Marvin Clark relishing opportunity to mentor, potential for special senior season

The lone senior on a St. John's team with experience and upside, Marvin Clark II has served as voice of leadership while determined to end his career on highest possible note. (Photo by the New York Post)

St. John's has dominated recent headlines with the infusion of Mustapha Heron to a backcourt already boasting an all-Big East Conference selection and potential Player of the Year in Shamorie Ponds, and justifiably so. Add Justin Simon into the cadre of guards that Chris Mullin has at his disposal in Queens, and you have a unit that should win the Red Storm a number of games on talent alone.

But for all the accolades that are being received on the perimeter and behind the three-point line, the overshadowed man is one with the most experience on the roster, forward Marvin Clark II. A fifth-year senior who served as arguably the most indispensable piece to the puzzle aside from Ponds last season, Clark is the grizzled voice of veteran battles, and the former Michigan State expatriate would not have it any other way.

"No question," he said when asked if he finds himself becoming more of a mentor to an evolving St. John's front line that welcomes Sedee Keita from South Carolina and freshmen Josh Roberts and Marcellus Earlington to a unit searching for consistency amid the losses of Bashir Ahmed and Tariq Owens, but also to the team as a whole. "We've got three very talented freshmen that are coming in, and also a lot of new faces that are talented as well. However I can help them hit the ground running, that's really what I take day-to-day."

With the added role of student-teacher to his repertoire, Clark is also balancing the concept of being a hungry performer in his own right, determined along with the rest of his teammates to lift the Red Storm from the morass that has enveloped the program for most of the past two decades into a feel-good NCAA Tournament run that would represent -- in many ways to many long-suffering fans -- a cathartic turning point and signal of having overcome one of the darkest points on the corner of Union and Utopia.

"I wouldn't say pressure or anything like that, but I came here to try to help this program get back to prominence," he intoned. "I feel like it would be a waste if I didn't move with a sense of urgency this year. I work hard in everything I do, but this year, I definitely tried to maximize my time a lot more than summers past. This is my last go-round, so I didn't want to leave anything to chance."

Going through the doldrums of an eleven-game losing streak to begin Big East play last year took the bloom off what the most optimistic of fans thought was a budding rose, but if nothing else, the rough start to the year for St. John's has hardened its incumbent core and become an instructional tool, particularly for one of its transfers from last season, who has been one of the key cogs in the program's gradual resurgence under head coach Chris Mullin.

"I learned a lot," Clark said of his journey over the past two seasons, including his sit-out year of 2016-17, when the Red Storm went 14-19. "Being a transfer, sitting down and watching everybody play is hard, but it's also tells yourself not to think things are going to be easy. It's not easy when you step out on the floor, and I had to learn the hard way. I went through a little slump my first 10-12 games and I was able to get out of that, so last year was really, for me, learning about what not to do, how to overcome adversity, and I think that's going to be pivotal."

"Everything happens for a reason, and I think last year -- and us going through that losing streak -- was for a reason, and now with the leadership of me, Justin and Shamorie, we know what to do when we lose a game, and we know not to make the same mistakes."