Johnnies fall to No. 18 Bluejays
Issues off the court are starting to overshadow the issues on it for St. John’s.
The big offseason transfer addition, Andre Curbelo, continued to sit out on Saturday, due to an unspecified coach’s decision. His Long Island Lutheran High School teammate, talented sophomore Rafael Pinzon, was suspended indefinitely for not meeting team standards before St. John’s lost to No. 18 Creighton, 77-67, at sold-out Carnesecca Arena.
Coach Mike Anderson’s Red Storm have as many top-90 wins (two) as rotation players (two) he won’t play. Before the game, Curbelo made an unexpected visit to the media room. When asked why he wasn’t playing, the former Illinois guard said he didn’t know. Curbelo has not played in the last three games, didn’t travel to Chicago for the win Wednesday over DePaul in Chicago and was suspended earlier in the season for one game for disciplinary reasons. Pinzon was not on with the team on Saturday.
Anderson declined to offer an explanation for either player’s absence, referring to brief statements from the school.
“We’re talking about the game right now,” Anderson tersely said.
Added center Joel Soriano, who scored a teamhigh 15 points: “What happens with our team stays with our team.”
It’s clearly not good optics for the 63-year-old Anderson, who in October said this was his most talented team in his four years at St. John’s. He will need a Big East Tournament miracle to reach the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2018, when he was coaching Arkansas. St. John’s is 1-8 in Quad 1 games, and is headed to a fourth straight year without a postseason berth.
Anderson’s job status is clearly up in the air. The one thing that could save him is a significant buyout, believed to be close to $10 million, after athletic director Mike Cragg gave him a contract extension two years ago through the 2026-27 season.
St. John’s (16-12, 6-11 Big East) often plays an undisciplined, unstructured and out-of-control brand of basketball. Pressure defense, which was supposed to be its identity under Anderson, has mostly disappeared. The Red Storm, who are eighth in the Big East, have eight losses by double figures.
They set a Carnesecca Arena/Alumni Hall record for allowing the most points in regulation in a 96-83 loss to Marquette on Jan. 3, then yielded 104 points at Creighton on Jan. 25 though the Bluejays played their reserves for the last several minutes of that game. That’s the most points the program has allowed since the 2017 Big East Tournament.
The rematch was far more competitive. St. John’s played extremely hard and was right there most of the way. But familiar issues, from questionable shot-selection to poor 3-point defense to careless turnovers in big moments, was its undoing. The Red Storm committed 15 turnovers, 10 in the second half while Creighton (18-9, 12-4) hit 13 3-pointers. St, John’s also gave Arthur Kaluma two wide-open looks, which he drained, pushing the lead to seven with 3:45 to go.