Big East Basketball Power Rankings: Butler on top, Providence hits bottom

St. John’s put together its best performance of the young season during this past week while defending its home court against a fringe top-25 team in West Virginia. The Mountaineers had entered that contest as a previously unbeaten team and the Red Storm were able to make life difficult and then close the door down the stretch. This was the best win of the Mike Anderson era with the program so far (this is his first season) and is hopefully a sign of things to come.

St. John’s currently sits at No. 97 in KenPom even with a 9-2 record with both losses coming to top-100 teams. That will happen, though, when you play just the 343rd-toughest schedule to date.

The concern for St. John’s, though, is that star Mustapha Heron went down with an injury during its last game. The senior guard had been averaging 15.2 points per game while shooting 40.8% from three as the second-fiddle alongside LJ Figueroa. Thankfully, the Red Storm only play two contests in the next three weeks prior to conference play starting up so it is possible that Heron does not miss too many games. That would be huge for the team as they cannot afford to lose him as a major piece of the puzzle. Heron is listed as day-to-day.

There might not a ton of hype surrounding St. John’s but the team has mostly handled its business to this point in the year. Given the Red Storm’s low non-conference strength of schedule rating, nobody really knows just how successful this team could be.

Efficiency metrics have not been all that kind to the team as they have stayed exactly steady since preseason expectations, though, so it’s reasonable to think they are still a bottom-tier team in the Big East.