St. John's Trounces Georgetown

A win of this magnitude was as refreshing as it was necessary.

Following an exasperating overtime loss at the hostile environment that is Gampel Pavilion against UConn, a game they had won following Julian Champagnie's go-ahead 3-pointer with four seconds remaining, St. John's rolled to a convincing 88-69 throttling of Georgetown on Sunday night.

Champagnie, whose stellar season has rapidly increased his 2022 NBA draft stock, continued his maniacal offensive pace with a game-best 25 points.

St. John's built a double digit lead in the first half and were able to swell the spread to 20 on a 7-3 second half run, one which culminated with a Posh Alexander jumper and a 3-pointer from Dylan Wusu.

Fitting, as Alexander and Wusu, the sophomore guards and Our Savior Lutheran products, each put their stamp on the game.

Alexander-- whose calming influence with the ball in his hands is uber-critical in this transfer-laden lineup-- authored a stat sheet stuffing performance to the tune of 17 points (4-for-4 FG, 9-for-10 FT), seven assists, six rebounds, and a game-best six steals. He committed just one turnover to these seven assists.

Alexander, who has been a reliable third leg of offense to supplement the inside-outside tandem of Champagnie and Alexander, scored 17 points to go with six assists and four rebounds. St. John's piled up 22 assists as a team, and shot it at a scalding 30-for-58 clip (51.7 percent clip), including 7-for-18 from beyond the arc.

With St. John's groping for offensive production outside of the veritable troika of Alexander, Champagnie, and Wusu, they got a boost from two of its several transfers. Montez Mathis scored 11 points (5-for-8 FG) in 27 minutes.

The Red Strom are now 7-0 when the 6-foot-4, 210-pound guard and transfer via Rutgers scores in double figures. After ramping up his role as a supplementary scorer and hitting a monumental 3-pointer during the waning moments which helped force overtime against UConn, scored 10 points.

Kaiden Rice led Georgetown with 19 points. Freshman Aminu Mohammed added 13 points and 12 rebounds for the Hoyas, and Dante Harris chimed in 13 points and four assists.

With Alexander setting a loud tone as the spirit of SJU's thorough clamp down operation, the Johnnies wound up with 13 steals and instigated a whopping 21 turnovers from Georgetown. Georgetown rattled off a 10-2 run to whittle the deficit down to seven, 68-61, on a 3-pointer by Rice with 8:55 remaining.

St. John's thwarted the spurt, however, as Alexander hit a pair of free throws. Wheeler followed with a pair of free throws and Alexander scored on back to back layups which pushed the lead back to 76-54 with 5:30 remaining.

With the win, SJU improves to 10-5 and 2-2 in Big East play. The Red Storm will resume action with another big conference matchup against Creighton on January 19.