It’s Norm Roberts’ sixth season in Jamaica, and his team is off to its best start yet — 8-1 with quality wins over Temple and Siena and lone loss by nine at Duke, which is more impressive than last season’s 9-1 start with only one quality win — Cornell — in the bunch. Roberts’ teams have been marked by competent defense and inept offense, but with the emergence of an efficient go-to player, the Red Storm have a legitimate opportunity at an NCAA Tournament bid.

When Roberts brought in a large junior class three seasons ago, it was this set of players that figured to make or break his tenure. D.J. Kennedy and Justin Burrell were the two players who appeared most likely to become offensive standouts as freshmen in 2007-08. The team offense was simply wretched, but Kennedy managed to hit 48.5 percent of his 2-pointers and grab a decent share of offensive rebounds. Burrell was much more active in the offense, but his 43 percent 2-point percentage was not a fortuitous sign.

Last season, a new challenger emerged when Paris Horne became a major part of a marginally improved St. John’s offense. Horne was mediocre on his many 3-pointers (33.5 percent on 182 attempts), but like Kennedy the year before, Horne flourised inside the arc, hitting 51.3 percent of his 2-pointers, a terrific figure for a 6-foot-3 guard. Kennedy saw his interior efficiency plummet (43.6 percent on 2’s), but he replaced those misses with a lot of made free throws. Burrell hit a few more of his 2’s (45.0 percent) but continued to struggle with turnovers, especially for a player not asked to handle the ball.

This season, with his team in need of a go-to scorer, Kennedy has been nothing short of phenomenal. He’s been about 20 percent more active in the offense and still much more efficient at the same time. The key has been his ability to get to the line. He hits 79 percent of his free throws and gets fouled about six times per 40 minutes on the floor. Kennedy has also gotten his 2-point percentage back up — to 61.4 percent — and has even shown range from deep, knocking down threes at a 44.8-percent rate, this after making exactly one-third of his 3-point attempts in each of his first two seasons.

Kennedy is part of an exclusive club among Big East players this season. The 12 players below have played in at least two-thirds of their teams’ minutes, sport offensive ratings of at least 110 (100 is average) and are responsible for at least 23 percent of their teams possessions when on the floor (all figures are through Saturday’s game and courtesy Kenpom.com).

* Pts/100 refers to the number of points each player accounts for per 100 team possessions.

If you narrowed this list down to the players who manage a 120 O-Rating and 24-percent possession thresholds, the list is just Harangody, Hazell and Kennedy. When you consider that Kennedy leads his team in defensive rebounds and is tied for second in steals, it’s clear that he is having an all-Big East first two months of the season. The offensive ratings for Kennedy and all of the other players on this list will get lower and lower when conference play begins at the end of the month and the quality of competition increases, but Kennedy’s efficiency is not a mirage.

Horne has not followed up his sophomore season as successfully as his left-handed teammate. The 2-point shooting and assists are down; the turnovers are up. Horne has been phased into a supporting role, and junior-college transfer Dwight Hardy is replacing a lot of what Horne brought last season. Horne did have 14 points in Sunday’s win over Fordham, but even then he made just 5-of-13 shots. Still, he was more active, perhaps a sign of an impending emergence from his early-season malaise.

Burrell has faded into the background as primarily a defensive presence who grabs far too few rebounds for his 6-8, 235-pound frame. He’s missed the last two games with a high-ankle sprain, but with Sean Evans replacing much of his production last season and junior-college transfer Justin Brownlee playing well at forward this season, one could argue that Burrell has become surplus to needs. Kennedy, Hardy, Evans and Brownlee give Roberts more dependable offensive options than he ever has at St. John’s, though a resurgence from Horne wouldn’t hurt. (Anthony Mason Jr. may be cleared for individual workouts as early as next week, but it would appear unlikely that he’d be able to carry more than a supplemental role in his final season, and — not to kick a man when he’s down — he was never an efficient scorer anyway.)

With all the talk about offense, it’s important to be clear that this is still a defense-first team. Starting with the win over Siena on Nov. 27, St. John’s has allowed more than a point per possession just once, and that was in the loss to Duke. The St. John’s defense focuses primarily on suppressing opponents’ shooting, and the Red Storm excels here. SJU is particulary good at stifling opponents’ 3-pointers, led by Malik Boothe’s perimeter pressure. Dele Coker, Brownlee and Burrell also make sure opponents don’t get many free looks near the rim.

The question is where St. John’s goes from here. The Red Storm has a tricky couple of games between now and the start of the Big East season, which opens Dec. 31 at Georgetown. The Holiday Festival sees St. John’s play Hofstra and then, likely, Cornell. If St. John’s can navigate those games, then it will be in a position where a .500 conference record should send the Red Storm to the NCAA Tournament. Breaking even in conference would be a first for Norm Roberts at St. John’s, but it’s possible with a team that continues to play sound defense and now boasts an explosive scorer.