St. John’s late rally and latest near-miss leaves more questions in sea of recycled answers

St. John’s still has upside and talent, but Mike Anderson has presided over inconsistent results with Red Storm this season. (Photo by Bob Dea/Daly Dose Of Hoops)

NEW YORK — Maybe this game should have been played six days prior. 

After all, Groundhog Day has been, more often than not, an apt description of the proceedings on the corner of Union and Utopia long enough for even the most rabid of St. John’s fans to possibly not remember any other way.

And for those who live vicariously through the Red Storm, this year’s bottom line — now sitting at 13-10 and 5-7 within the Big East Conference after Tuesday's 75-69 loss to Villanova — projects another dose of disappointment for a team thought to have legitimate NCAA Tournament aspirations when reconvening for the first official practice of the season four months ago. But despite the consternation in the stands, the man trusted to lead the program back to its once-proud perch as a contender is conveying optimism in a field of slowly dissipating promise.

“I just think the energy’s gotta be there from the start,” Mike Anderson said Tuesday night. “The guys have got to play with the same mindset early on. I thought Villanova was very comfortable in doing what they’re doing, and the press is not designed to steal the basketball. But I thought the energy level just triggered our offense. All of a sudden, you saw us attacking the lanes, the lanes were opening up. That’s what I’m looking for with our basketball team.”

Anderson did not go to his trademark pressure defense until late in the second half Tuesday, when St. John’s was already down 20 points in a game where it was without the services of point guard Posh Alexander due to a sprained ankle, and saw Julian Champagnie banged up for stretches of the final stanza. Still, the emergence of Aaron Wheeler as a clutch shooter — the Purdue transfer poured in a career-best 31 points — sparked a valiant 23-6 run to give the Red Storm a chance to tie the game in the final seconds before a Tareq Coburn 3-pointer fell off the mark. Anderson admitted he was content with how the possession ultimately played out, and cited his role players’ increasing contributions as a point of deflection from the criticism of not being able to play a complete game, which appears to have only taken place three times in the conference season, at Seton Hall and in both meetings with Georgetown.

“I think if you how look at how we’ve been playing, you’ve been seeing that,” he said, pointing to player development from the Johnnies’ supporting cast. “You’ve been seeing different guys come off the bench and give us some quality minutes, and sometimes it’s not even in scoring. You think about Esahia (Nyiwe), you think about O’Mar (Stanley), and Tareq. They played to win. They didn’t want to go down like that, and you saw the fire that I’m looking for, that we gotta have for 40 minutes. So again, I think it’s just a continuation of what has been taking place with this basketball team.”

“I think in this particular game, obviously, we ran out of time. We mounted a really concentrated effort without two of our better players, and I was proud of our guys that were out there on the floor. They played with a fire in their bellies, and we gotta do that for 40 minutes. That’s what I’ve been looking for. Let’s be real, Villanova is a very good basketball team, but we had such a huge deficit to kind of overcome. The way our guys were ignited on defense, they were out there giving everything they had.”

Those last quotes come off as a hybrid of a coach strongly convinced his team will turn the proverbial corner — with seven games remaining on the schedule assuming the postponed home game against Marquette is not made up, time is of the essence as we reach mid-February — and, most notably in the last statement, a reflection of Norm Roberts and his “give (insert team here) a lot of credit” postgame platitudes. Again, Anderson was adamant that the light has gone on and the best is yet to come, but progress gets increasingly harder to justify with setbacks against a team like Villanova that played far from its A-game Tuesday.

“I think we have,” he said when asked if St. John’s had played with confidence and a killer instinct. “You saw it at Seton Hall. I think we have it, but what I’m describing is now we’re adding another element with those guys that are coming off. Obviously with Posh and Jules, those are guys that have been here, but when you get guys — Stef and Tareq and those guys — involved, that makes our team even more, I think, dangerous. So the sense of urgency, you could see it, and I think you’ll see it from here on out. I really do. This team is going to be playing some of its best basketball right now.”

A fan base desperate to embrace a winner has run. It has crawled. It has scaled the proverbial city walls, only to be with a winner.

But it still hasn’t found what it’s looking for.