St. John's found a familiar adversary in an all too familiar setting.

Forget the aesthetics of basketball for a second. Forget the fact that St. John’s didn’t play well enough to beat Gonzaga for a second (they didn’t by the way. Out rebounded 41-18?! Come on fellas.). Forget the fact that during that day in Denver the 12 and 13 seeds won their games to begin the yearly tournament shakeup.

Just understand this statement… The NCAA has something against St. John’s.

Conspiracy theory? Yeah. But do I as a fan have a reason to feel like they do? Hell yes.

This theory stems from the 2000 NCAA season that included an NCAA investigation of Erick Barkley when he was the starting point guard for the Red Storm. Barkley was suspended for two games for borrowing a friend’s car (no, seriously that’s what gets you suspended in the NCAA. Yet John Calipari can have violations at two schools, have banners tore down and his schools removed from the record books and still get coaching jobs whenever he wants. You can’t make this stuff up.) In what was a stupid penalty for a minor incident. St. John’s didn’t seem to suffer as they ran through the Big East winning the regular season and conference tournament.

They were considered a favorite to win the NCAA title and had a shot at a possible number one seed. So naturally the selection committee puts the Big East champion as a two seed… out west… in Arizona… against Northern Arizona in a first round disadvantage… with the possibility of a second round match against the West Coast’s own Gonzaga…  yeah, they got hosed.

St. John's suffered a disappointing end to a great season.

They were on the NCAA hit list and were put at a disadvantage from the jump. That tournament still ticks me off to this day. No team, not Michigan State, Arizona, Oklahoma or anyone was stopping that team from winning it all. If they would’ve gotten a two seed in the East they would’ve beaten Florida and gotten to the Final 4 and beaten the Spartans for the title. You can’t tell me different.

11 years later after one the best runs that they’ve had since the 98-2000 teams the Johnnies came into this tournament with high hopes and were a dark horse candidate for the Final 4 even without D.J. Kennedy who tore his ACL. All of this ended on Sunday during the selection with this matchup, #6 St. John’s… goes to Colorado… to take on Gonzaga… who after struggling all year is peaking after winning the WCC tournament and 11 of its last 12… Shoot me.

11 years after screwing the Storm the NCAA did it again. Of all of places, they send them out West again to face Gonzaga again. Once I saw that matchup I knew it was over.

Gonzaga is too tall and athletic for the smaller Red Storm who do play physical, but can’t run up and down the floor with a team like this. And it showed.

Besides the rebound margin the Bulldogs got to the line 26 times and dropped 20 assists to the Storm’s 9. It was over before it really even started.

I’m not shocked though. I saw it coming even though my optimism was giving me thoughts of a run deep into March. The Johnnies got a bad matchup and got creamed, that’s NCAA tournament for ya. For all of the magic and success that they accumulated this year it was all undone by the NCAA selection committee in one year. It felt like 2000 all over again, thanks fellas for screwing the Johnnies once again at least you’re consistent with your punishment for a program in one way NCAA.

St. John's has climbed its way back to relevance in the NCAA.

How do u remember St. John’s basketball?

Do you remember the 80′s final four run? Chris Mullin, Mark Jackson and Lou Carnesecca and the magic at the Garden?

The basketball power in the mecca of basketball that was a power in the nations best conference?

What about the 90′s? The inner city tough guys like Ron Artest, Erick Barkley and Lavar Postell that took it to Duke at the Garden, made a run at the final four and were national championship favorites?

Those were my guys, the tough defensive minded ballers that did things “Queens Style” as Artest once uttered and couldn’t be out muscled.

Six months after moving to Maryland there was a Sweet 16 matchup between the Johnnies and the Terps that had Maryland fans over-confident. The locals were ACC snobs that looked at the Red Storm like they were pushovers. Hell my teacher, a NC State grad, laughed when I told him Ron Ron and company were gonna beat up the Terps. His response? Who’s Ron Artest?

6 blocks, 4 steals later (not to mention Barkley absolutely owning Steve Francis) everyone knew who he was as well as the Storm.

St. Johns was the school N.Y. ballers wanted to go to. We as fans were proud of the Johnnies, in a city that bleeds basketball we had a machine where the best wanted to play at. The citys best point guards stayed there, the games at the Garden were just as big as Knicks games.

Ron Artest and Mike Jarvis led the last great St. John's run in the late 90's.

Then it died.

The talent started leaving. Jamie Dixon and Jim Calhoun and others invaded the deep talent pool and took them to all corners of the states. Mike Jarvis’ style of play and coaching stopped resonating with the team. Yeah there was a Marcus Hatten here, an NIT title there but nothing was sustainable.

The Garden became Duke’s second home, the John Wall showcase, Gerry McNamera arena and St. Johns was slowly becoming like DePaul University was to Chicago; a once great city power that’s now a relic.

Coming into this season St. John’s hadn’t made the tournament since 2002 and the Norm Roberts era was the fail of fails. The school needed to make a splash and did so by hiring former UCLA coach Steve Lavin.

Lavin was a great recruiter that couldn’t live up to the glory days expectations in Los Angeles. Upon his arrival in Queens you could feel a shift in the program immediately. He inherited the most esperienced team in the Big East and his way of coaching, matched with their talent level, paid dividends. They jumped out to a 9-4 start with wins over Arizona State and Northwestern and a hard fought loss to Saint Mary’s.

However, where Lavin and company have truly made their mark is in the monster that is the Big East.

St. John’s does not lead the conference, but it owns it. Top teams that have played the Johnnies have all been buried under a fury of defense and a hungry team aching to bring the once storied power back to prominence.

They have delivered and then some.

Dwight Hardy is the man to beat for Big East player of the year thanks to his performances in the Johnnies big games.

Their list of wins is a laundry list of triumphs made for a top tier program sitting at its peak instead of a program trying to regain its mojo. Georgetown, Notre Dame, UCONN, Pitt and Duke have all been slain by the Red Storm in a one month span that has shook up the nation and eyes all eyes on New York.

The star has been senior point guard Dwight Hardy. While much has been made of Kemba Walkers heroics, Hardy has been just as clutch if not more for the Red Storm. He’s been the unstoppable force that has carried them to each victory and has them sitting pretty in the conference.

He dropped 33 against UCONN, 26 versus Georgetown and 19 yesterday against Pitt. Each time he answered the bell when the Johnnies needed an a play late in games or in yesterdays case a shot to win the game. Hardy is pouring his soul out in the first meaningful games of his career and his fellow seniors are following suit.

Justin Brownlee has been a beast on the inside housing Duke last month and putting up steady numbers in Big East play. D.J. Kennedy as been a excellent secondary score finding his touch when necessary and Justin Burrell has stepped up in key situations like yesterday with 15 points off the bench to aid Hardy.

But this is Hardy’s team. Despite Walkers dominant start to the season, and Ben Hansbrough’s revelation of a senior year it is Hardy who should walk away with the player of the year award. Not since Barkley in 2000 has a St. Johns player gotten this much attention and lived up to it. Without Hardy’s heart and will St. Johns wouldn’t be this revived. They might be an N.I.T. squad instead of a team that not one single team would have a delight in playing next month on the tournament.

But more than the players, the excitement is back for the program. Madison Square Garden is rocking on Saturday afternoons again. Basketball matters in Queens like it did during the Artest years and in the early 90′s before that.

Look at yesterdays game and the Duke game. I haven’t seen that place that nuts in a long time for a St. Johns game and it felt great. Basketball matters again to a school that bases its athletic legacy on one sport and to the best basketball school in a basketball city. Call me crazy but this may be the start of something big. Maybe the New York City point guard can return to prominence, maybe the next Lance Stephenson or Stephon Marbury will stay in state instead of bolt for other colleges, maybe St. John’s can return to being the power it was when Mullin and Jackson ran wild at Carnesecca Hall. The thought of it has me going crazy with anticipation.

Its well warranted anticipation. Watching yesterday’s thriller and the last month of upsets might be a heaping appetizer of things to cone. Lavin’s recruiting skills were on display this past year as St. John’s obtained the number 2 recruiting class in the country for 2011. Even after the heavily senior laden class leaves school this year it looks like the school is in good shape for a few years and might become a yearly contender in the Big East.

You can say their a one year wonder, that they got lucky with everyone getting road games against them. However, me being the crazed New York fan that I am, I see this as a preview. A preview of the return to glory the Artest era, the Mullin days, the return to the final four and the toughest team in the Big East. Look out world The St. Johns Red Storm are back!!

As the madness of march keeps creeping, I’m reminded of a better time. I grew up a St. John’s fan. I couldn’t tell you the exact reason, but I’m pretty sure it had something to do with my brother. My brother is probably the reason behind all of the teams I root for. In fact, the only team I do root for that is not directly related to my brother is UF, of which I am an alumni. Maybe not so ironically, Gator teams are the only ones that have had any real success in my lifetime. Perhaps I should choose my teams the same way I did college. But I’m pretty sure chasing vagina will not change the fates of any of my designated organizations.

Either way, as much as I am a proud member of Gator Nation, and as much as I’ve enjoyed the run that we’ve had over the last few years (yes, I can say we when it comes to UF. Tuition payed. Degree earned – sort of) none of it matters to me as much as it would if one of my childhood teams happened to win something. That goes double for St. John’s. Why? Not really sure, but it probably has to do with the fact that I love basketball and, even more so, college basketball.

I barely remember the really good teams. But I do remember staring at the cover of the paper, tacked to my brothers bedroom wall when Ron Rowan hit a last second shot to win the Big East tournament when the Big East didn’t have 100 teams in it. “Ronnie on the Spot!” it read. Absolutely. I remember going to the Garden when I had those lame Brian Bosworth lines shaved into the side of my head and cheering for Mark Jackson. I remember convincing a friend of mine that Malik Sealys’ nickname was “Leaky” because of a bladder problem. Ah, those were the good times.

Then Louie had to retire. No more sweaters. Not many more wins. Not sure if it was that or the “politically correct” move of changing the mascot from Redmen to Red Storm, but since then the program has suffered severely. And I still have no idea what a Red Storm is. I’m pretty sure it’s not a good basketball team.

There was a brief run with Mike Jarvis and his illegally recruited teams. Ron Artest (before he was known for being crazy), Erick Barkley and Bootsy Thorton took eventual national runner up Duke to overtime at the Garden. I was there. I cursed out an entire Duke section when Artest sent it to OT with a 3. I was actually sitting alone that day because me and my brother bought fake tickets from scalpers. By the time we could get other tickets we had missed some of the first half and had to sit on opposite sides of the arena. It gave me much pleasure to tell those smug Duke pricks what I thought of them after that 3. Not so much when the “Storm” couldn’t pull off the upset.

It was those Artest teams that brought false hope. I had no idea that Jarvis was alienating all of the city High Schools at the time. So all of the talent that NYC developed started to go to other schools. Some even went to other Big East schools. Blasphemy! It all finally came crumbling down when a bad team got caught with a stripper (not even an attractive one) after losing to PITT. The damage had already been done. St. John’s, once a proud staple of New York City hoops was now an embarrassment. Somehow Mike Jarvis still makes a living, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t coaching basketball. It should be washing windows with old, crumpled up newspapers if you asked me. I know, you didn’t.

I guess what brought up this trip down memory lane for me was the fact that St. John’s got completely blown out in the Big East Tournament yesterday in a building that used to be their home. Not sure what bothered me most. Maybe it was the fact that a team from Milwaukee beat them in the BIG EAST TOURNAMENT. Maybe I was given a little false hope when they beat Georgetown the day before. That couldn’t be it because it wasn’t even on TV. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. In the 80′s that was THE match-up. St. John’s/Georgetown. Georgetown had it’s down period, but they’ve sort of made there way back thanks to John Thompson III. It’s too bad that Lou Carnesecca didn’t have a son who could take over his program. Instead, I’m left with Norm Roberts.

You can’t blame Roberts completely for the state of this program. Remember, he inherited a team on NCAA probation with all of the city High School relationships deteriorated because of Jarvis. He had no pipeline to go to. The well was dry. Give him credit for reestablishing some of those old connections. But, even now, as he has started to bring some talent in, is there any reason to believe that he can coach it? His team scored 10 points in the first half yesterday against Marquette. That’s right, I said 10! And, that’s also right. I said Marquette and not John Woodens’ UCLA!

How can that be? 10 POINTS?!?!?!? I spoke with a friend of mine after I saw this and we both agreed that we could round up our old High School basketball team, over 15 years removed from playing competitive basketball and still manage to put up more than 10 points. Granted, we may have given up 200, but we would have scored at least 11. I’m not sure that makes me proud.

I guess I should just try and remember the good times. It’s possible that things could turn around for the better and St. John’s could be a force to be reckoned with again. Anything is possible. Kevin Garnett said so. Screamed it, actually. But I’m not sure what’s more unlikely. St. John’s going back to being the Redmen, St. John’s becoming a good basketball program again or me finally guessing 27 games right in a row and getting my million dollars from ESPN. At this point, my money is on the million. If so, drinks on me! None for you, Mr. Jarvis.