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St. Anthony’s Kyle Anderson Commits to UCLA

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After a summer filled with more twists, turns and flashes sideways than an episode of “Lost,” college basketball’s version of “The Decision” reached its epic culmination late Monday night when Kyle Anderson made his long-awaited verbal commitment; a pledge to play for UCLA and coach Ben Howland.

(Photo: NJ.com)
Anderson made the decision via his Twitter page at about 10:30pm, ending widespread speculation over where the New Jersey product would end up. UCLA beat out hometown school Seton Hall; as well as Florida and St. John’s for the services of the 6-8 point guard from St. Anthony’s in Jersey City, who turns 18 today.

“I chose UCLA because I feel they can help me improve my defense and we will have a good chance of winning a national championship,” said Anderson shortly after going public with his intentions. “Coach Howland says that I will be fighting for the point guard spot. As long as I’m on the court, I’ll be good.”

Anderson’s competition at the point will come from Larry Drew II, who transferred to Westwood from North Carolina last season with two years of eligibility remaining. Drew will return to the hardwood in January, when he will resume his sophomore season as a member of the Bruins. For UCLA and Howland, they secured the top point guard in next year’s recruiting class and No. 2 prospect overall behind Shabazz Muhammad, whom many believe could be heading to Westwood as well.

After missing out in the pursuit of Anderson, St. John’s head coach Steve Lavin will now go back to the drawing board in his attempt to add to a 2012 class that includes verbal commitments from forward Ricardo Gathers and guard Darrick Wood. It has been reported by JohnnyJungle.com that the Red Storm are among the players for Amile Jefferson, a 6-7 swingman from Philadelphia who is ranked 21st overall among 2012 prospects.

Big East Unveils Schedule, Red Storm Open With Exhibition Against C.W. Post

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After 21 wins, six of which came against teams ranked in the Top 25, and being ranked as high as 14th in the Associated Press poll, the question going into the 2011-12 season would be how St. John’s would follow such a sudden act of resurgence. The long-awaited answer became a little clearer with the release and announcement of the Big East schedule, coupled with the unveiling of the Red Storm’s non-conference ledger for the youngest team in program history.

Point guard Malik Stith is the only returning letterwinner to the 2011-2012 Red Storm. (Photo: Icon/SMI Select)
The 104th season of Red Storm basketball officially begins on November 7th when the Johnnies welcome William and Mary into Carnesecca Arena, but is preceded by two exhibition games: One against C.W. Post and former Norm Roberts assistant Chris Casey, and the other against Division III institution St. Mary’s of Maryland.

Following the William and Mary contest, the Red Storm play host to Lehigh on November 9th before welcoming America East opponent UMBC to the corner of Union and Utopia on November 13th, their last tuneup before making their 2011-12 Madison Square Garden debut against Arizona in the 2K Sports Classic. St. John’s will then face either Texas A&M or Mississippi State in the second night of the Garden tournament.

Upon returning from the Garden, the Johnnies will entertain Brooklyn’s St. Francis College on November 22nd for the first time since 2008, in what could be an intriguing matchup.

While St. John’s has had the edge in the intra-city rivalry since losing to the Terriers in 2004, each of the last two meetings in the series were decided by just eight points. The Red Storm will next take on Northeastern on the 26th of November, two days after Thanksgiving.

After a month of home games, the new-look Storm will take to Rupp Arena for their first road game, a December 1st tilt against John Calipari’s Kentucky Wildcats. Fresh off a Final Four run, Terrence Jones and Doron Lamb return for the Wildcats, along with an impressive four-man recruiting class that was ranked first in the nation.

From the Bluegrass State, head coach Steve Lavin and company will travel to Detroit to play the Titans in a game where ESPN analyst and former Detroit coach Dick Vitale will be honored by having the court named after him.

St. John’s will then take a break for finals before returning to the court on December 17th in the restructured Holiday Festival at Madison Square Garden against Fordham, a matchup where the Red Storm will look to avenge a bitter defeat that proved to be the launching pad for their Cinderella run to the NCAA Tournament.

The Johnnies’ final nonconference game takes place on December 21st against Texas Pan-American.

The Red Storm open Big East play two days after Christmas at Carnesecca Arena against Providence and new coach Ed Cooley before closing out 2011 on New Year’s Eve in Hartford against reigning national champion Connecticut. The Huskies will be without the services of head coach Jim Calhoun, as he serves an NCAA-imposed suspension for the Huskies’ first three Big East games.

Following the UConn matchup, St. John’s squares off against another former national champion coach when Rick Pitino and Louisville invade the Garden in the Johnnies’ 2012 opener on January 3rd.

A road trip featuring Cincinnati and Marquette awaits from there before the Red Storm return home on January 15th to face Georgetown, looking to take down the Hoyas for the fourth consecutive time at Madison Square Garden. St. John’s will also welcome Villanova and West Virginia into the Garden for two of the eleven games they will play in midtown Manhattan, but not before traveling to Tampa for a meeting with USF on January 18th.

St. John's Head Coach Steve Lavin. (Photo: Ballin' Is A Habit)
The Johnnies take to the road once again after the West Virginia game, first to Cameron Indoor Stadium for a matchup with Mike Krzyzewski and Duke on January 28th. In addition to defeating the Blue Devils at Madison Square Garden this past January, St. John’s is also the last non-ACC program to defeat Duke in Durham, doing so back in 2000.

A trip to Chicago to face DePaul is next on the agenda and once St. John’s is back home, they continue February with two games at the Garden, welcoming Syracuse and Cincinnati into the Big Apple before a pair of road showdowns down Interstate 95 against Georgetown and Seton Hall.

On February 18th, the Red Storm play the first of three consecutive home contests, welcoming UCLA and Notre Dame to the Garden while DePaul is sandwiched between the two on Monday, February 20th at Carnesecca Arena. The Johnnies will close the regular season on the road, traveling to Pittsburgh to commemorate leap year, (February 29th) and will culminate the 2011-12 campaign against Mike Rice and Rutgers on March 3rd in Piscataway. That game will be the first meeting between the two schools since Justin Brownlee’s infamous travel out of bounds allowed the Red Storm to advance in the Big East tournament.

“Clearly, our team will face the most challenging schedule of my coaching career,” said head coach Steve Lavin in a press release. “Our young squad will clearly benefit from being tested in facing one of the toughest schedules in St. John’s history.”

With one returning scholarship letterwinner in junior Malik Stith, the Red Storm will feature at least nine newcomers, a group comprised of seven freshmen, one sophomore and one junior. STJ will look to its highly-rated 2011-12 recruiting class, featuring six recruits ranked in the Top 100 in the nation, to assist in replacing 96.3 percent of its scoring and 97.8 percent of its rebounding in the coming season.

St. John’s Chris Mullin: Brooklyn’s Finest Now Hoops Royalty in Hall of Fame

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He was a highly-touted recruit out of Xaverian High School in Brooklyn, St. John’s University’s all-time leading scorer, two Olympic gold medals, a sixteen-year professional career in which he averaged over eighteen points per game for the Golden State Warriors and Indiana Pacers. He had a sweet left-handed shot that was among the most lethal mid-range forms in the game and even had a stint in the Warriors’ front office, not to mention overcoming personal demons by emerging victorious from a battle with alcoholism that he had waged since his days on the corner of Union and Utopia.

Chris Mullin, always a St. John's legend, is now officially a basketball legend in the Hall of Fame in Springfield, MA. (Photo: redstormsports.com)
You could look at those accomplishments and concur that the man possessing them could be, arguably, one of the greatest to ever take the court. Yet, with all the accolades and all the success, something had eluded Chris Mullin since his retirement ten years ago. That all changed this past Friday night, when Mullin finally took his rightful place among the all-time greats when he was enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Die-hard fans of the NBA will also recognize such names as Dennis Rodman and Arvydas Sabonis in this year’s class, but there is no question that Mullin is (and deservedly so) the headliner. After a stellar run spanning parts of three decades in which he established himself as the Dan Marino of the NBA, in that he was perennially among the best in his field, despite the unfortunate lack of a championship at the professional level.

Mullin is appreciated all over the country and world, but is still revered like few others in his backyard of the Big Apple. In an interview with the New York Post, Mullin’s college coach marvels at the fact that there are people still interested in what his best player is up to, twenty-six years after Mullin led the then-St. John’s Redmen to their second and most recent Final Four.

“I walk down Union Turnpike now and some elderly woman will say, ‘How’s Mullin doing?'” gushed Lou Carnesecca, who had the honor of presenting Mullin at the induction ceremony. “He’s a true purist, he exemplified the New York basketball player. If there was a game, he was there.”

Most notably, Mullin was more than just an above average basketball player. For some, he was a hero for being able to succeed in a world dominated by the likes of Jordan, Johnson and Bird. Carnesecca wasn’t the only one waxing poetic about the former Red Storm great, as the current head coach of New York’s team offered an equally positive testimonial.

“Chris Mullin clearly embodies the best of what St John’s basketball represents. He set the standard for excellence in performance on and off the court throughout his well chronicled career,” said Steve Lavin. “Our Johnnies basketball family and hoop fans in New York City take great pride in Chris Mullin being honored with his induction into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.”

Mullin starred at St. John’s from 1981-85 and guided the Redmen to some of the greatest seasons in program history.

A three-time BIG EAST Player of the Year (1983-85), Mullin averaged 19.8 points as a senior while leading St. John’s to the 1985 Final Four and its first No. 1 ranking since 1951. In 1985, he received the John R. Wooden Award as the nation’s top player and was named the Player of the Year by both United Press International and the U.S. Basketball Writers Association. Mullin was a two-time All-American and garnered consensus first-team All-America honors as a senior.

The lefty from Brooklyn is St. John’s all-time leading scorer with 2,440 career points, and his scoring average of 19.5 points per game is the sixth-best mark in program history. In St. John’s record books, he ranks in the top 10 in 18 different statistical categories. He also holds St. John’s career free throw percentage record at 84.7 percent. (682-of-805)

St. John’s to Play Arizona in 2K Sports Classic, Duke in January

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The 2011-12 schedule will not become official for another month, but, indications are, Steve Lavin is continuing to challenge his St. John’s squad.

After leading a group of ten seniors to the program’s first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2002, Lavin will carry the youngest team in the school’s 104-year history onto the court this season, and the ledger that the Red Storm will play is anything but a cupcake.

Steve Lavin will lead his young St. John's squad through a rigorous non-conference schedule. (Photo: Icon/SMI Select)
After taking the bold step to face Kentucky on the road at Rupp Arena on December 1st and taking on the University of Detroit in a game sure to remind fans of last year’s season opener against St. Mary’s, the Johnnies will face Arizona in their Madison Square Garden opener.

The Wildcats, under head coach Sean Miller, return three starters and reserve guard Kevin Parrom from last year’s team that came within a basket of the Final Four.

“Our matchup with defending Pac-12 champion University of Arizona will provide our young squad with a valuable test.” said Lavin in a press release. “The youngest team in St Johns history will benefit from being tested with one of the toughest schedules in the country.”

Despite losing guard Lamont (Momo) Jones to Iona and No. 2 overall NBA draft pick Derrick Williams to the Minnesota Timberwolves, they have added a strong recruiting class that includes some players with connections to this young St. John’s team.

Findlay Prep guard Nick Johnson, a former teammate of Red Storm freshman Amir Garrett, is an incredibly athletic guard who could make an immediate impact.

And the headliner of the class, Josiah Turner, is a former teammate of Sir’Dominic Pointer at Quality Education. At 6’3″, he has good size for a point guard and his tight handle will prove to be a better fit than Lamont Jones.

Texas A&M squares off against Mississippi State in the opener at the “World’s Most Famous Arena,” with the winners to face off for the tournament championship at 7pm the following night. The Red Storm finished this past season with an 8-2 record at the Garden that included resounding upset wins against then-No. 3 Duke, former No. 4-ranked Pittsburgh, and eventual national champion Connecticut.

St. John’s will also travel to Cameron Indoor on January 28, 2012 to face four-time national champion Duke for the first time since their shocking 93-78 victory over the Blue Devils seven months ago.,Jeff Goodman announced the date in his ACC off-season report.

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski will no doubt be the NCAA’s all-time winningest coach by the time he welcomes St. John’s to Durham, as he is only three wins away from surpassing Bobby Knight for the most all-time victories at the Division I level. It’s worth noting that St. John’s remains the most recent non-ACC team to defeat Duke in front of the “Cameron Crazies,” getting the better of the Blue Devils back in 2000.

Italy Says Buon Giorno To Hardy

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The miracle run put together by St. John’s University and its ten recently-graduated seniors has continued to resonate far away from the corner of Union and Utopia.

Yet another integral part of the Johnnies’ return to the NCAA Tournament, after a nine-year hiatus, has become the latest Red Storm player to trade in his red and white for a professional uniform.

Hardy was a integral part of the success the Red Storm had last season, bringing them to their first NCAA Tournament in nearly a decade. (Photo: Zimbio)
Just several days after Paris Horne became the first from last year’s graduating class to turn pro when he took his talents to Germany, Dwight Hardy has joined his backcourt partner in the professional ranks.

The Bronx native signed earlier this week with Pistoia Basket, an Italian club located just outside the city of Florence, making the decision with factors other than his own success in mind.

“The first thing I want to do is get my mom out of the projects,” said Hardy, whose mother still calls the South Bronx home. “That’s all I think about when I’m working out or doing anything with basketball, just provide a better life for my family.”

Hardy won the Big East’s Most Improved Player award this past season while, leading the Red Storm (21-12 in 2010-11) in scoring, with 18.3 points per game. He was also considered a Player of the Year candidate in the conference, which eventually went to Notre Dame’s Ben Hansbrough. Hardy posted fourteen 20-point games last season, including four games in which he eclipsed the 30-point mark.