And The New Coach of St. Johns...... Steve Lavin

For three weeks me and my fellow St. Johns supporters have been eagerly awaiting the announcement of a head coach for this St. Johns team. First we had our hopes for Billy Donovan. He said no. Paul Hewitt would follow in the steps of Donovan and turn down the job stating he did not want to move his family from their comfortable environment. Then we turned to Seth Greenberg, Al Skinner and Fran McCaffery. Greenberg was a no, McCaffery signed with Iowa and Skinner was never offered a deal. It got to the point were we could open the newspaper, go to the job listings and you would see "St. Johns Head Coaching position - we don't care if you don't have experience we just need a coach." Well someone came calling. Whom you may ask. Non other then Steve Lavin.

Steve Lavin was the former UCLA coach from 1996-2003. He had a record of 145 wins and 78 losses. He took the Bruins to six NCAA appearances and five of the six times he brought his team to the Sweet 16 including an Elite 8 bid in 1997. He guided UCLA to also six straight seasons of twenty plus wins and in the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament he is 10-1. So his track record shows everything St. Johns wants in a coach. Not to mention he recruited NBA Stars like Trever Ariza, Baron Davis, Jason Kapono and a slew of other players. The only main problem is he hasn't coached since '03. He stepped aside from coaching and joined ESPN as a College Basketball Analyst.

He may be a little rusty but you can expect him to be on his A game and hopefully bring St. Johns back to basketball royalty in the next couple years. With a bunch of seniors next year and 7 scholarships to play with after next year Steve Lavin has the chance to start great and just go up from there.

-Kujtim 'Timmy' Dimas

As always follow me on Twitter @TCaspDeez for all coverage of sports news.

Sweet 16 - Elite 8 - Final 4

What a week it has been in college basketball. Two more #1 seeds down and a Cinderella riding her pumpkin carriage back home to Indy. Here is an overview of what happened this past week in a March Madness that has truly scene ... Madness.

Sweet 16:

Midwest : #5 Michigan State defeated #9 Northern Iowa 59-52 without star point guard Kalin Lucas. #6 Tennessee defeated Evan Turner and #2 seed Ohio State 76-73. Evan Turner had two chances to tie the game but his second attempt was blocked by JP Prince as the buzzer sounded.

West: #1 Syracuse was the second number 1 seed to fall in the tournament losing to #5 Butler 63-59. #2 Kansas State took care of #6 Xavier is a wild game that went into two overtimes and saw an unbelievable shot by Xavier's Jordan Crawford from near half court to send the game into its second OT.

East: #1 Kentucky took care of #12 Cornell 62-45. #2 West Virgina defeated #11 Washington 69-56.

South: #1 Duke beat the Robbie Hummel-less #4 Purdue 70-57 and #3 Baylor ended #10 St. Marys and Omar Samhan's run in the tournament.

Elite 8:

Michigan St. beats out Tennessee and its last second half court heave to make it to the Final 4. Score 70-69. Butler continues its run winning its 24th straight game defeating Kansas State 63-56. Duke Defeats Baylor 78-71 and remains the last #1 seed as Kentucky falls to West Virgina, who was without Daryl 'Truck' Bryant, 73-66.

Final 4 Match ups: West Virgina vs Duke & Michigan State vs Butler.

Two five seeds and a 1 vs 2 match up is how this tournament that has scene upsets and a bunch of different Cinderella runs comes to a finish. Can Duke beat West Virgina an all around team who is getting Bryant back for the game and can Butler take in the home crowd atmosphere, only playing 6 miles from their university take down a Tom Izzo led Michigan State team who is still without Lucas in the game. Only April 3rd can tell us. For me I will be rooting for the hometown team Butler and the last Big East team in the tourney, West Virgina to make it to the finals with West Virgina winning it all.

-Kujtim 'Timmy' Dimas

As always follow me on Twitter @TCaspDeez for all your sports related news.

An Usually Sweet Sweet 16

When the nation filled out their brackets most of them had the higher seeds making the Sweet 16. No one could have predicted a 12, 11, 10 and 9 seed still playing basketball and playing at a very suburb rate.

12th seed Cornell beat number 5 Temple by 13 points. They went on to face number 4 seed Wisconsin last night and won again but by a bigger gap, 18 points. They will now face the top seed in the Eastern Bracket, Kentucky this weekend.

10th seed St. Marys beat out 7th seeded Richmond then went on to face the 2 seed Villinova in a game where people thought 'Nova could take the win. They were wrong as St. Mary's behind a tremendous effort by big man Omar Samhan's 34 points beat 'Nova 75-68. They are going to face 3 seed Baylor later in the week.

The Washington Huskies are the 11th seed that has pulled upsets of its own in the Eastern Bracket as well. They defeated 6th seeded Marquette and then went on to blow out 3 seeded New Mexico by a final score of 82-64.

Last but not least 9th seeded Northern Iowa first beat 9th seeded UNLV then did the impossible by taking out the top seed in the Midwest Bracket and a team a lot of people chose to win it all, The Kansas Jayhawks by a score of 69 to 67. They are slated to face 5th seed Michigan State later on in the week and with the possibility that Michigan St. best player Kalin Lucas being out for the rest of the tournament after injuring his leg against Maryland, Northern Iowa could find themselves in the Elite 8 come next week.

The outlook for the Sweet 16 is as followed.

Thursday: #1 Syracuse vs #5 Butler at 7pm, #11 Washington vs #2 West Virginia at 7 30pm, #6 Xavier vs # 2 Kansas State at 9 30pm and lastly #12 Cornell vs #1 Kentucky at 10pm.

Friday: #6 Tennessee vs #2 Ohio State at 7pm, #10 St. Mary's vs #3 Baylor at 7 30pm, #9 Northern Iowa vs #5 Michigan State at 9 30pm and finally #4 Purdue vs #1 Duke.

All games can be seen on CBS and I promise you folks, when it comes down to this time of the year rankings don't matter. Northern Iowa, Washington, Cornell and St. Mary's are perfect examples why

-Kujtim 'Timmy' Dimas

As always follow me on twitter @TCaspDeez for all your up to date sporting news

An Attempt Against the Odds

In the 2009 NBA Draft Brandon Jennings was drafted by the Milwaukee Bucks at number 10. Next to his name did not say a college or high school he came out of but it said Lottomatica Virtus Roma (Italy). If you didn't know why that title was placed next to his name it was because he skipped out on going to Arizona St. to play college basketball and headed off to Europe to by pass the NBA's 1 year college rule, make money and prepare himself for the draft. Was this a sign of trends to come, yes in the case of Jeremy Tyler it was.

Jeremy Tyler skipped his senior year of high school and the chance to play at the University of Louisville with Coach Rick Pitino and made his jump to professional basketball signing a 1-year $140,000 deal with Maccabi Haifa of the Israel Premier League.

That was then this is now. Tyler has left Maccabi Haifa due to "Personal Matters" according to team owner Jeffery Rosen.

Tyler is now team-less and because he played professional basketball he is ineligibly to play college basketball. He must now find a new team and continue to shape himself if he wants to make his way to the NBA.

Though Brandon Jennings can't be blamed for what happened to Tyler he can be seen as the reason for it. Jennings was a highly touted prospect who was said to be NBA ready straight out of high school and he has proven it thous far in the NBA. Jeremy Tyler was a highly touted player as well who chose to choose the path of Jennings to make it to the NBA. He is now home in San Diego gearing up for his next chance at professional basketball. I wish the best of luck to the 6-11 big man and hope his career turns out for the best as Jennings did.

-Kujtim 'Timmy' Dimas

As always follow me on Twitter @TCaspDeez for all things sports related

A New Era Begins

In 2004 Norm Roberts was hired as Coach of St. Johns Basketball. Today March 19th, 2010 Norm Roberts was fired as Coach of St. Johns Basketball.

After months of talk about Roberts being fired, late last night Norm Roberts, his attorney and Athletics Director Chris Monasch met together and Norm was notified that he would be let go. This morning all the reports were made and the St. Johns Community and the rest of the College Basketball world was let know of the decision.

Norm Roberts will be remembered for the work he put in on and off the court. Though his record did not reach the highest of expectations, he came into a organization that was dropped for greatness after the sex scandal that took place in 2004 and helped rebuild the respect and dignity from a school that had lost it. And on the court he got his message across to his players to not just play hard but play with unbelievable passion.

Chris Monasch went to say that " This job is better now then it was 7 years ago thanks to Norm." That statement there alone is something Norm Roberts fans and critics can all agree on.

Now is the search for the new coach to lead this team into battle next year. Names have been thrown left and right about who will be here next year. Seth Greenberg of Virgina Tech, Paul Hewitt of Georgia Tech, Fran McCaffery of Siena and a bunch of the other names.

All talks of Chris Mullen and Mark Jackson as candidates are irrelevant to this situation. Monasch has come out and said that St. Johns is willing to spend money and that they are looking for a proven winner.

For who ever the coach is they have a chance to win now with 7 seniors next year and win after that because they will have 6 scholarships to work with and bring in who they want.

For St. Johns they need to hit a home run with the coaching decision or they will most certainly fall even further down from College Basketball grace.

Kujtim 'Timmy' Dimas

As always follow me on Twitter @TCaspDeez for all sports related topics

A Stormy Night

On a day the fate of Rutgers Coach Fred Hill and Seton Halls Bobby Gonzalez were witnessed there was the last remaining of the "Tri-State Coach's" still to see his. Norm Roberts led his squad into NIT battle with The Memphis Tigers last night in hope of keeping his season going as well as making a better case to keep his job for another year.

Fred Hill will remain coach of Rutgers and Bobby Gonzalez will not be the coach of Seton Hall. Two coach's down one to go.

The win that Norm Roberts would have wanted didn't come, but the loss that he feared came. The heartbreaking loss to Memphis last night 73-71 came on a Wesley Witherspoon layup at the buzzer after Anthony Mason Jr. hit a game tying three pointer from deep three point land. As the ball lingered on the side of the rim the hope of Norm Roberts fell as the ball did in the wrong direction. Both teams came out firing from three point land but it came down to a layup that will send the Red Storm home after just one game into the NIT.

For Anthony Mason Jr, who is a Memphis native, this was his last game in a St. Johns uniform. For DJ Kennedy, Paris Horne, Malik Boothe and the rest of the team this is the last game of the season with another year to go. For Norm Roberts this loss could be the one to send him packing.

-Kujtim "Timmy" Dimas

Follow me on Twitter at TCaspDeez for all sports related news

A Tiger in a Storm

After Wednesday's loss to Marquette at Madison Square Garden it was figured St. Johns was done for the season and the next day all the rumors came out that Coach Norm Roberts was to be fired that day.

Well people, you're 0 for 2.

St. John's season is yet to be over and Norm Roberts is still the coach.

St. Johns learned yesterday that they have been invited to the National Invitational Tournament, also known as the NIT, as a 6th seed. They will face 3 seeded The Memphis Tigers Wednesday at 9pm in Memphis.

So the season is not over and The Red Storm have more to play for. Question is how long will they last in the NIT and how many wins will it take to secure Norm Roberts job for another year.

My answers to these questions are, Memphis a beatable team. Their bench is weak according to a source of mine and if St. Johns can tire them out they can win the game. We all know St. Johns has a deep bench that can come in and contribute so it shouldn't be a problem. If St. Johns wins they will have to face the winner of Mississippi and Troy.

I feel for Norm Roberts to keep his job, he has to go far and not win 1 or 2 games but get deep into the NIT Bracket and I'll go as far as a final four appearance to secure his job for at least another year.

Lots of questions still remain for this St. Johns Red Storm team but still a lot of basketball to be played before some of them can be answered.

- Kujtim 'Timmy' Dimas

As always follow me on Twitter @TCaspDeez for all sports insight.

A last chance for hope for the Storm, blown away

From the North Press Box of Madison Square Garden where I sat readying to broadcast St. Johns vs Marquette game yesterday, a ray of hope was in me that St. Johns could pull out this victory and move on to face Villanova today at 2pm but Lazar Hayward and the rest of the Marquette team had different ideas.

Marquette came out firing in the first 5 minutes of the game, knocking down threes with ease. St. Johns coach Norm Roberts would go on to call a timeout after Hayward knocked down back to back three's and The Johnnies started to get back on defense and play a little better and cut the Golden Eagles lead to 10 going into the half, 27-17.

As the second half began, St. Johns looked fresh and sharp and had put the first half behind them. They came out aggressive and attacking the paint, causing turnovers which resulted in to fast break points.

After two dunks by Justin Brownlee, St. Johns had a 46-42 lead and the hopes in the Garden were at an all-time high but not for long. Marquette came back and answered with what they do best and that was three pointers and took the lead with one minute remaining in the game, 55-53. They would extend it to a four point lead but after a D.J. Kennedy it was down to two points. Marquette's Maurice Acker missed a 1-1 free throw situation giving St. Johns the ball down two but Malik Boothe's heave at the end just missed sending St. Johns home.

The games maybe over but there is still one big thing to get done and thats the coaching decision. Will Norm Roberts go or will he stay. Ask Marquette's Coach, Buzz Williams he would probably say Roberts should stay. Williams said during the press conference, " Norm isn't given the credit he deserves."

But whether Norm stays thats left to be scene but St. Johns has to go back to Queens and ready themselves for next year. Two things they should take with them is UConns Coach Jim Calhouns statement which was, " St. Johns is a top 5, 6 team next year in the Big East." and Also Marquette's Coach Buzz Williams statement saying "If you were to ask my team who the hardest playing team in the Big East is, they'd say St. Johns." As a broadcaster and fan I couldn't agree with those statements anymore.