St. John’s driven by contagious commitment to winning, picked 4th in Big East

St. John’s head coach Mike Anderson (left), Julian Champagnie (center) and Stef Smith (right) discuss Red Storm’s upside and prospects at Big East media day Tuesday. (Photo by Bob Dea/Daly Dose Of Hoops)

NEW YORK — The last time St. John’s entered a season with this much upside and an equally bullish perception from insiders to match, the Red Storm backed up the pundits’ faith with a trip to the NCAA Tournament behind an all-conference superstar.

That may be the only common denominator between the Johnnies of 2018-19 and the group that opens play on November 9, when it will welcome Mississippi Valley State into what will undoubtedly be a sold-out Carnesecca Arena.

Picked fourth in the Big East Conference preseason poll — the same spot it occupied three years ago — released Tuesday morning during the league’s annual media day festivities, St. John’s is night and day from where it stood as a program in what turned out to be Chris Mullin's final season at the helm of his alma mater. The star-crossed future and development of a professional prospect in the making — Shamorie Ponds then, Julian Champagnie now — has been replaced with a quiet confidence, a swagger that has bred insatiable optimism on the corner of Union and Utopia.

“The guys that are in place in our program now are guys that we brought in,” head coach Mike Anderson proclaimed inside Madison Square Garden, where St. John’s will play four of its Big East home games during the regular season. “I think that’s more important, and I talked about it from day one. I want guys that are going to be able to do the right thing on and off the floor, guys who fit, character guys. And these guys are doing that.”

“I think when a team takes on the personality of the coach, you’re moving in the right direction. Last year, when I heard, ‘You know what? That looked like a New York team,’ I took a lot of pride in that. We’ve got three guys coming back from that team, but we’ve added some more pieces to this team, so I’m anxious to see how it ends up.”

Champagnie and Posh Alexander, first and second team preseason all-Big East honorees, respectively, and sophomore guard Dylan Addae-Wusu, are the incumbent trio in Queens, but Anderson and his staff recruited the transfer portal as actively as any Big East program in having to replace eight players from a team that likely would have made the postseason in a normal year. Guards Montez Mathis (Rutgers) and Stef Smith (Vermont) arrive to shore up the defense and shooting in the backcourt, with Aaron Wheeler (Purdue) and Joel Soriano (Fordham) adding a more promising and physically imposing brand of basketball on a front line that, at times, was forced to play undersized in relation to its opposition.

“We’ve got a lot of question marks, and I’m getting towards some of those answers,” a candid Anderson revealed. “We’ll get more into those answers as we get into practice and get into games. Our team will not be a one, two-man team, it won’t be just Julian and Posh. It’s gotta be Stef, it’s gotta be Aaron Wheeler, it’s gotta be Joel. We’ve got to be a team that’s got to play with a lot of depth to play the way we want to play.”

St. John’s, with Champagnie leading the charge after the junior tested the NBA Draft waters in the offseason only to return to school, will no doubt look to double down on Anderson’s 40 Minutes of Hell mentality, which predicates itself on creating defensive chaos and thriving in transition with rugged, bulldog-type players who have bought into a philosophy Anderson instilled from the jump following his April 2019 arrival, despite the perceived notion that a lack of New York ties would pronounce him dead on arrival.

“If you asked me now if I knew all this two years ago, no, I did not know all that,” he admitted. “But to be where we are, it makes a great statement about the guys who are here. You look at Julian, one of the first guys that I brought on board with me, and look where he is right now. It tells me there’s some trust going on, there’s a culture shift. And the shift is all about winning.”

“As you could see, we’re excited about this basketball team becoming the best version of itself. I think that’s the most important thing. Everybody wants to talk about where you’re going to be at the end of the season. We know where we want to be. I say it every year: If you’re not sitting here thinking about winning a national championship, then you’re in the wrong business.”