St. John’s basketball year in review: Top-5 moments of 2021
As 2021 is over, we take a look at some of the top moments from the St. John’s basketball.
The year 2021 has certainly been a turbulent year that saw the St. John’s basketball team finish up a season behind closed doors, a new season that greeted fans back into action, and finished the year with a long delay in action due to COVID-induced postponements.
St. John’s closed out a promising 16-11 (10-9 Big East) season where the Johnnies just narrowly missed the NCAA Tournament after getting off to a rough 1-5 start in conference play.
The strong end to the season brought plenty of optimism for the future despite the disappointment of missing out on March Madness as the program was looking to make its first back-to-back NCAA Tournaments since 1999 and 2000.
Even with seeing a mass exodus from its roster in the 2020-21 season, the optimism surrounding the program entering 2021-22 campaign was palpable as head coach Mike Anderson retooled with veteran players out of the transfer portal and added three high profile freshmen.
Anderson also saw the massive return of star forward Julian Champagnie after the All-Big East player entered his name for the 2021 NBA Draft before announcing his return to Queens on July 4.
The Big East’s reigning Freshman and Defensive Player of the Year, Posh Alexander, also returned to St. John’s for another season in addition to his high school teammate Dylan Addae-Wusu.
St. John’s basketball hoping for more consistency in 2022
Expectations with the 2021-22 season have lessened after the Red Storm got off to an 8-3 start in non-conference play filled with uneven play.
St. John’s most recently lost to Pittsburgh, one of the worst major conference teams in the country, and entered in to a COVID pause which it has seen four games postponed.
However, St. John’s will play its first game of 2022 on January 5 against DePaul and it allowed us to take a look back at some of the top 5 moments throughout 2021 for the St. John’s basketball team.