St. John’s basketball: Mike Anderson looking back to roots with offer

St. John's basketball head coach Mike Anderson (Mandatory Credit: Frank Victores-USA TODAY Sports)
St. John's basketball head coach Mike Anderson (Mandatory Credit: Frank Victores-USA TODAY Sports)

St. John’s basketball head coach Mike Anderson is heading back to his roots with a recent offer.

Head coach Mike Anderson and his staff at St. John’s have been busy in recent days on the recruiting trail and one offer the program handed out was to Class of 2023 point guard Layden Blocker.

Blocker, a 6-foot-2 guard, is from Little Rock, Arkansas and stars at Little Rock Christian Academy, the same state in which Anderson came to New York from.

Despite not truly going after the same type of recruits, it seems that a rivalry could be brewing between Mike Anderson and his former school, and why wouldn’t it after the program fired the head coach despite not having a losing season at the school, or in his career.

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The Red Storm started a quick slew of offers coming in for the sophomore, headlined by an offer from Eric Musselman and the Arkansas Razorbacks.

In addition to getting an offer from St. John’s on October 8 and an offer from Arkansas on October 9, Blocker also picked up an offer from Auburn on October 8, his first set of offers since being contacted by Central Arkansas in late-June.

Layden Blocker also holds offers from TCU, Southern Miss, Oral Roberts, and Tulane.

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Blocker posted his freshman season highlights to his Twitter account as with such a young player, defense always is an issue and will be something for the guard to work on going forward, especially if he wishes to play in Mike Anderson’s system in Queens.

https://twitter.com/Laygogetit/status/1242960055810641922?s=20

It is still very early in the recruitment of Layden Blocker, but you would have to plug Arkansas as the favorite to land the in-state recruit and it would be an uphill climb for Mike Anderson and his coaching staff to try and lure the prospect to the Empire State.