After four seasons at the helm of St. John’s Basketball, Mike Anderson has been relieved of his duties by the Red Storm. St. John’s had been his fourth head coaching stop at the D1 level with Anderson experiencing varying levels of success in the past, with much of his experience coming down in the south.
He was born in Birmingham and had a successful playing career, including two years under Nolan Richardson at Tulsa. Anderson’s coaching career would begin with two decades as Richardson’s assistant, including on the 1994 Arkansas squad that won the national championship. After briefly serving as interim head coach at Arkansas in 2002, Anderson accepted the UAB job and began his own head coaching career in earnest.
His early head coaching years were a hit, winning at least 21 games in all four seasons with the Blazers and taking UAB to a Sweet Sixteen. Success followed soon after at Missouri as Anderson had five solid seasons, including a 31-win season with an Elite Eight run in 2009. He then couldn’t pass at the chance to go back home to Arkansas and led the Razorbacks for eight seasons, making just three appearances in the NCAA Tournament.
Soon after his firing from Arkansas, he was a bit of a surprise hire to take over at St. John’s. Anderson replaced Chris Mullin, a former St. John’s star without any previous coaching experience and was certainly an opposite type of hire. While Anderson’s presence led to a boost in recruiting and increased excitement, his teams underachieved on the court, as he won less than 40% of their games in the Big East and never played in the postseason.
In recent years, St. John’s has been blitzing through head coaches with any clear direction of progress forward and it’s important for them to get back on the winning track. We’ll be looking closely at a number of potential candidates for this job, with one name in particular already on the lips of many following this opening. Still, each of these head coaches could make a fantastic fit with the Red Storm and we’ll proceed with the list alphabetically as follows.