Kansas vs. St. John’s: 2021 college basketball game preview, TV schedule
The Kansas Jayhawks look to improve to 6-1 when they face the St. John’s Red Storm in New York. Ochai Agbaji and Julian Champagnie highlight this matchup.
When: 7:00 pm ET
Where: UBS Arena, New York
TV: FS1
The #8 Kansas Jayhawks (5-1) take on Mike Anderson’s St. John’s Red Storm (5-1) at UBS Arena in New York. After a disappointing defeat to Dayton, the Jayhawks rebounded with a nice 96-83 win over Iona. Saint John’s enters this one on a three-game winning streak, however, all three wins came against sub-200 KenPom teams.
St. John’s is led by junior Julian Champagnie. Champagnie was the Big East Freshman of the Year in 2019, followed by an All-Big East first-team selection last year. He has his sights set on even more illustrious honors this year and is averaging 21.3 ppg and shoots the ball at a 45% clip. The other part of the Red Storm’s main tandem is point guard Posh Alexander. A very scrappy guard who defends well (2.4 spg), passes well (6.6 apg), and does just about everything needed to win games. Posh is shooting the ball much better than last year and if he hits a couple threes in this one, that could be a problem for Kansas.
The Jayhawks have a whole lot of talent everywhere on the court. They’ve got four players shooting over 40% from three, which doesn’t even include Christian Braun– who is widely considered one of the better three-point shooters around.
David McCormack mans the middle for Kansas and he can be a problem for teams who have a bit less size. SJU isn’t small, but this is a spot where I give the edge to Kansas in the interior. Ochai Agbaji is putting up 22.5 points per contest this season and is a stout defender on the wing. Kansas generally likes to work the ball around and not focus on one scorer. Under Bill Self, there have only been two players to score over 20.0 points per game (Frank Mason and Wayne Simien). So, it’s safe to say Agbaji is in rare air.
But the matchup to watch will certainly be Remy Martin and Posh Alexander going head-to-head. One of the keys for Saint John’s has to be for Posh to lock the Arizona State transfer down. SJU’s stingy defense can fluster some guards and leads to poor shot quality. Luckily for Kansas, they have one of the more experienced backcourts in the whole nation. But, Kansas does average about ten turnovers per game, if SJU can inflate that number to trend around 15 they can pull off an upset.
A few years back, St. John’s upset Kansas when Shamorie Ponds was running the point. The Red Storm had a similar game plan then as I anticipate them to have tonight. Offensively, they should rely on Champagnie to create shots and put him in a few isolation situations. Defensively, they’ll just try to speed Kansas up and get them out of the pace they like to play at.
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Prediction: Don’t pay too much attention to that Dayton loss. Kansas is one of the top teams in the country and has too much depth and experience to get flustered by the Red Storm defense. I like Kansas in a relatively tight one, 81-74.