Any hope of a late-season NCAA Tournament run evaporated in Wednesday’s loss to Creighton, and St. John’s performed like a team who knew it Sunday in Chicago.
Defense was optional. The offense was inconsistent at best. The substitution patterns were odd. And the result was predictable.
St. John’s lost to longtime Big East punching bag DePaul, 99-94, to fall to just two games over .500 and clinch a sub-.500 Big East record. Forget the NCAA Tournament. The NIT is starting to seem less likely for a team that began the year with such high aspirations and is now 3-12 in Quad 1 and 2 games.
Mike Anderson’s record of never having a losing season in 20 years as a Division I head coach is now in jeopardy, as St. John’s (15-13, 7-10 Big East) closes the regular season against Xavier and Marquette before playing in the out-bracket round of the Big East Tournament. More concerning is the underperformance of this team that was supposed to make the NCAA Tournament, but isn’t anywhere close.
“It just seemed like we were a step slow with some of our defensive assignments,” Anderson said over Zoom, as St. John’s fell to 3-6 in games decided by five points or less and now can’t finish higher than seventh in the Big East. “I thought we kind of broke down defensively.”
After looking like they had turned the corner, winning four of six games, the Johnnies have slid backwards. They couldn’t get by Creighton in Queens on Wednesday despite its point guard, Ryan Nembhard, breaking his wrist midway through the second half, and the Red Storm performed even worse on Sunday.
DePaul (14-14, 5-13) shot a blistering 55 percent from the field. At times, it felt like a layup line for the Blue Demons. The pressure defense had little impact, leading to run-outs and harming the Johnnies more than helping them. DePaul had 21 points in transition and the Red Storm only had 12 points off 15 Blue Demons turnovers. St. John’s repeatedly lost track of top scorer Javon Freeman-Liberty, who buried them for 39 points and hit five 3-pointers.
“I just thought our man-to-man was not good enough,” Anderson said. “They were getting deep in the paint. You let them get deep in the paint, they’re going to make something happen.
“Our defense has got to be better.”
Julian Champagnie led St. John’s with 26 points, but he was inefficient, shooting 10 of 27 from the field and missing 10 of his first 12 shots. Posh Alexander, who surprisingly didn’t start either half, added 18 points and four assists. Aaron Wheeler had 20. He started red-hot, hitting his first three shots, but then was taken out and sat for the next 7:37 as Anderson went 10-deep before the second media timeout.
Asked about Alexander, Anderson called it a “coach’s decision.” That is the third time this year the star point guard hasn’t started for that stated reason. Stef Smith got the nod in Alexander’s place. This was another game when Anderson went to lineups he hadn’t used before. Down the stretch, Smith and Tareq Coburn were inserted. It worked somewhat.
St. John’s had chances late despite trailing by 10 with 5:37 left, but couldn’t get key stops and missed four important free throws — two apiece by Wheeler and Coburn — a season-long issue. Overall, it was 13 of 22 at the line and made only 19 of 39 layups, two shortcomings that have contributed to the team’s struggles in close games.
“We had opportunities,” Anderson said. “We missed a lot of layups, missed a lot of free throws. Had an opportunity to swing the game a different way.”
It didn’t happen. It hasn’t happened far too frequently this year.
Starting center Joel Soriano missed his second straight game due to a left knee contusion.