Improved St. Johns has all the reasons to dream of ending March Madness drought

By March, it will be 25 long years since St.John’s last won an NCAA Tournament game.Ten long years since it reached the main draw of the Dance.Six long years since it was even part of March Madness.Will this, at long last, be the season this beaten-down fan base has been waiting for? Can the Johnnies finally break through? Will results match the hype for a change?On paper, they have the personnel and the coach to do it.

Rick Pitino brought back his top four players with remaining eligibility: juniors Zuby Ejiofor and RJ Luis, and sophomores Simeon Wilcher and Brady Dunlap.He added the nation’s fourth-ranked transfer class to that core — bringing in Kadary Richmond of Seton Hall, Deivon Smith of Utah, Aaron Scott of North Texas and Vince Iwuchukwu of USC.The group narrowly missed being included in the Associated Press preseason Top 25.

It was picked to finish fifth in a very deep Big East by the league’s coaches.There are immense expectations for a program that has too frequently fizzled over the past 2 ¹/₂ decades.“Last year was Rick Pitino’s first year.

The roster was put together very late after he got the job and the team won 20 games, made the Big East Tournament semifinals for the first time in 24 years and just missed the NCAA Tournament,” CBS Sports analyst Jon Rothstein said in a phone interview.“The team that he’s about to coach in his second season is significantly more talented than his first.“You’re adding Kadary Richmond, who is a Big East Player of the Year candidate, and also is somebody that I think is an All-American candidate.

You’re adding Deivon Smith, who has yet to do it in a winning situation — the team he was on last year didn’t make the NCAA Tournament — but I think he’s obviously a defensive upgrade from what they had that allows them to play the way [Pitino] wants to play.And RJ Luis being healthy is something that can be a game changer for them.“If I was looking at two teams in the Big East that...