Coach Norm Roberts said all season that the 2007-08 Red Storm squad was built for the future. Three freshmen wound up starting for St. John's on a regular basis, and five others came off the bench.

That argument helped save his job for another season, because the bottom line was that the team's performance was disappointing to both the fans and the administration. By the time the season ended, fans were chanting for Roberts' head at games and on talk-radio.

Expectations among the fan base were that the Red Storm, even with its youth, would take a step forward in Roberts' fourth season at the helm. Though the team was picked to finish 14th in the conference in the preseason poll, Anthony Mason Jr. and Eugene Lawrence were expected to provide the leadership to shepherd the newcomers to a respectable finish, and perhaps a postseason berth.

Then Mason hurt his ankle and missed games and serious playing time over the nonconference schedule, and everyone had to grow up much faster than expected. There were the expected highs and lows of a team with St. John's inexperience, and the result was a team that finished a game out of a tie for the final spot in the Big East tournament. It wound up at 5-13, fulfilling those preseason expectations with a 14th-place finish.

One key change for the Red Storm in 2008-09 has to be a better performance at Madison Square Garden. Part of the team's lack of fan support was because the team played so poorly at MSG, going 0-5 in Big East games and 1-6 overall. The team saved some of its worst performances for the home folks, with the nadir being a 74-42 loss to Georgetown on Jan. 30.

Apart from Lawrence, Roberts has his entire team back for 2008-09. This time around, nobody will want to hear about youth or inexperience if the team is in a similar position a year from now.

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