That’s ESPN’s Ian O’Connor, agreeing with St. John’s player Dwight Hardy’s proclamation that the Red Storm can make it to the Final Four.  The scrappy, tough, and now extremely blessed team have already done many unthinkable things—destroying top-ranked Duke at the Garden, beating Pittsburgh in the last seconds on a miracle layup.  The ref and their infamous non-calls in the last second of play yesterday gave St. John’s a gift, on Ash Wednesday of all days, when the many of the faces in the Garden wore ashes on their foreheads.  It wasn’t a bad way to start the Lenten season—with a miracle.  The Johnnies face a tougher team with Syracuse today, and many more challenges ahead.  But they have what many teams don’t, which is a core of experienced seniors who have lost for most of their time on the team.  These are the players who couldn’t make things work in years past, who had their fair-share of hardwood heartbreaks much like the kind they’re dishing out to other teams.  It’s stupid to say that some teams want it more than others—everybody wants it.  But the Red Storm players, and the city, seemed to have wanted it longer.  And that might count for something long into March Madness.  

[ESPN]

(via the20newyork)