St. John’s basketball releases 2021 non-conference schedule

The St. John’s basketball 2021 non-conference schedule has been released. 

The college basketball season is slowly inching closer as the St. John’s basketball program has released its 2021 non-conference schedule.

As news of marquee games slowly trickled out throughout the summer, the Red Storm will now await the rest of its schedule which will be released by the Big East Conference in the late summer/early fall.

St. John’s will only travel outside of the state of New York once in its non-conference slate in the Gavitt Games as the Johnnies will face the Indiana Hoosiers at Assembly Hall.

The Red Storm will play two other major conference teams, the Kansas Jayhawks and Pittsburgh Panthers.

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Kansas and St. John’s will play the first ever basketball game at the new UBS Arena, the home of the New York Islanders, on Friday, December 3 in the Big East vs. Big 12 Challenge.

St. John’s matchup with Pittsburgh is the only non-conference game the Johnnies will play at Madison Square Garden this season but the matchup lost some of its hype as twin brothers Julian and Justin Champagnie will not be taking the floor.

Justin Champagnie, a star at Pittsburgh, opted to forgo his remaining two years of eligibility and remain in the NBA Draft will Julian Champagnie withdrew his name from the draft to return to Queens for his junior season.

St. John’s basketball leaving little room for error in non-conference schedule

Kansas will clearly be St. John’s toughest opponent in its non-conference slate of games as the Jayhawks are primed to be a Top-10 team this season while Indiana has questions to answer under new head coach Mike Woodson and expectations are very low for Pittsburgh.

St. John’s will renew a local rivalry with Fordham that was scheduled to take place last season before the game had to be canceled due to COVID-19 issues with the Rams.

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The Johnnies will also see the likes of Mississippi Valley State, St. Peter’s, Fairleigh Dickinson, St. Francis Brooklyn, NJIT, Monmouth, and Colegte enter Carnesecca Arena this winter.

Everything gets started on November 9 in Queens as expectations surrounding the St. John’s Red Storm are very high.