At its best, Mike Anderson’s relentless uptempo 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 final minute. Large stretches of strong play nearly went to waste.
Ultimately, though, the Johnnies survived 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 turnovers, 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 final 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,” Anderson 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 opponent of the season. A one-point favorite, Boston College had entered coming 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 improved 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 attacking the rim. When Boston College went on a 14-0 run midway through the second half, it was Champagnie who answered 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 summer in a lot of different aspects of how to play. [His performance] doesn’t surprise me. It was needed.”
Freshman point guard Posh Alexander was again a two-way factor, with 18 points, five assists and four rebounds and Williams added 17 points and six assists, while senior guard Rasheem Dunn (concussion) missed his second straight game.
Three different Johnnies had at least five assists, nine different players scored and they owned the paint, 52-38, while setting the tempo and turning 19 turnovers into 25 points.
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. It didn’t stay that way. 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. Champagnie made the game-sealing play.
“Pleased with a lot of areas, but there’s a lot of cleaning up we got to do,” Anderson said. “We got better tonight, though.”
Already, St. John’s had found a way to pull out a couple of close games. It rallied from four points down in the final 17.6 seconds to knock off St. Peter’s and it managed to hold onto a late lead on Monday. Despite a very different-looking roster that includes a new point guard, the Johnnies have managed to play well early on in the clutch.
“For us to be in a couple games like this already,” Anderson said, “that says a little bit more about our basketball team.”