Marcellus Earlington’s huge impact in St. John’s basketball victory

Marcellus Earlington was one of the differences in the St. John’s basketball victory over UConn. 

The St. John’s basketball team picked up a massive victory on the road against the No. 23 Connecticut Huskies on Monday afternoon, the program’s first win on the road against UConn in 21 years.

Mike Anderson needed other players to step up in this game to make up for the struggles of Big East leading scorer Julian Champagnie in order to get the win, and they did exactly that.

Posh Alexander was as good as advertised when he first committed to the Johnnies and he deserves all the praise he is receiving as he put in a gutsy 18-point performance with an injured back.

However, the one player who should get equally as much recognition is Marcellus Earlington.   

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The 6-foot-6 junior chipped in 15 points off the bench on 5-for-8 shooting, but most notably 3-for-3 from three-point range.

It was arguably Earlington’s best performance of the season and he looked exactly like the player we saw at the end of last year.

As last season progressed, Earlington became a spark plug off the bench and providing physicality on both ends of the floor, mixed in with some great shooting as well, most notably when he hit a career-high 25 points on the road against Creighton and when he poured in 17 points in the victory over Georgetown in the first round of the Big East Tournament.

Prior to the regular season, many thought that Marcellus Earlington would be an X-factor for this team if he could develop a good and consistent shooting game to go along with his size.

The evolution of the St. John’s basketball forward has been very noticeable

The Stony Point, New York native has carried over that good shooting form from the end of last season into this year, but while Earlington doesn’t always fill up the scoring sheet, his season has particularly been underrated.

Overall, he’s shooting 46.8-percent from the field and 40.6-percent from three-point range, the latter of which is the third-best on the team.

ALSO READ: Julian Champagnie named Big East Player of Week

Marcellus Earlington’s stats speaks to the evolution of his game and his development in the last couple of years going from a player who could not see the floor under former head coach Chris Mullin to a player  who can score at all three levels and be enough of a shooting threat to force teams to respect his shot under Mike Anderson.

If St. John’s can consistently get a performance like Monday out of the junior forward, then the Johnnies can stack more wins than many may expect.