St. John’s Blows Out Georgetown, 88-69

Five players in double-digit scoring, lead by Julian Champagnie, resulted in a blowout of Georgetown, 88-69.

After two tough road losses to Providence and Connecticut, the Red Storm returned home and truly benefitted from playing the cellar-dweller Georgetown Hoyas.

The first half against the Hoyas went largely as one might expect with St. John’s having played to their strengths. The Johnnies’ pressure helped win the turnover battle, 12 to 5 where the Red Storm scored 15 points off of those 12 turnovers. One of such turnover was a shot clock violation to go along with several near shot clock violations that resulted in wild shots by Georgetown.

A couple foreseeable trouble spots the Red Storm encountered, however, included dealing with Georgetown’s size and offensive consistency. The bigger Georgetown had 8 offensive rebounds before the break, which was the major contributor to their 12 second chance points. This shortcoming was in a sense mitigated, however, by the Hoyas’ collective inability to score on attempts that were not resulting from a second chance.

Nick Bello

As for the latter, when the Johnnies were rolling, like they were during their 11-0 run that started just prior to the under-12 minute timeout, they were a force to be reckoned with. However, immediately following that run, the Red Storm went on a five-minute field goal drought. Such a drought prevented the team from blowing Georgetown out early enough to justify putting the San Francisco 49ers and Dallas Cowboy playoff game on the jumbotron for the second half.

Posh Alexander had a particularly efficient half scoring 8 points on only one attempt from the field. Posh paired that with 4 rebounds and 5 assists. His performance, paired with Julian Champagnie’s 13 points (5/12 FG, 0/2 3PT), led the Red Storm to a 43-32 halftime lead.

Nick Bello

The second half started with the rolling version of St. John’s offense, as the team went on another 9-0 run midway through the half. However, just like the first half, the other version of the Red Storm arrived right after allowing Georgetown to respond with an 15-3 run of their own.

When Georgetown successfully cut St. John’s lead to single digits, the Red Storm turned up the pressure. To reinforce their double-digit lead, Montez Mathis flushed a dunk off of beautiful transition passing.

Soon thereafter, Posh Alexander exits with an apparent hip injury. Without the team’s fearless point guard, the Red Storm still had plenty to put away the Hoyas. Dylan Addae-Wusu filled in wonderfully as the primary ball-handler, and not just when Posh was out of the game. Addae-Wusu finished the second half with 11 points (4/6 FG, 2/3 3PT), 3 rebounds and 4 assists.

Despite the stretches of anemic offense and rebounding issues against the much bigger Georgetown, the Red Storm enjoyed their first blowout of Big East play, 88-69.

St. John’s Red Storm

Julian Champagnie: 25 Points (9/20 FG, 0/2 3PT), 6 Rebounds, 7 Assists

Posh Alexander: 17 Points (4/4 FG), 6 Rebounds, 7 Assists, 6 Steals (ties career high)

Dylan Addae-Wusu: 17 Points (6/8 FG, 4/5 3PT), 4 Rebounds, 7 Assists

Georgetown Hoyas

Kaiden Rice: 19 Points (7/22 FG, 5/14 3PT), 5 Rebounds

Dante Harris: 13 Points (5/11 FG, 3/6 3PT), 1 Rebound, 4 Assists