NEW YORK – Losing the game was bad enough. St. John’s, however, lost more than just a basketball game on Thursday. They lost a key player for the NCAA Tournament.
Early in the first half, Red Storm forward D.J. Kennedy went down. He had to be helped off the court, which isn’t a good sign. The injury was believed to be a season-ending knee injury at the time, and reports later in the day said the injury is a torn ACL in his right knee, which means he will miss the NCAA Tournament.
“This is a tough time to lose both a leader and vital member of our team,” said St. John’s head coach Lavin in a release by the school. “D.J. Kennedy has consistently influenced the game at both ends of the floor throughout our successful season. We will miss his leadership, versatility and experience. Our basketball family is determined to bring an inspired effort to pay tribute to D.J. Kennedy for his outstanding contributions to our program. Our players recognize we would not be participating in the NCAA Tournament without D.J.’s efforts.”
Kennedy has had a big hand in the gradual improvement of the team over his career. He’s done a lot of things for them since coming in and starting right away, playing as a wing who can pass. Kennedy will finish his career having started all but four of his games and three straight seasons with more assists than turnovers to go with solid scoring and rebounding numbers. He’s played some of both forward spots and done just about anything they’ve asked him to do.
Most of all, Kennedy has seen this program rise up. He was part of a big recruiting class that came to St. John’s with the hope of gradually rising the program back to the NCAA Tournament. He’s seen them have growing pains early. He’s seen them start well last year and get some buzz around the program, only to slow down and not finish well in Big East play. He’s seen them when they were thought to be an NIT team at best. He’s seen them become a team no one wants to play at Madison Square Garden. Now he’s seen them as a team ready to go back to the NCAA Tournament, the goal when he and the current crop of seniors was recruited by Norm Roberts and his staff.
In short, he’s seen quite a bit. That right there tells you they will be losing a lot with him out of the lineup.
For how much losing a key player this late can impact a team, St. John’s doesn’t need to look far. Georgetown’s struggles without Chris Wright are well-documented, something Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim mentioned. Boeheim also can relate, having lost Arinze Onuaku in the Big East Tournament last season, although Onuaku wasn’t as significant to the Orange as Kennedy is to St. John’s. Likewise, Kennedy isn’t quite as vital to St. John’s as Wright is to Georgetown, although that might be a closer comparison.
“You can’t absorb a loss like that, especially if you have three key guys,” said the Syracuse mentor. “You can maybe lose a guy if you have great depth and he’s not a key guy.”
The St. John’s players aren’t ducking what this means. They know they just lost an important piece of the puzzle, and it means everyone else has to do more.
“It’s going to affect us a little bit because he’s versatile,” said senior guard Dwight Hardy. “But now we have to pick up the slack, somebody else going to have to rebound a little more, somebody is going to have to score a little bit more, everybody on this team is going to have to add more value than what they’ve been adding.”
Most of all, one has to feel for Kennedy, who won’t get his one shot to play in the NCAA Tournament. This is what he came to St. John’s for, and now all he can do is watch.
