New York Post, Tuesday, December 1, 2020
nypost.com
By Zach BraZillerSt. John’s hasn’t been forced to
pause its season yet due to COV-
ID-19, but its schedule has been
significantly impacted already.
Sunday’s home game against
Sacred Heart and next Tuesday’s
contest with Fordham have al-
ready been canceled, and now
the Johnnies biggest non-confer-
ence contest, at No. 17 Texas
Tech as part of the first annual
Big East/Big 12 Battle, is off after
the school opted against travel-
ing to Lubbock, Texas, due to
concerns about the high positiv-
ity rate of the virus in the area.
“St. John’s top priority is to
best ensure ways to minimizerisks associated with this global
pandemic for both our university
community and public health,”
the school said in a prepared
statement. “The university’s
COVID-19 management team in
consultation with local health
experts came to this decision. In
the end and with profound disap-
pointment, the gravity of the
concerns outweighed the excite-
ment and opportunity to play
this game.”
Lubbock County’s seven-day
average of new daily cases per
100,000 people is 165.1, which is
more than five times higher than
the rate for Queens County,
where St. John’s is located, ac-
cording to Johns Hopkins data.Despite these numbers, Texas
Tech is having fans at home
games, filling up the United Su-
permarkets Arena at 25 percent
capacity.
In place of Texas Tech, St.
John’s will face BYU on Wednes-
day in the Mohegan Sun bubble,
where on Monday it beat Boston
College 97-93, the school an-
nounced. The Johnnies are in
talks with multiple teams to re-
place Sacred Heart on Sunday
and Fordham the following Tues-
day at Carnesecca Arena in
Queens, sources said.
Athletic director Mike Cragg
said losing the game is disap-
pointing — Texas Tech is the
lone ranked team on the John-nies’ ever-changing, non-confer-
ence schedule — but he was
completely supportive of the de-
cision that was made. He did say
he expects St. John’s to travel to
Butler on Dec. 14, which would
be its first game outside the
Northeast.
As for whether the Johnnies
will go to Creighton or Mar-
quette, which are in areas that
have high positive COVID-19
rates, Cragg declined to address
the matter because those games
have yet to be scheduled. The Big
East has released its conference
schedule only for December at
this point.
“The university is obviously
looking at everything, as theyshould,” Cragg said. “As the week
came, they looked at the facts of
what is going on right now.
“I’m trusting of the decision-
makers and the decision-making.”
Eight Big East teams have had
to enter a 14-day pause, following
an NCAA guideline, but St.
John’s has so far steered clear of
any positive tests. Prior to leav-
ing for the Mohegan Sun bubble
on Saturday, the coaching staff
made it clear to the entire roster
that if anyone didn’t feel com-
fortable traveling, they should
not get on the bus and the deci-
sion would be completely ac-
cepted without repercussions.
Nobody opted to stay back in
Queens.Even without positives, COVID giving SJU sked trouble
By Zach BraZillerAt its best, Mike An-
derson’s relentless up-
tempo style of play is known as
“40 minutes of hell.” This was more
like a roller coaster.
Fortunately for St. John’s, it survived.
But not by much. A 20-point second-
half lead got trimmed to one in the fi-
nal minute. Large stretches of strong
play nearly went to waste.
Ultimately, though, the Johnnies sur-
vived dogged Boston College in the
Mohegan Sun bubble in Uncasville,
Conn., improving to 3-0 on the
strength of a 97-93 victory.
Up 13 with 2:39 left, St. John’s nearly
came undone, committing four turn-
overs, watching three key players foul
out, and allowing Boston College to
reel off 12 of the game’s next 13 points
in the span of 2:09. But Greg Williams
Jr. hit three clutch free throws in the fi-
nal 43 seconds and Julian Champagnie,
in his season debut after missing the
first two games with an ankle injury,
put an exclamation point on a huge
performance with a potential game-
saving block of a Wynston Tabbs
3-pointer in the final seconds.
“I’m glad we had this guy right next
to me in this particular game,” Ander-son said in his postgame Zoom, a nod
to Champagnie sitting to his right.
John McGriff iced it with a free
throw on the other end, and the Red
Storm beat its first high-major oppo-
nent of the season. A one-point favor-
ite, Boston College had entered com-
ing off a quality win over Rhode Island
and a strong showing against Big East-
favorite Villanova.
There was so much to like, until the
final minutes. St. John’s significantly
raised its level of play against an im-
proved opponent.
Champagnie, a sophomore from
Brooklyn, showed no rust coming off the
bench, scoring a career-high 29 points
and adding 10 rebounds. He showed a
soft touch from the perimeter, hitting a
pair of 3-pointers, and was aggressive at-
tacking the rim. When Boston College
went on a 14-0 run midway through the
second half, it was Champagnie who an-
swered with four straight points.
“We’re trying to bring this guy
[along] slowly, but slow isn’t a word for
him,” Anderson said. “Before Julian
went down with an injury, you could
see he really improved over the sum-mer in a lot of different aspects of how
to play. [His performance] doesn’t sur-
prise me. It was needed.”
Freshman point guard Posh Alexander
was again a two-way factor, with 18 points,
five assists and four rebounds and Willi-
ams added 17 points and six assists, while
senior guard Rasheem Dunn (concus-
sion) missed his second straight game.
St. John’s was in control most of the
way after a shaky start, building a 12-
point lead at halftime and went up 20
early in the second half. Everything was
going right — almost too right. The
lead nearly evaporated. St. John’s
couldn’t avoid mistakes, started to play
conservatively and stopped attacking.
In the end, though, the Red Storm
found a way.
“Pleased with a lot of areas, but
there’s a lot of cleaning up we got to
do,” Anderson said. “We got better to-
night, though.”
Already, St. John’s have found a way
to pull out a couple of close games. It
rallied from four points down in the fi-
nal 17.6 seconds to knock off Saint Pe-
ter’s and it managed to hold onto a late
lead on Monday.
“For us to be in a couple games like this
already,” Anderson said, “that says a little
bit more about our basketball team.”
[email protected]St. John’S 97
BoSton College 93OSH POSH B’GOSH: Freshman Posh
Alexander goes up for two of his 18 points
in St. John’s 97-93 win over Boston College
on Monday. AP