Welcome to The Holy Land of Hoops

Many younger Big East fans may not be impressed with recent St. John’s Red Storm teams, but the St. John’s Redmen (as they were known for most of their existence) struck fear in their opponents, and historically, have been the best team in the present Big East, with three National Championships.

Introductions from Wikipedia: St. John’s University and St. John's Red Storm Men’s Basketball

The men's basketball team has the 7th-most NCAA tournament appearances (28), two John R. Wooden Award winners, 11 consensus All-Americans, 6 members of the College Basketball Hall of Fame, and has sent 59 players to the NBA.

St. John’s currently holds the NCAA Division I record for most NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship appearances without a championship. St. John's men's basketball has won several National Championships including the 1911 Helms Athletic Foundation National Championship and the 1943 and 1944 back to back NIT National Championships.

The men's basketball team has achieved success in the NCAA Tournament as well including appearing in the 1952 NCAA National Championship game, advancing to the 1985 NCAA Final Four and having appeared in the NCAA Elite Eight in 1979, 1991, and 1999.

St. John's has the most NIT appearances with 27 and the most NIT Championship wins with 6, although they were stripped of one due to an NCAA infraction.

National Invitation Tournament

Men's Postseason NIT Champions and (Runners-Up)

1943 - St. John's (Toledo)
1944 - St. John's (DePaul)
1953 - Seton Hall (St. John's)
1959 - St. John's (Bradley)
1962 - Dayton (St. John's)
1965 - St. John's (Villanova)
1970 - Marquette (St. John's)
1989 - St. John's (Saint Louis)
2003 - St. John's* – Vacated (Georgetown)

* St. John's won the 2003 NIT title, but later vacated the title due to an ineligible player.

The ESPN/Sagarin All-Time Rankings (1937-2009)

16. St. John’s
21. Villanova
24. Marquette
26. DePaul
42. Georgetown
59. Xavier
76. Seton Hall
78. Providence
86. Creighton
98. Butler

The Top 40 Programs of Each Decade

The 1940's:
21. St. John’s

The 1950's:
29. St. John’s

The 1960's:
17. St. John’s

The 1970's:
23. St. John’s

The 1980's:
18. St. John’s

The 1990's:
32. St. John’s

List of Teams with the Most Victories in NCAA Division I Men's College Basketball - Wikipedia

Top 50 Teams through the end of the 2016-17 season:

Rank - College (First Season; No. of Seasons) • Wins - Losses • (Win%)

9. St. John's (1908; 110) • 1,817 - 999 • (.645)
24. Villanova (1921; 97) • 1,713 - 920 • (.651)
31. Georgetown (1907; 109) • 1,638 - 1,024 • (.615)
47. Marquette (1917; 100) • 1,589 - 982 • (.618)

St. John’s University is also regarded as one of the best Catholic Colleges in the country:

50 Best Catholic Colleges - best-catholic-colleges.com

Welcome to Best-Catholic-Colleges.com, your friendly source of facts about Catholic schools in USA. With our site you will find contact information, majors availability, and diploma selection, as well as nationwide, regional, and state rankings, campus safety ratings, and lists of local competitors for 253 Catholic schools.

Unlike many other sites promoting Catholic schools, our site is not sponsored by any school or college group. This allows us to remain unbiased when analyzing various governmental and independent sources of college data and to provide both positive and negative information about Catholic schools.

2. Georgetown University - Washington, DC - 142 majors
4. DePaul University - Chicago, IL - 164 majors
7. St. John's University - Queens, New York - 186 majors
8. Villanova University - Villanova, PA - 152 majors
9. Marquette University - Milwaukee, WI - 165 majors
18. Seton Hall University - South Orange, NJ - 123 majors
22. Creighton University - Omaha, NE - 150 majors
28. Xavier University - Cincinnati, OH - 164 majors
40. Providence College - Providence, RI - 118 majors

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St. John’s Men’s Basketball – Official Website

2016-17 St. John’s Men’s Basketball Media Guide (196-page .pdf file)

For more information, please see St. John’s Basketball History on Pages 168 to 170 of the Media Guide.

Not sure what the perspective is of our program on the outside, but I feel we are in a similar situation as the Mets. The Mets last won in 1986 and SJ was last in the Final Four in 1985. It seems that both teams constantly remind us of that replaying it over and over trying to squeeze every drop of prestige from it. We see teams like Villanova, Providence, and Seton Hall making very recent great memories...we are in dire need of those at SJ if we are to get new fans and win over casual fans. When I say great memories I mean winning the BET, making the Final Four...or really even the Elite 8 or Sweet 16. As recently as 2015 we were ranked as good as #15 in the country though fizzled out. That's how you get people noticing...keep your name in the spotlight, appear on Sports Center where they show only top 25 highlights for the most part, and show some life. I know making Sweet 16's and Elite 8's at this stage is asking too much for us, but there is no reason barring significant injury that this roster should miss the NCAA tournament. I see the Mullin era as a crossroads and I really hope we are on the right path back to national prestige. Something tells me that with our staff, it's different now in a good way. The Lavin administration seemed to be on autopilot but the Mullin administration seems like they will simply work too hard to be irrelevant. If defense and rebounding improve significantly, watch out.