St. John’s plays its most complete game in rout over Georgetown

By Jason Dimaio (@JasonDimaio1)

NEW YORK — Consistency. 

That is what St. John’s is trying to find and that is what it needs to find to have a chance at an NCAA Tournament bid. 

Consistency is what it got Sunday at Madison Square Garden in a 88-69 rout of Georgetown to bring the Johnnies to 10-5 overall and 2-2 in the Big East.

“I didn’t think it could go any better,” head coach Mike Anderson remarked. “Our guys came out and established what we wanted to do.”

Anderson had high praise for his team after what could be considered a must-win game. Posh Alexander finally looked like he returned to his freshman form, lighting up the stat sheet for 17 points, six rebounds, seven assists and six steals. It is games like that that St. John’s needs out of him to win Big East games, especially if Julian Champagnie has an off night. That was not the case in this game, though, as everything clicked for the Red Storm.

Champagnie continued his stellar season, contributing 25 points and six rebounds. Dylan Addae-Wusu went for 17 points and Aaron Wheeler went for 10, his third straight game scoring in double figures. When Anderson was asked about what has gone right for the Purdue transfer he had this to say:

“I didn’t even think about his scoring,” Anderson said of Wheeler. “It’s amazing you say that. I’m thinking about his energy and defense, being a hard matchup. Seeing him now, I think his confidence is really kind of soaring right now.”

As for the game itself, St. John’s was cruising for the majority of the game, getting any shot it wanted on the Hoyas and playing its most complete game of the season, forcing 21 turnovers on the Hoyas and pushing the pace for the entire game. With 10 minutes left, Anderson went to the bench and pulled out Champagnie and Alexander, but in doing so, Georgetown immediately broke off an 11-2 run and a 20-point lead was instantly cut to 11. After a timeout, Anderson put his two stars back in the game and St. John’s did not look back, quickly getting the lead back up to 16. With 2:55 left in the game, Wheeler threw up an alley-oop to Champagnie to shut the door on Georgetown and close out the game with a standing ovation from the Garden crowd. Alexander left the game with three minutes remaining with what seemed to be a leg injury, but he confirmed he is fine and it is nothing serious.

Next up for St. John’s is a road trip to Creighton Wednesday, a chance for the Red Storm to get its first Quad 1 win on the year and get above .500 in conference play, and a chance to turn this season around after what was a very lackluster start.

“I feel like every game we play, we’ve been getting better,” Alexander revealed. “I see us becoming a better all-around team but we need to keep building in practice and then bring that to the game.”