March Madness: St. John's fans can only watch AJ Storr, Wisconsin and wonder what might have been
AJ Storr of Wisconsin dunks the ball against Purdue during overtimein the Big Ten semfinals on March 16 at Target Center in Minneapolis. Credit: Getty Images/David Berding
One can’t blame St. John’s fans who watch this NCAA Tournament with disappointment and even rage because the Red Storm were omitted from the field after playing four excellent weeks of basketball to close the season.
Tuning in to the late game at Barclays Center on Friday night won’t make any of them feel any better. The finale features No. 5 Wisconsin and leading scorer AJ Storr going against No. 12 James Madison in a first-round game. Storr transferred from St. John’s to the Badgers after last season. He arrives with a 16.9-point average after helping Wisconsin reach the Big Ten Tournament title game by averaging 22.5 points in its four games.
It will have serious “what if” potential, as in “what if Storr had stayed with the Storm?”
Rick Pitino was introduced as St. John’s coach one year ago Thursday, and among the eyebrow-raising things he said was that most of the 2022-23 team would not return for his inaugural season. He ended up extending four or five invitations to return. Storr got one of them.
“I wanted AJ Storr,” Pitino said when the Red Storm were struggling in February. “I wanted AJ Storr. We tried. I worked him out. I loved him and so on. We wanted him and he chose to go elsewhere.”
Before Wisconsin’s shoot-around on Thursday, when Storr was asked about the chance that he might have returned to play for Pitino, he replied, “We had a few conversations with him, but I’d already entered the portal and was exploring my options.”
Storr said he fell for St. John’s when he toured the Garden during his visit because “thinking about all the history that happened there and having a chance to play in that [arena] is just a dream of mine.” He also said he was close with coach Mike Anderson, who often would call his mother after games. He decided to put his name in the NCAA transfer portal when Anderson was dismissed after a fourth season without making the NCAAs.
It was a middling freshman season for Storr at St. John’s; he averaged 8.8 points in 21.1 minutes. He said he’d have liked to play more but that every confident player feels that way. He said he chose Wisconsin because of the “winning culture” and added that it’s “been to a lot of NCAA Tournaments, and that’s the level I want to play on.”
When asked about his impact, the Badgers do nothing short of gush about Storr.
“AJ is a talent that you don’t really see too often coming around the Wisconsin locker room,” junior Carter Gilmore said. “He jumped out right away when we saw him the first day of practice, just kind of giving us that athleticism boost . . . He can do a lot of stuff that the rest of us naturally just can’t.
“He bails us out of a lot of situations on offense and he gives us an option on defense to go guard their best player, their most athletic guy,” he added. “And he also just brings a ‘dog’ mentality that I think this team needed to have. He just doesn’t care; he’s going to go out there and he’s going to shoot the game-winning shot.”
“He had an athletic ability that does things you can’t teach,” Wisconsin coach Greg Gard said. “He’s been really awesome to coach. He’s listened and embraced coaching. And he’s obviously added an offensive punch to us that we didn’t have previously.”
Said Storr: “I knew I was always capable of having the year I am having now.”
Many who transferred from St. John’s had good seasons. O’Mar Stanley started for Boise State and helped the team reach The Big Dance. Red Storm commit Yaxel Lendebourg instead chose UAB and led the upstart Blazers to the tournament. David Jones led Memphis in scoring and Kolby King played well at Tulane.
Storr was asked if he ever thinks about what could have been and replied, “Definitely, but things worked out how they worked out and the transfers ended up having great seasons. I am just proud of those guys.”
He also kept an eye on St. John’s. He and the Red Storm’s Glenn Taylor Jr. were high school teammates at IMG Academy (Florida). “It’s unfortunate they didn’t make it — I wish they’d made it,” Storr said.
St. John’s didn’t have Storr’s services and didn’t make the NCAA Tournament but is definitely headed in the right direction after one season under Pitino. And he wanted Storr in the fold.
So maybe the sight of Storr on Friday night shouldn’t be something for Red Storm fans to wince at. Maybe they should feel good that his time has come. St. John’s time likely isn’t far behind.
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.
