St. John’s had lost three in a row to close the month of February. The Red Storm were trending towards another disappointing end to a season. 
 
Coach Mike Anderson flipped the script. 
 
Halfway through conference play, Mustapha Heron had been lost for the season with an ankle injury, meaning Anderson had just one of the team’s top five scorers from the previous year’s NCAA Tournament team to work with, it could have been easy to lie down and turn the page to 2020-21. Instead, the Johnnies started a surge, upsetting No. 10 Creighton at Carnesecca Arena 91-71. After a loss at Butler, the Red Storm closed the regular season with a thrilling 88-86 win over Marquette, and carried momentum into a BIG EAST Tournament first-round victory over Georgetown. That meant a quarterfinal date with the top-seeded Bluejays. While the game and the rest of the season ended abruptly, St. John’s led that matchup with ranked Creighton, which had moved up to No. 7 in the AP poll, by three at halftime. 
 
Rather than ending with a whimper, St. John’s was closing the season putting some of its best basketball together with players taking on new roles, a sign of the player development capabilities of Anderson and his staff. 
 
“I thought we made significant progress this past year,” said Anderson. “We established an identity. We created a culture. And now obviously, we’re going out and getting some players. People are excited about what is taking place. Our season ended abruptly due to the pandemic, but we want to pick up that momentum. We have five new guys coming in to join our returnees, who started to really understand their roles.” 
 
One of the Johnnies making major strides during the late-season push was All-BIG EAST Freshman Team selection Julian Champagnie. The 6-7 forward averaged 13.6 points and 7.6 rebounds over the last 10 games of the campaign. Now, Anderson’s looking for a full season of that level of production from Champagnie.
 
“I just want to see him take that next step,” said Anderson. “From a skill standpoint, we’ve seen that Julian’s a versatile player. There were times where he was playing against bigger guys, but that was to his advantage sometimes. Physically, we want him to continue to get his body ready and realize that teams in the conference know who he is.” 
 
While St. John’s is losing its leading scorer L.J. Figueroa, Anderson is bringing in JUCO All-American transfer Vince Cole who, at 6-6, the staff believes can fill that scoring hole. 
 
“He fits what we’re talking about when you talk about a big guard that can score, and he’s scored all his life,” said Anderson of Cole, who transfers from USC-Salkehatchie and will have two years of eligibility left.
 
This past year, Cole averaged 18.7 points and 6.2 rebounds while shooting 47 percent from the field and 44 percent from beyond the arc. 
 
Anderson will welcome a pair of three-star freshmen guards as well, point guard Posh Alexander and shooting guard Dylan Wusu, both from of Our Saviour Lutheran School in New York. 
 
In terms of other returnees, rising senior Rasheem Dunn will anchor the backcourt. Junior Greg Williams Jr. will look to translate some of the flashes within his sophomore season into more consistency. Posts Marcellus Earlington and Josh Roberts will return as well. 
 
While the Johnnies started the season 11-2, their best non-conference record since the program joined the BIG EAST in 1979, the Red Storm finished just 5-13 in league play. Anderson pointed to the battle on the interior as to why St. John’s had struggles. 
 
“There were times when I came to the floor for a game and looked at other (BIG EAST) teams and said to myself, ‘Man, we look like little boys,’” said Anderson. “We’ve got to step it up and get our bodies physically ready.”
 
To provide a boost inside, Anderson made a late pickup, George Washington graduate transfer Arnaldo Toro. The 6-foot-8 forward averaged 6.5 points and 7.0 rebounds per game, and Anderson expects him to be a factor on the glass in the 2020-21 campaign.
 
In terms of what the expectation is from Anderson’s standpoint for the coming year, there is only one answer for that.
 
“My goal every year is to win a championship, and to have a chance, you have to make the NCAA Tournament,” he said. Anderson, who has collected 383 wins in 18 years as a head coach, has taken nine teams to the “Big Dance.”
 
Turning from one side to another in a storied rivalry, Georgetown will be in retooling mode in the 2020-21 campaign. 
 
“We’re going to be different because we have lost a lot,” said Patrick Ewing, who will enter his fourth season as the Hoyas’ head coach. “We hope that Jahvon Blair and Jamorko Pickett can lead us in their senior season.”
 
Blair, a 6-4 guard from Ontario, Canada, broke out to close his junior season. Over the last 11 games of the Hoyas’ campaign, he averaged 16.7 points per game with four 20-plus point performances. 
 
In terms of the frontcourt, the Hoyas had a large hole to fill with Jessie Govan graduating in 2019. With an open door, Georgetown freshman Qudus Wahab was a pleasant surprise in capitalizing on his opportunity. 
 
“I think Qudus is going to have a great career here at Georgetown,” said Ewing with a smile. “I believe in him. He knows that I do. There was one game that he had six blocked shots, and I told him, ‘Don’t tease me with just one of those games. I need about 20 of those.’ He’s a hard worker and he’s eager to work. The sky’s the limit.”
 
That’s some high praise coming from a legend in the post. 
 
An area with a question mark around it is point guard play. Blair is capable of carrying the ball up the floor, but the Hoyas also will rely on Arkansas graduate transfer Jalen Harris to handle some of the workload. This past season, the 6-2 guard averaged 4.2 points with 2.4 assists per game. 
 
Turning to DePaul, the promise of the Blue Demons’ 12-1 start shifted the other way against the rest of a BIG EAST Conference that had potentially six or seven NCAA Tournament teams, according to most bracket projections.  
 
That 12-1 start featured wins over Iowa, Texas Tech and Boston College. It wasn’t as if the Blue Demons were coasting against non-power conference opponents. The question is simple: Can they find a way up in the BIG EAST? 
 
The good news for DePaul: the Blue Demons are the only team in the conference that returns its leading scorer from last year. Guard Charlie Moore enters his senior season coming off averaging 15.5 points and leading the conference with 6.1 assists per game. While Moore was quite a facilitator, DePaul will aim to be more efficient overall and limit the giveaways in the coming season. 
 
DePaul led the league with 470 turnovers last year. Monmouth graduate transfer Ray Salnave is expected to alleviate some of the pressure off Moore in the backcourt. Expect those two at the “1” and “2” positions. 
 
The breakout candidate for the Blue Demons is rising sophomore Romeo Weems, who landed on the All-BIG EAST Freshman Team this past season. 
 
The 6-foot-7 wing has the intangibles of a potential NBA player down the road. Over his final nine games of his freshman campaign, things seemed to slow down for Weems, who averaged nearly 10 points and five boards in that period. 
 
In the frontcourt, the Blue Demons have a tall task in replacing Paul Reed’s production, but keep an eye on rising sophomore, 6-foot-11 Nick Ongenda to take a step forward. 
 
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