St. John’s Basketball: 2021-22 season preview and outlook for Red Storm

Season Outlook

When I wrote about St. John’s last preseason, I explicitly said that the Johnnies have the potential to be on the bubble – which is exactly where they ended up prior to their losses to Butler and DePaul – and that it would largely be made possible through their experience.

Fast forward a season later, and Mike Anderson and his squad find themselves in a similar position: they have the capability to be an insanely dangerous ballclub, with the possibility of reaching the NCAA Tournament.  This time, however, the Johnnies – with the exception of Julian Champagnie and Posh Alexander – face the daunting titan of assimilating an assortment of new personalities, many of whom will receive ample playing time almost immediately.

Luckily, Champagnie and Alexander, by themselves, will be enough to keep St. John’s afloat in a sneakily dangerous Big East – but successfully implementing the supporting cast and collection of incoming transfers in Montez Mathis, Joel Soriano, Stef Smith, Tareq Coburn, and Aaron Wheeler will be instrumental in preventing the losses that plagued the Red Storm’s NCAA Tournament aspirations last season.

While our top 25 preseason rankings did not have St. John’s in them – with just Villanova representing the Big East at seventh and UConn on the outside as an honorable mention – our Big East preseason rankings slotted the Red Storm at third, trailing just the Huskies and Wildcats, and just ahead of a Xavier team that is projected to be mightily improved and will also vie for a March Madness bid.

To continue their upswing, the Johnnies must further the gradual steps they took in 2020-21 to improve upon their lackluster 2019-20 campaign.  Among those – and something that I pointed out in the 2020-21 preview – was the Red Storm’s sluggish performance on the road, where they went an abysmal 1-8 in 2019-20.  That mark was improved upon last year, where St. John’s was 4-6, which included a significant win over UConn – but was also comprised of inexcusable losses to Butler, Seton Hall, and Georgetown.

Continuing those strides will pave the way for St. John’s to clinch its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2018-19, and, potentially, its first breakthrough out of the First Four since Steve Lavin’s final season in 2014-15.

With a pair of players who are both contending for two of the Big East’s most outstanding awards, as well as a completely new core of contributors who have experience elsewhere, the Red Storm will be one of the most intriguing programs in all of college basketball this season – and one that could threaten even the best teams on any day.