St. John’s stays committed, finds identity in win over Butler

 

Julian Champagnie led all scorers with 18 points as St. John’s defeated Butler, but Red Storm win was forged on defensive end. (Photo by the New York Post)

NEW YORK — I’ve lived long enough to have learned

The closer you get to the fire, the more you get burned

But that won’t happen to us

‘Cause it’s always been a matter of trust

— Billy Joel, “A Matter of Trust”

Trust.

You hear that word so many times, in so many circles, throughout life. And in a team sport, what seems like an innocuous five-letter word takes on multiple meanings.

Trust in yourself. Trust in your teammates. Trust in the process. Trust in what you know your finished product will be when everything flows at just the right consistency.

So it was Tuesday for St. John’s, when the Red Storm — fresh off a shootout in Omaha last Saturday where it allowed 97 points to an explosive Creighton outfit — returned to familiar confines and welcomed a retooling Butler team into Carnesecca Arena. And in perhaps the most complete and authoritative performance for a squad who has been more inconsistent than desired at various points of the year, the Johnnies validated their trust, both internally and externally, in a 69-57 victory that reiterated the key to upward mobility and further progression on the corner of Union and Utopia.

“I think our DNA’s in our defense,” Mike Anderson, as defense-oriented a coach as the day is long, reflected after St. John’s (7-6, 2-5 Big East) won its first game since December 20 behind a focused effort without the ball in its hands. “If our defense is consistent each and every night, we’re going to be in ballgames. That’s what’s been missing. We’ve been scoring, but we haven’t been stopping anybody.”

“We’re tired of losing,” a brutally honest Julian Champagnie (18 points) intimated. “That’s what it comes down to. We’re just tired of losing. The difference between Saturday’s game and today’s game is that we were getting fed up with losing, and we wanted to buckle down on the defensive end.”

The stranglehold manifested itself most notably on the perimeter, where after allowing Jair Bolden to get into a rhythm by draining four 3-point field goals in the first half, the Red Storm surrendered a scant half-dozen triples on the night, and rendered Butler into misses on all but one of its 11 attempts from deep after halftime, an intermission in which the Johnnies went into with all the momentum squarely on their side after Vince Cole beat the buzzer with a 35-footer that would have been good from Richmond Hill — from where the author’s postgame chicken parmigiana hero arrived, compliments of Vincent & Andrea’s on Jamaica Avenue — to give the hosts a 41-31 cushion and a flashback to last season’s late surge.

“It did feel a lot like last year,” Champagnie admitted, “but in the same sense, this is not last year’s team.”

In that vein, Josh Roberts — whose start to 2020-21 had looked nothing like his sophomore season a year ago — unleashed himself and looked more committed to the cause Tuesday. Getting the start in place of an unavailable Isaih Moore — his absence was explained by Anderson as a failure to meet team standards, and will be addressed during the week — Roberts scored just eight points and added only three rebounds, but provided a value that belied his numbers.

“It’s funny you say that,” Champagnie began as he answered Zach Braziller’s question of how much Roberts’ effort meant to the bottom line. “We were just in the locker room talking about how if he didn’t play like that, we wouldn’t have won. My player of the game is Josh, 100 percent.”

His coach took it one step further.

“I think it’s his time,” Anderson declared. “Josh bas been patient, he’s stayed true and continued to work. It’s his time, and I’m sure he’ll take it.”

Finally, after Butler got to the precipice of a comeback by scoring 11 of 13 points to trim a 13-point deficit down to just four markers with 9:15 to play, Anderson called a timeout to rally the troops. What followed was a suffocation over the next five minutes, with the Red Storm holding the visiting Bulldogs to just one free throw while it increased its own offensive output by 10 in the same time span.

“This is the same team we were playing with last week, the week before,” Champagnie expounded. “It’s just us stepping into our identity and everybody locking in, understanding their roles, understanding this is not an offensive team. This is a defensive team.”

“Our defense made Butler uncomfortable,” Anderson observed. “Again, I thought it was important to come out established defensively. That’s what teams strive for, so it was good to see our guys take the initiative. And we found a way to win.”

You can’t go the distance with too much resistance. There may be doubts, but as long as the trust is there, the Johnnies will not be shutting it out.

This time, they’ve got nothing to lose.