impressive four-year career he averaged almost 35-a-game along with 4.5 boards and a respectable six assists.

Staten Island’s all-time leading scorer finished with 2,566 points- placing fourth all-time in New York state history. He also won the Jacques Award twice for the best player out here and earned New York Class A Player of the Year in his senior year back in 2005.

Sure. The Staten Island High School League (SIHSL) isn’t quite on the level of the rest of the city but basketball out here has gotten better. PSAL schools such as Curtis and Port Richmond are usually good and catholic programs such as St. Peter’s, Farrell and Moore compete against some of the best schools in the city including Rice, St. Raymond’s and All Hallows.

You can’t take away from how good this kid is. If you can play, they’ll find you as evidenced with Mike Brey’s Irish. His sophomore season was well documented for the wrong reasons as he got suspended for marijuana possession last year.

It looked like he wouldn’t be returning to school. McAlarney even appeared on SI76’s Sports Time with host Joe Nugent where the former Moore star was interviewed at the school during his time off.

Not surprisingly, Nugent went to bat for the kid who never got in trouble before. Or at least that’s what we heard. You never really can tell. But he did have a solid reputation and achieved high grades at school. So, who knows?

Sometimes, kids make mistakes. It took a trip by Brey to his home which convinced McAlarney to return for his Junior season at South Bend. This year, he’s averaging a career high 14.6 points along with 3.4 assists on a good Irish team which should be back in the NCAA tournament. At the moment, thanks to five trifectas and an efficient 10-of-15 shooting from the junior, they improved to 4-2 in conference play and 14-4 overall.

So, how much has changed for McAlarney in a year? Well for starters, he’s now in the news for the right reasons drawing plenty of praise instead of harsh criticism.

As Chicago Tribune reporter Brian Hamilton points out in a recent article appropriately entitled, “From castoff to blastoff,” McAlarney has done a lot of growing up this season.

“I’m a very different player on the court, but also just a very different person, I feel,” McAlarney said. “I’m very proud of myself. I hold my head high no matter what. I kind of realized basketball is just a game. You have to enjoy every minute of it because when it gets taken away, and you can’t play in games and compete, it’s pretty tough.

“You just have to enjoy every moment of it. I’ve been doing that this year. And I’m having a blast.”

 

Lesson learned.