St. John's University Athletics
St. John's Welcomes Marist for Home Opener
11/21/2015 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
QUEENS, N.Y. - After taking two of three on its season-opening road swing, the St. John's Red Storm returns to Carnesecca Arena for its home opener on Sunday, Nov. 22, playing host to perennial MAAC power Marist at 7 p.m. The game will be broadcast live on ESPN3 with Jonathan Yardley and Julianne Viani on the call.
QUICK HITS
The Red Storm closed out its road trip in style on Thursday, defeating Rutgers, a team that made it to the second round of last year's NCAA Tournament, on the road in Piscataway. The Red Storm was led by three New Jersey natives in the win over the Garden State's flagship public university, as Jade Walker, Aliyyah Handford and Danaejah Grant all finished in double figures. Walker scored a game-high 20, Handford scored 12 of her 18 in the second half and Grant recorded her first double-double of the season with 16 points and 11 rebounds.
Walker, despite coming off the bench in all three games for the Red Storm this season, has been an absolute force, averaging 15.7 points and 5.0 rebounds in just 19.7 points per outing. The junior from Maplewood, N.J., has been deadly accurate from the field, converting on 21 of her 28 tries from the floor this season. Walker has also shown touch from deep, making good on two of her three chances from beyond the arc.
A Second Team All-BIG EAST selection a year ago, Danaejah Grant has picked up right where she left off in 2015-16, leading the Red Storm with 18 points and 6.0 rebounds per outing through three games. On Thursday against her hometown team, Rutgers, Grant became the first St. John's player this season to record a double-double, scoring 16 points and grabbing 10 of her game-high 11 rebounds on the defensive glass. The senior also set a new career-high with four steals against the Scarlet Knights. In addition, the Piscataway, N.J., native also reached a career milestone, scoring her 1,000th career point. With some of those 1,000 points coming at Clemson during the 2012-13 season, Grant is 94 points away from becoming the 22nd player in program history to reach the millennium mark in a St. John's uniform.
The Red Storm has seen success in its recent home openers, taking each of its last three Carnesecca Arena debuts. St. John's last loss in a home opener came during the Sweet 16 season of 2011-12, when the St. Bonaventure Bonnies edged the Red Storm, 64-58. Prior to that, the Red Storm's last loss in a home opener came all the way back in 2006-07, when St. John's dropped a decision to Iona, 66-56.
SCOUTING MARIST
After missing the NCAA Tournament last season for the first time since 2005, the Marist Red Foxes have struggled in the early going of 2015-16.
Marist has dropped each of its first three games, losing decisions on the road to South Dakota State and Creighton before dropping its home opener to Delaware on Thursday night. Against the Bluejays, Marist lost by 43.
This season, Tori Jarosz (15.3 ppg) and Sydney Coffey (12.7 ppg) are the only two Red Foxes averaging double figures.
The Red Foxes are suffering serious deficits in terms of both rebounding margin and turnover margin. Marist's opponents are grabbing 11.3 more rebounds on average than the Red Foxes and are surrendering just 7.7 turnovers per game.
ST. JOHN'S VS. MARIST- THE SERIES
The Red Storm and the Red Foxes will be meeting for the fourth time in the history of the two programs on Sunday night.
Last year, the two teams played an absolute thriller in the third game of the season, as Amber Thompson grabbed 17 rebounds to help lift St. John's to a 49-48 victory.
Since losing the first contest between the two schools in 2001-02, the Red Storm has won three-straight. Those games were played in 2002-03, 2010-11 and last season.
