St. John’s Wins Big on Senior Night

Written by: Jack Sargente

On a night where seniors Tareq Coburn, Stef Smith, and Jalen Rosemond were honored before the game, the St. John’s Red Storm hosted the Xavier Musketeers for the last game at Carnesecca Arena this season. In what is also likely Julian Champagnie's final game in Queens, a finally fully healthy Red Storm squad got their 8th win in conference play. Although an at-large bid looks farfetched, the Johnnies went into this game looking to build momentum as we’re less than a week away from the Big East Tournament.

St. John’s starting lineup was changed up a little to start the game as they added the two seniors, Tareq Coburn and Stef Smith, to the lineup and were able to plug Joel Soriano back into the center spot as he came back from a left knee contusion injury. Coburn started off the scoring for the Johnnies with a three-pointer, which would be the first of five that he would drain throughout the night. St. John’s was locked in on the defensive side to start and were able to get the ball inside on the Xavier defense which helped get them off to an early 9-5 lead. But from that point on there was a lot of ugly basketball being played, especially from Xavier as they would not score for the next five minutes going 0-13 in the process. While the Musketeers were miserable on offense, the Johnnies weren’t much better as they only scored 2 points in a 6-minute span as well. After a pair of baskets from the returning Soriano, the Johnnies were up 15-7 with 10 minutes left in a very low scoring affair. But Xavier would quickly come back as they mounted a 7-0 run to make it a one-point game as the Red Storm continued to struggle on offense. The teams would continue to trade buckets as the half dwindled to an end; Aaron Wheeler and Coburn would hit back-to-back threes to give the Johnnies a little cushion as they took a 33-29 lead into the half. Coburn led the game in scoring with 9 points in a half where buckets to come by as the Red Storm shot 36.4% and the Musketeers shot 28.2% from the field and the two combined for 5-22 from deep.

Neither team was exactly putting on a clinic of offensive basketball in the second half either, but both sides did improve from a slow scoring first half. St. John’s, Tareq Coburn in particular, got off to a hot start off the jump as they would take a quick 10-point lead within the first three minutes of the half. Aaron Wheeler started the scoring with a 3-pointer when Tareq Coburn would take the button and bang in two threes of his own in part of a stretch that gave the Johnnies a 44-34 lead. Scoring would slow down for both sides for a little but by the 12-minute timeout St. John’s still was ahead 50-40. From that point on Xavier would keep slowly chopping away at the Red Storm lead as the guard combo of Dwon Odom and Colby Jones combined for 7 points in a stretch that would pull them within three. Only up 3 with a little over 8 minutes left, St. John’s would not let this game get away from them as Posh Alexander took control of the offense as he added played a part in the next 8 points scored. Posh added to his total of 19 points with two free throws and set up Coburn and Wheeler on a pair of three-pointers to shoot the lead back up to 9. From that point on, the difference would never get closer than 7 points between the two sides as St. John’s put the pedal to the medal as Julian Champagnie padded to the lead and Tareq Coburn flew in for the jam to score the final points in 15-point win. Coburn was a big key to the Johnnies win as he had his St. John’s career high with 20 points and the usual contributors of Champagnie and Posh added 19 and 17 respectively.

St. John’s truly sent the Seniors off on the right foot as two seniors Stef Smith and Tareq Coburn got the start at their last game at Carnesecca. Coburn made sure to make his last one count as he dropped 20 followed by another great performance by Champagnie in what is speculated to be his last home game as well. In terms of this season, this game showed how good this team could be when fully healthy and should bring some optimism as the Big Eas Tournament is right around the corner. St. John’s will have one more regular season matchup prior to the tournament as they head to Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to face a very good Marquette Golden Eagles squad on Saturday, March 5th at 9 P.M. on F