The hype around the coming St. John’s basketball season is now quantifiable.
The Associated Press released its preseason men’s basketball poll Monday and the Red Storm will open the season ranked No. 5 in the nation.
St. John’s last opened a season in the national rankings 26 years ago when it was No. 18 going into the 1999-2000 season and hasn’t started a season ranked in the Top 10 since it debuted at No. 10 for the 1991-92 season.
The No. 5 preseason position is even higher than the No. 7 it pulled at the start of the 1984-85 season when the Storm reached the Final Four behind the play of Chris Mullin and Walter Berry.
The last time St. John’s opened a season nationally ranked, that squad won the Big East Tournament title – their last until capturing it in 2024-25 – and went to the NCAA Tournament Elite Eight.
The unveiling of the poll also frames how challenging St. John’s schedule is. The final tune-up for the regular season is Oct. 25 against No. 7 Michigan at the Garden. After a season-opening contest against Quinnipiac on Nov. 3, the Red Storm will host No. 15 Alabama at the Garden. It also has at least one more non-conference game against a ranked opponent, No. 16 Iowa State in its second of three games at the Players Era Tournament in Las Vegas in late November. St. John’s also could face a another ranked opponent – to be determined – in the third game at that tourney.
Connecticut, now the Storm’s Big East archrival, will open the season ranked No. 4. St. John’s meets the Huskies at the Garden on Feb. 6 and in Hartford Feb. 25. The only other Big East team to garner a ranking was No. 23 Creighton.
The only times the Red Storm has opened a season ranked higher than this were in the first years of the AP poll, which began in the 1948-49 season. St. John’s was No.2 at the start of the 1951-52 season, the last time it played in the NCAA national championship game — a 16-team field where it lost the title game to Kansas.
St. John’s was ranked No. 1 by the AP at the beginning of the 1949-50 season.
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.