St. John’s basketball avoids disaster, defeats Boston College in thriller

St. John’s basketball was able to avoid disaster against Boston College and come away with a victory.

As thrilling as Wednesday’s comeback victory over St. Peter’s was, a loss after holding a 20-point second half lead would have been as crushing for the St. John’s basketball program.

Fortunately for the Johnnies (3-0) they were able to pull together and get a stop thanks to its sophomore forward Julian Champagnie.

Champagnie was making his season debut after missing the first two games because of an ankle injury.

The Brooklyn native went for a career high 29 points and secured the 97-93 victory with a block of Wyston Tabbs, who was trying to tie the game for Boston College (1-2) with a 3-pointer.

Head coach Mike Anderson brought his star player off the bench in his debut and the plan wasn’t to let Champagnie see the court for 29 minutes.

“The plan was to work him [Champagnie] in slowly, but there is no slowing this guy down,” Anderson said as Champagnie smiled.

It was a double-double for the sophomore adding ten rebounds to his 11-of-20 shooting night, 2-of-5 from 3-point range, as he looked much more fluid in scoring off the dribble and scoring on the move.

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While Julian Champagnie was stellar in his first game of the season, freshman Posh Alexander turned heads once again with 18 points, four rebounds, and five assists on 7-of-11 shooting, but one blunder where he tried to thrown down a windmill dunk but lost the ball on the way down, costing the Johnnies two points it might have desperately needed.

However, there was one highlight reel dunk and it came courtesy of Greg Williams Jr. off an assist from Marcellus Earlington that put the Red Storm up by 20, 75-55 with 13:15 to go, but from that point, it was all Eagles.

Boston College rattled off a 14-0 run after Williams’ slam to get themselves back into the game, but could not get closer than two points as the junior closed things out at the free throw line.

Perhaps the second best game from Greg Williams in his St. John’s career, aside from his 3-point barrage against Creighton last season, as he finished with 17 points, three rebounds, and six assists on 5-of-6 shooting.

St. John’s basketball not going anywhere

The Red Storm will not be going anywhere as the Johnnies will remain at Mohegan Sun Arena, following its canceled trip to Lubbock where the team was slated to play the Texas Tech Red Raiders.

Instead, St. John’s will remain in ‘Bubbleville’ to face BYU (3-0) on Wednesday at 5:00pm EST (ESPN2).

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Wednesday will mark the second game in as many days for the Cougars as the will face Southern California on Tuesday afternoon.

St. John’s will be without senior Rasheem Dunn as Anderson said he remains in concussion protocol.