The talent appears to be in place. So does the depth. St. John’s may have two of the Big East’s top seven players on its roster in reigning conference leading scorer Julian Champagnie and last year’s freshman of the year Posh Alexander.
It is a projected NCAA Tournament team that most experts believe could be top-25 caliber. But before Red Storm fans begin making big March plans, there is meshing and cohesion that must happen first, starting with the first official practice of the season on Friday.
“It’s just a matter of us staying healthy and becoming a team. I can’t say that enough,” coach Mike Anderson told The Post. “We just got to become a team. That’s the most important thing.”
Anderson brought up that key element unprompted several times in a recent interview. This is a new team. Only three contributors — Champagnie, Alexander and Dylan Addae-Wusu — returned. The roster was almost completely turned over, Anderson and his staff bringing in five transfers and three freshmen after losing eight players to the transfer portal. A majority of the roster only met for the first time in June, though Champagnie has raved about the no-nonsense approach the many newcomers have brought.
The overall talent may have been upgraded, considering the players who left all transferred down, and Anderson thinks this group better fits his uptempo style. There is more size — six players 6-foot-8 or taller — more shooting after the additions of transfers Tareq Coburn (Hofstra) and Stef Smith (Vermont) and improved depth. But there are still so many unknowns.
“It’s one thing to do the conditioning and individual workouts. Now, I want to see them in really high-pressure situations, which you can drum up in practice, create that atmosphere in practice,” Anderson said. “I’m looking for competitiveness, seeing the guys that really emerge. I’m anxious to see practice.”
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One area Anderson wants to see improvement in is on the defensive end. St. John’s was ranked 112th last year in defensive efficiency after finishing 53rd in Anderson’s first year. It was 10th in the Big East in field-goal percentage defense and eighth in 3-point percentage defense. Two Big Ten transfers and versatile defenders, Aaron Wheeler of Purdue and Montez Mathis of Rutgers, should help in that area. And the presence on the glass of 6-11 big man Joel Soriano, formerly of Fordham, could alleviate the defensive rebounding issues.
“Defensively, I think we [have] got to be better than we were last year,” he said. “Offensively, we made shots, we scored, but the key now is can we have that balance. I always want to hang our hats on our defense. Let’s see if we can step it up from a defensive standpoint.”
The last two St. John’s teams to receive similar hype — the 2013-14 and 2018-19 groups — failed to live up to expectations for a variety of reasons, one failing to reach the tournament and the other getting bounced from the First Four. There was underperformance and chemistry issues with those teams. The Johnnies will enter the season in five weeks with a target on their backs similar to those two earlier teams. They hope to be different.
“There’s potential, but every team’s got potential at this point in time,” Anderson said. “Let’s see if we can go in and get better, get on the same page, learn one another, learn all the schemes defensively, offensively. A lot of things have to fall into place. I think the pieces are there.
“Now, it’s our job as a staff to put all of them together and get our guys to play at a high level where they trust one another. That’s the biggest thing in basketball, you got to be able to trust one another.”
That process begins in earnest on Friday.