The calendar has turned once more.
It is February. It is the month Steve Lavin has pointed to all season, the time when the St. John's coach always believed all of the potential and promise and possibility of his talented team would come together in the form of one of the Big East's best, a team no opponent would want to face in March.
He didn't expect he would enter this month in eighth place in the Big East. No one did. But the fourth-year coach still believes the best is ahead.
"We're definitely playing better basketball," Lavin said after practice on Friday. "We've definitely made progress and we just have to keep building."
The tools have been there. The tools have always been there. In breaking a five-game losing streak with wins in three of their past four games, St. John's (12-9, 2-6) won its first road game of the season — at Butler — and looked its most impressive in an 18-point comeback against Creighton, eventually snuffed by a last-second 3-pointer from Doug McDermott.
In Tuesday's game against Creighton, the top team in the conference, the Red Storm made their comeback behind the strength of a full-court press, which utilized their strengths — speed, length and athleticism — and kick-started their electric transition offense.
In an attempt to recreate play as good as they have had all season and avoid the seemingly never-ending string of slow starts this season, they'll face Marquette (12-9, 4-4) at Madison Square Garden on Saturday, when JaKarr Sampson said he wants — and expects — the Red Storm to press from the start of the game, noting how different they play when the game is fast-paced.
"[Other times] we're thinking too much, but when we press, we're just playing the game we know how to play, we're just reacting," Sampson said. "We're more amped, we're more on the edge. I feel like we play more free.
"That's when we're at our best. … We're not like the average Big East team. We're athletic, our bigs can move, are mobile, we can run. … We all came to an agreement that we should start the game pressing no matter who we play."
And that up-tempo game has looked better thanks to the improved play of freshman Rysheed Jordan, whose confidence has caught up with his instincts. Over the past four games, he has averaged 10.3 points, three assists and 1.3 steals.
"He was upset about his slow start, but you're a freshman, you're going to have slow starts and growing pains," Sampson said. "His last three or four games, he's been a key for us and that's why we feel like we went on that little run because of him. He stepped up as a leader and a point guard and that's what we need him to do. I feel like he's going to grow every game and get better every game."
But will the team? Guard Max Hooper summed it up nicely:
"We know that we have to have a sense of urgency and have to perform better down the stretch of league, or else all the hype will be for nothing basically."
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