St. John’s: Three takeaways from Mike Anderson’s first game

The Mike Anderson era began Wednesday night at St. John’s. This isn’t the same Red Storm team as a year ago, here are our three takeaways from their 109-79 win over Mercer.

Mike Anderson, who never coached above the Mason-Dixon line in his collegiate career, brought on-ball pressure and a new defensive look to his first game as the head coach of the St. John’s Red Storm Wednesday night in Carnasecca Arena. While the betting guru’s had the Johnnies as an 11-point favorite over Mercer, St. John’s well exceeded that margin, defeating the Macon, Georgeia based university 109-79.

Mustapha Heron and LJ Figueroa come through as the main scoring options

Mustapha Heron and LJ Figueroa, both returning starters from last year’s Red Storm squad that saw the likes of Shamorie Ponds, Justin Simon and Marvin Clark III depart, answered the question of how they would do as the main scoring options for Anderson’s new-look squad. The dynamic duo combined to drop 43 points for the Johnnies. Heron also knocked down four-of-his-six three-point attempts.

“40 Minutes of Hell” Defense

While Anderson has quipped with members of the media that it might only be “25 minutes of Hell” at this point in time, the Red Storm played a full 40 minutes of defense. The Johnnies were relentless from the opening tip-off forcing Mercer to take contested shots and jar the ball loose early and often.

It rarely looked like guys were getting beat to the net. They also hounded Mercer’s ball handlers. The last time St. John’s recorded 11 steals in a game was in their loss to Arizona State in the NCAA Tournament on March 20. Also, St. John’s starting five of Heron, Figueroa, Josh Roberts, Julian Champagnie and Nick Rutherford combined to commit only eight personal fouls.

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Marcellus Earlington is the “X” factor off the Johnnies bench

Every good team has difference makers comming off the bench. One had to figure that with the small rotation of players when Chris Mullin was running the team, someone on the team must have been getting overlooked. It appears that guy is Marcellus Earlington. Standing at 6-foot-6 weighing 220 pounds, Ellington profiles more as a pass rusher then a power forward.

His bulkiness paid dividends for St. John’s as the big man showed elusive foot work on the offensive side and stellar defensive awareness. In 17 minutes off the bench, Earlington scored 17 points and snagged five rebounds.

St. John’s takes the court again on Friday against Central Connecticut State.