St. John's Holds off FDU 87-74

 

    The optimistic St. John’s fan might look at yesterday’s 87-74 win over FDU and like that they overcame an uncharacteristically poor shooting game from star forward Julian Champagne. The pessimistic fan might lament St. John’s poor defense against FDU’s 3-point attack, 15 turnovers, many of which were unforced, and a lethargy that marked St. John’s effort after a fast start.

    Wingman Montez Mathis scored 5 quick points in the game’s opening moments, and 9 of his 13 for the game in the opening half. He and fellow transfer Steff Smith, who scored 9 of his 14 in the opening 20 minutes, helped trigger a 20-9 spurt in the middle of the half that helped St. John’s to a 45-32 halftime advantage. Careless turnovers kept that margin from becoming more significant as the first half drew to a close. And to their credit FDU was able to find a bit of traction on offense despite their leading scorer, Brandon Rush, missing his first 6 shots.

  St. John’s extended their margin to 20 with the help of a 9-0 run capped by a Dylan Adde-Wusu triple. FDU rallied behind the terrific shooting of junior guard Devon Dunn, who scored 15 of his game high 24 in the second half. Rush regrouped from his slow shooting start with the help of two terrifically athletic drives to score 12 of his 14 points in the second half. The Knights carved the lead to single digits twice in the second half. Lead by Dunn’s 6-8 FDU shot 50% as a team from beyond the arc while St. John’s shot just 23% on 5 for 22 shooting.

   Despite shooting just 6-19 from the floor Champagne finished with 17 points 10 boards and 3 steals. Wusu finished with a team high 5 assists to go with 6 points. Dunn’s 24 points took game high scoring honors.

Notes & Observations: St. John’s played yesterday without freshman Rafael Pinzon and grad transfer Tareq Coburn who missed the game due to injury and illness. Pinzon reportedly suffered a small fracture to his finger in practice on Friday and will be evaluated tomorrow (Monday). Coburn was absent due to non-Covid related illness.

Grad transfer Aaron Wheeler may prove to be a barometer guy as the season moves along. Yesterday he had a terrific sequence in the second half that included a triple, a drive to the basket and an assist. The drive was a play where he needed just a couple of dribbles to get to the basket and it appears that he can attack the basket in smaller spaces but struggles when trying to handle the ball farther away from the hoop. If he can become a consistent mistake free source of energy for the Johnnies it will help them as the competition gets tougher.

Last but not least a shoutout to a pair of my favorite New York CHSAA players, both from Bronx schools, who gave FDU some very good minutes. Joe Munden Jr. the physical wing from Msgr. Scanlon who’s now a sophomore at FDU finished with 10 points and 2 rebounds off the bench. Freshman Ibrahim Wattara of Mt. St. Michael’s Academy played as he always has, tough inside despite giving up size and length. He finished with 8 points and 3 boards off the bench. Both guys will be important players as FDU competes for the tournament bid in the Northeast Conference