As the 2011-12 basketball season unfolded, the odds seemed to be against St. John’s long-term success.
Head coach Steve Lavin returned to the sidelines prematurely following his Oct. 6 seven-hour prostate cancer surgery and ended up having to cut his comeback short because doctors advised a modified coaching schedule.
On the court, the Johnnies lost two point guards when Malik Stith quit the team and Nurideen Lindsey transferred, leaving the team with just five players for the first half of a game against Fordham in mid-December at Madison Square Garden.
Speculation about Lavin’s long-term health appeared to hurt the team’s recruiting prospects, and were magnified when onetime recruit Ricardo Gathers decommitted and later signed with Baylor.
But as SNY.tv first pointed out in December, Lavin’s absence from the team actually turned out to help the team on the recruiting front in the long term.
With assistant Mike Dunlap running the team for games, Lavin was freed up to hit the recruiting trail, effectively giving St. John’s two staffs in a similar manner to the Ohio State football program this past fall.
Interim coach Luke Fickell prepped the Buckeyes for their Gator Bowl game against Florida, while incoming coach Urban Meyer headed up recruiting efforts.
“My modified scheduled actually allowed me to both set up and close these 2012 signees,” Lavin told SNY.tv Thursday.
“In retrospect, my cancer diagnosis dictated an approach that allowed me to better focus on signing the 2012 recruiting class,” Lavin told SNY.tv Thursday. “I was forced to strategically turn attention fully to our recruiting efforts and my recuperation.”
St. John’s has just about put the finishing touch on another strong recruiting class that was capped earlier this week when 6-foot-9 shot-blocker Chris Obekpa of Our Savior New American committed to the Johnnies.
He joins a class that includes his teammate Felix Balamou, a 6-3 wing; Texas A&M transfer Jamal Branch; Monroe teammates Marco Bourgault and Orlando Sanchez; and former Brewster (N.H.) Academy teammates and roommates Max Hooper, a Harvard transfer, and JaKarr Sampson.
In addition to landing a balanced class of point guards, wings and bigs, St. John’s has three sets of former teammates in Balamou/Obekpa, Bourgault/Sanchez and Hooper/Sampson. That should help with camaraderie on and off the court going forward.
Much of this was made possible because Lavin had the autonomy to redouble the efforts on the recruiting front while simultaneously recovering from prostate surgery with a balanced regimen of yoga, walking, cardio, rest and a healthier diet.
“My competitive nature had me itching to coach in games but that had to take a back seat in order to better prioritize the objectives that would move our program froward,” Lavin said. “A full recovery on the health front became the No. 1 priority and then a close second was hauling in a class of seven or eight top prospects.
“Naturally, it’s counter-intuitive to think that a cancer diagnosis would be a catalyst for securing a strong recruiting class, so not many people even recognized that the modified schedule gave us momentum and ultimately a certain competitive edge in assembling this class.
“I recall being on the phone with JaKarr Sampson’s mother, Dawnette, the day after my surgery. The notion that we made a sudden comeback, or scrambled to pull a rabbit out of the hat this spring is not the least bit accurate. Tony Chiles was my right hand man every step of the way on the recruiting trails and the rest of my staff held down the fort on campus.
“We’ve worked at a relentless pace over the past 27 months in order to put a strong foundation in place that will give St. John’s the opportunity to be a competitive program.”
And nobody would’ve guess that during last season’s troubles.
(Photo: Daily News)
