Red Storm's Anderson era starts with bang
It was a seamless blowout, the result never in doubt.
Mike Anderson’s star players acted the part. His role players contributed. There was full-court pressure sprinkled in and ball movement as promised. Effort and intensity were constant. Discipline and shot selection weren’t a rumor, a change from St. John’s teams of the past decade.
Everything that Anderson had said he wanted to bring to Queens, all the winning tenets those familiar with him have said his teams will represent, were on display.
ST. JOHN’S MERCER 109 79
His debut, his first regular-season game as a head coach above the Mason-Dixon Line, was as encouraging as it was impressive, a 109-79 Johnnies romp over Mercer of the Southern Conference. The 109 points were the most ever for a St. John’s coach in his first game. It was also the Red Storm’s second-most points in an opener since scoring 126 against Southern to open the 1986-87 season.
“I hope our fans enjoyed it,” Anderson said. “It’s an entertaining style of basketball, but it’s winning basketball.”
There weren’t the large pockets of slippage as in the past against obviously inferior opponents. There was focus and discipline instead. St. John’s pressured the ball without fouling, creating 24 turnovers. It ran to the tune of 40 fastbreak points, while only committing nine turnovers. The Red Storm communicated. When someone got beat, a teammate was there. Anderson rarely sat down, on his feet, communicating and instructing despite a wide working margin.
“One thing I’m married to is winning,” he said, and his career spanning three programs and 17 years without a losing season would support that.
St. John’s scored nine of the game’s first 11 points and cruised from there. Mustapha Heron and LJ Figueroa, the leading returning scorers, combined for 43 points, 25 from Heron on 7 of 13 shooting. Monmouth graduate transfer Nick Rutherford was as advertised, able to run Anderson’s offense while providing quality defense, finishing with 14 points, eight assists and three steals. Sophomores Marcellus Earlington, Josh Roberts and Greg Williams, all rarely used a year ago, were productive, Earlington scoring a career-high 17 points, the long-armed 6-foot-9 Roberts a presence in the paint with nine points, seven rebounds and four blocks, and Williams adding six points and five rebounds off the bench.
“They’ve got to be that way for us every night,” Heron said.
For one game, St. John’s didn’t miss talented ineligible players Ian Steere and Rasheem Dunn, both of whom are hoping to get an NCAA decision denying their legislative relief waivers reversed. All nine scholarship players were used and almost everyone produced, a sign of the kind of depth Anderson hopes to create.
It wasn’t a perfect evening. St. John’s new coach didn’t like the start to the second half, feeling his team was coasting with a big lead as the deficit was cut to 16. He has a saying: “There are those who play to play; we play to win.”
“So, our guys got to understand playing to win, you don’t look at the score, you keep playing basketball,” he said.
Otherwise, St. John’s played with focus and intensity, building a 15-6 advantage at the first media timeout. Soon, the lead would balloon into double figures, Heron throwing down a big dunk to give St. John’s a 32-15 cushion and it was 53-23 after Williams ripped a rebound away from Ethan Stair and hit a streaking Earlington with a court-length baseball pass for a nifty left-handed scoop layup.
St. John’s would lead 59-38 at halftime, the most points it has scored in the first half of a game since scoring 59 against Chaminade in the 2015 Maui Invitational.
Like that opponent, Mercer was a motionless punching bag. Of course, a poor opponent hasn’t stopped St. John’s from slipping up for years.
That didn’t happen at the start of the Mike Anderson era. It began as well as could have been expected.