By Joseph Staszewski
Thanks to St. John’s newest sweet-shooting guard, its most-famous former player earned his first victory as coach.
Freshman Federico Mussini scored a game-high 18 points, including four 3-pointers, to led the Red Storm to a 66-57 victory over Wagner in their season opener at Carnesecca Arena on Nov. 13. His 3-point shot from the right corner off a pass from Durand Johnson put SJU up six with 1:15 to play in the game and helped give first-year coach Chris Mullin a win in his official debut. Johnson had little doubt Mussini would deliver.
“On the pass, I could have just run back on defense because I knew it was going in,” Johnson said. “He is a great shooter and that’s what he does.”
Mussini answered some of the questions about how he would handle running the point after classmate Marcus LoVett was ruled a partial academic qualifier by the NCAA days before the opener. LoVett, who will potentially seek legal action against the NCAA, cannot play this season. In his absence, Mussini shot 6-of-11 from the field and 4-for-6 from three. He turned the ball over just three times in 33 minutes.
“I know when I am open I have the shot,” Mussini said. “I just need to shoot with confidence.”
After his late trey, St. John’s went 6-of-7 at the free throw line to seal the win. Mullin took a second to smile, got a pat on the back from associate head coach Barry Rohrssen and a thumbs-up from his former coach Lou Carnesecca after greeting him in the stands.
“I think the lesson [today] is that we’re building this [program] one brick at a time,” Mullin said. “Despite setbacks or good times, we have work to do. What’s going to keep us grounded is that we’re building something.”
Johnson scored 12 points and eight rebounds and Sima Yankuba added eight points and eight rebounds. St. John’s played without senior guard Felix Balamou, who is out indefinitely after an unidentified NCAA violation. Corey Henson led Wagner with 16 points and Dwan Anderson chipped in 11 points and 13 rebounds.
St. John’s ended the first half strong thanks to an offensive flurry from Mussini. The Italian import hit a three and then a pull-up jumper that put the Red Storm up 32-29 with 1:03 to go before the break. The Red Storm pushed the lead to 39-33 early in the second half on the jumper from Sima, but couldn’t build off it.
Five consecutive missed 3-pointers opened the door for Wagner to rally. St. John’s went over four minutes without scoring and Wagner went on an 8-0 run to grab a 41-39 lead with 13:06 left in the game. The Johnnies used a 6-0 spur to go back up 51-46 on a Ron Mvouika put-back. Wagner never got closer than three before Mussini finally put the game out of reach.
“I’m really happy about this game because we won and that’s all that really matters,” Mussini said. “My shots came from my teammates drives, like Durand, who did a great job occupying the defense and finding me open.”
