St. John’s must move on from Mike Anderson after another lost season
Relieve head coach Mike Anderson of his duties after four seasons or risk further alienating an already despondent group of fans that deserve much better.
nypost.com
By Zach Braziller
The decision should be simple for St. John’s: Make a coaching change when this dismal men’s basketball season is up or tell the fan base winning is not important. Relieve head coach Mike Anderson of his duties after four seasons or risk further alienating an already despondent group of fans that deserve much better.
Things have been going in the wrong direction for two seasons now, with one disappointing and dispiriting result after another. It’s time for new leadership for the school’s flagship athletic program.
The university can’t continue making excuses for this season, or even the underwhelming 2021-22 campaign, any longer. Not when an eighth-place finish is as good as this season will get. Not when the projected three best players — Posh Alexander, David Jones and Andre Curbelo — all have regressed. Not when issues on the court are spilling off of it, with two players from local powerhouse Long Island Lutheran, Curbelo and sophomore Rafael Pinzon, currently suspended for disciplinary reasons. Not when a glance across the Hudson River will show rival Seton Hall outperforming the Red Storm with a first-year coach and an inferior roster.
Not when Anderson has an incomprehensible 9-36 record in Quad 1 games, a 6-20 mark against ranked teams and has lost at least 11 Big East games in three of his four seasons here. Over the last two years, St. John’s is 5-21 in conference play against teams other than the bottom three of Georgetown, DePaul and Butler. The effort of Anderson’s team — not performance, but effort — has been lacking too frequently.
St. John’s coach Mike Anderson and the Johnnies likely will miss the NCAA Tournament again this season.
Corey Sipkin for the NY POST
Yes, Anderson is owed a lot of money, believed to be close to $10 million on a contract that has four years remaining and pays him roughly $2.5 million per season. Unnecessarily extending Anderson after a fourth-place finish two years ago without an NCAA Tournament bid can’t preclude St. John’s from moving on. It feels like a sunk cost now. The university can go into the endowment if it must. It can go hat in hand to billionaire alum Mike Repole, who has been treated like a pariah since he bashed the program on WFAN four years ago.
Athletic director Mike Cragg, when asked if Anderson’s job was in jeopardy, told The Post the coach would be evaluated at the end of the season. President Brian Shanley has declined to speak with The Post this season, but did tell the student newspaper, The Torch, that he was “completely committed right now” to helping Anderson succeed. He also said, “we have to figure out how to win more games.”
There is nothing to suggest that will happen with the current coach. Anderson has gotten worse results with more talent the last two years. Last winter at least, St. John’s lost a number of close games. This season, St. John’s has eight losses by double figures. The Red Storm set a Carnesecca Arena/Alumni Hall record for allowing the most points in regulation, in a 96-83 loss to Marquette on Jan. 3. They yielded 104 points at Creighton, which played its reserves for the final minutes, on Jan. 25, the most points the program has allowed since the 2017 Big East Tournament. They produced their fewest points in a home league contest in a decade in a 57-49 loss to Villanova at the Garden on Jan. 20.
That is obviously not all Anderson’s fault. The issues go far deeper for a school that last won an NCAA Tournament game in 2000 and has among the worst facilities in the Big East. But Anderson is paid well to win games. St. John’s is far too often undisciplined and disjointed, leading to several possessions per game being thrown away at both ends of the floor. Any player can take any shot at any time. The staple of the defense has become to gamble. The press, a hallmark during Anderson’s first two years, rarely makes an impact and is utilized infrequently. There is no identity or structure.
Anderson hasn’t shown enough accountability the last two years, at times faulting players for the team’s shortcomings. After the Red Storm’s best player, Joel Soriano, put a recent loss to Villanova on himself, Anderson was critical of his team making “poor decisions,” saying their play was not up to par. The juxtaposition was jarring.
Look, Anderson is a nice man who has enjoyed a strong coaching career. But at the age of 63, he has lost his fastball. The last time one of his teams was nationally ranked was Arkansas in 2018. That was also the last time he took a team to the NCAA Tournament and won 20 games. This will be the fifth straight season he has missed the tournament, barring a miraculous Big East Tournament run. In the current climate, with the advent of the transfer portal, that’s an eternity for a high-major school. Coaches have turned around other programs in one season. Just look at what Sean Miller has done at Xavier this season and what Shaka Smart did at Marquette last season.
The St. John’s fan base has answered the call. The team has drawn well despite the disappointing results. It sold out Carnesecca Arena on Saturday for what became a loss to Creighton and has averaged 11,723 fans for its three league games at the Garden. The school has gone all out to drum up interest and fill seats.
If St. John’s had competed for the tournament this year and settled for the NIT, maybe there would be a case to keep Anderson. Perhaps there would be reason to keep him if players were progressing and positive momentum was building. That has clearly not been the case. His return can’t be spun and another poor season can’t be swept away, as the school tried to after 2021-22.
St. John’s has only one path forward. It needs to make a coaching change. If not, why should fans bother anymore?
