Julian Champagnie's 27, return of Posh Alexander fuel St. John's road win over Xavier
St. John's Julian Champagnie drives to the basket during the second half of the team's NCAA college basketball game against Xavier, Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2022, in Cincinnati. Credit: AP/Aaron Doster
The signature win was long overdue. St. John’s got it on Wednesday night in Cincinnati.
The Red Storm ended a two-game skid as Posh Alexander returned from a two-game absence due a right ankle sprain, Julian Champagnie scored 27 points and the team made an impressive 54% from the floor to take down Xavier for a 86-73 Big East win before 10,160 at Cintas Center.
St. John’s (14-11 6-8) won at Cintas for the first time since 2015 and the 86 points is the most Xavier has allowed all season.
This is St. John’s second resume-building ‘quad 1’ victory of the season in 11 tries. Xavier (17-8, 7-7) was nationally ranked a week ago and now sits two spots outside the AP Top 25. The victory is also St. John’s third straight conference win on the road in a conference where road wins are hard to come by.
"It’s frustrating we didn’t play this way at the beginning of the year," Champagnie said. "If you’re asking about how we played the first half of the year or two-thirds? It’s over with. We don’t have time to look back. We have five games left."
Asked about the team’s sense of urgency, Champagnie replied, "it’s pretty high right now. The season is coming to an end. We don’t have time for mishaps, losses (and) giving games away. . . . We are going to figure it out."
Tareq Coburn scored seven straight Red Storm points in the middle of the second half to list the Storm into a 63-57 lead, the last basket coming on a putback. That’s where Champagnie took over. He scored 10 of St. John’s next 15 points as the Storm pulled away.
Champagnie finished 9-for-19 shooting and Coburn had 13 points, Aaron Wheeler had 11 points and Montez Mathis had 10 points for St. John’s. Jack Nunge scored 22 and Paul Scruggs had 16 points for Xavier.
Alexander eschewed his short jumper mostly, but had eight points, four assists and four steals in 25 minutes and made an impact. He scored four of his points in the final 1:09.
"To have him, that was huge," Champagnie said. "He pushes the play. He played great defense. I’m really proud of the way he played tonight."
"He is one of the faces of our team," Storm coach Mike Anderson said. "I think our guys feed off him — the intensity (and) his energy. He’s a leader."
Alexander , the second leading scorer with a 14.9-point average coming in and the team leader in assists at 5.1 per game, suffered a right ankle sprain in St. John’s last win, a three-point road victory at Butler. He tried to play through it, but ultimately ended up on the bench for the final minutes of the game.
He was in a walking boot when St. John’s faced and lost to Villanova at the Garden. He wore sneakers as he sat out the loss against UConn at the Garden. However Anderson agreed there had been progress in his recovery while still calling him "day-to-day."
It didn’t take long for Alexander to make his presence felt. He had two steals and two assists in an 11-0 St. John’s run to a 28-19 lead.
St. John’s led 45-42 at halftime and while Champagnie shined on offense with 15 points, Alexander had had two assists and two steals and 6-11 Joel Soriano had four rebounds and three assists.
Soriano finished with eight points, seven bounds and four assists.
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
