We’ve waited a long time for a winter like this, for a weekend like this. It’s been decades since the fortunes of the Knicks and St. John’s have synched up like this, since New York basketball had this kind of tandem, this kind of nightly show. 

You have to go back to at least 1999 to come up with anything resembling it. The Knicks went all the way to the NBA Finals before losing to Tim Duncan’s Spurs. The Johnnies went all the way to the Elite Eight before dropping a 77-74 heartbreaker in the South Region final to Scoonie Penn and the Ohio State Buckeyes. 

But even that was different than this because 1999 was the first lockout season in the NBA, and the Knicks didn’t even begin play until February. St. John’s owned the city’s basketball spotlight by themselves most of the year. 

It wasn’t until April 22, 33 days after the St. John’s season ended, when Dave Checketts famously invited Ernie Grunfeld for dinner at Gregory’s in White Plains. The men had steak for dinner, and Checketts gave Grunfeld a pink slip for dessert with his coffee. The Knicks began their miracle run two weeks later.