Big East Basketball: Breakout players from each team for 2020-21 season
Big East Basketball breakout candidate – Julian Champagnie (St. John’s)
Last season was another struggle for St. John’s and first-year head coach Mike Anderson. They finished the season 17-15, just 5-13 in Big East play and the program took another hit this summer when leading scorer LJ Figueroa decided to enter the transfer portal. Second-leading scorer Mustapha Heron is also gone after graduating, but Anderson does return a couple of young players he can build around, and one of them, sophomore guard Julian Champagnie is my pick to have a breakout season for the Red Storm.
The 6-7 guard from Brooklyn led the team in rebounding with 6.5 per game during his freshman season and scored 9.9 points. While Champagnie had a consistently solid season for St. John’s as a freshman registering four double-doubles, but it was in the team’s final two regular-season games against Butler and Marquette where he really showed what he is capable of and gave fans something to look forward to this season.
In that two-game stretch, he averaged 22 points and nine rebounds, while also making over 50% of his three-point attempts. If he can improve his three-point shooting this season, he shot just 31% in his first year, then coach Anderson could have a bona fide star on his hands.