‘Birthday gift’
Red Storm give Anderson impressive win over Colgate
It has been methodical. It has been incremental. It has been, to put it bluntly, slow.
But St. John’s is showing progress. It has performed better in each game since the blowout loss to Kansas nine days ago. It didn’t have to sweat out the final minutes against Fordham. It knocked off MAAC contender Monmouth — a team that had already defeated Cincinnati, Saint Joseph’s and Princeton — despite a shaky finish. And it played more like the team it expects to be on Sunday afternoon at Carnesecca Arena.
ST. JOHN’S COLGATE
In one of the Johnnies’ best performances of the season — the argument can be made that this was their most complete effort — they shook off a slow start to manhandle Patriot League co-favorite Colgate, 82-64, on coach Mike Anderson’s 62nd birthday.
“We lost to Kansas by 20, so that was enough for us to say, ‘OK, we got to pick it up,’ ” said Julian Champagnie, who had an efficient 19 points on 12 shots and reached 1,000 points for his career in the win. “That Kansas game gave us that incentive of, ‘We’re going to fix this, and we’re going to play the basketball that we know how to play.’
“I think today was a good showing of what we can do,” he added.
The poor stretches were kept to a minimum. St. John’s (8-2) defended the 3-point line well in the second half and turned 16 turnovers into 24 points. It committed just one turnover over the opening 28 minutes en route to a season-low six, received offensive production from a variety of sources and the bench left its imprint all over the game.
And that may have been the most significant positive. St. John’s reserves poured in 34 points and keyed a game-turning 14-3 run in the first half.
Freshman Rafael Pinzon
had a career-high 14 points and three assists. Stef Smith and O’Mar Stanley contributed a combined 13 points. After getting
benched in the win over Monmouth, Aaron Wheeler responded with seven points, three rebounds, two assists and
difference-making defense in compiling a plus-17 rating. He was focused on bringing energy and making an impact at both ends of the floor, instead of worrying about his offense.
“I always tell guys, ‘stay ready,’ and we saw Aaron stay ready,” Anderson said of the Purdue transfer. “He’s got a lot of potential. He brought it to the game today. That’s what we expect out of him. The key is consistency. The beauty is it wasn’t predicated on offense.”
Colgate (4-7), which won at Syracuse this season and has reached the last two NCAA Tournaments, shot 13 of 35 from 3-point range but just 6 of 17 in the second half. The Raiders, it should be noted, were without leading scorer Nelly Cummings (upperbody injury) and have struggled of late.
This was by no means a perfect performance. Anderson wasn’t ready to say this team has turned a corner. But there was a lot to like about this win. Most importantly, it continued the Red Storm’s recent trend of improved performances entering Saturday’s non-conference finale against Pittsburgh at the Garden.
Later, Anderson smiled in assessing the win.
“Appreciate the birthday gift,” he said.