NCAA: How St. John’s Red Storm has shocked the system
We are a few weeks away from March Madness. One of the teams hoping to enter the big dance is the St. John’s Red Storm who come into play on Wednesday night with DePaul riding a three-game winning streak. These types of winning streaks are not groundbreaking material, it’s who the Red Storm have defeated that is having fans of the Red Storm dream about playing into the big dance.
The month of January was bad for the St. John’s Red Storm as they would end up going 0-8. A lot of their losses came at the hands of teams within their own conference. This had people feel that the Red Storm would not have any hope for March Madness. Then came the month of February, the last-ditch effort for teams who want to be in March Madness. Their first task was going up against the 12th ranked team, Duke Blue Devils. In a surprise turn of events, the Red Storm defeated Duke 81-77. This was helped by the work of Guard Shamorie Ponds, who had 33 points. This was impressive because it would be the first win for the Red Storm over a ranked opponent. Then we would get a rematch between the Red Storm and the number three team, Villanova Wildcats.
These two teams played back in January and the Wildcats won 78-71. Like we saw in the Duke game, Shamorie Ponds would end up taking over the game again. In this one, Ponds would drain 26 points in almost 40 minutes of action. It is interesting that this team was being written off a few weeks ago and by beating Duke and Villanova, there are people saying that this team is one of the more dangerous teams around. They would also go on to beat Marquette 86-78.
A huge reason why this team is being looked at differently is what Shamorie Ponds has done in these three games. During this three-game winning streak, Ponds has 103 points in over 120 minutes of action. However, a lot of the reason to why Shamorie Ponds has 103 points in the last three games is Justin Simon who has over 10 rebounds in each game. The Red Storm will face DePaul, Marquette, Seton Hall, Butler, and Providence to close out the season. Thus, if I were head coach Chris Mullen, I wouldn’t change anything and keep giving Shamorie Ponds the ball. Hence, you want to carry the hot hand heading into March Madness.
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