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Image: St. John's Athletics
I have to say, if our teams in the Metro Poll played each other in the style of a real conference, it would yield some pretty interesting results. Until then, I guess we'll just have to stick to our favorite College Hoops Digest ranking system. Here's this week's Metro Poll, along with a recap of some of the biggest moments that influenced it.
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Iona sneaks in past St. John's to take this week's top spot. No surprise really, as their win against 10 Alabama in the ESPN invitational still holds a lot of weight, especially after St. John's tough loss to 4 Kansas on Friday. It'll be interesting to see whether or not Iona snags some Top 25 votes when the AP Poll releases today.
Wagner holds relatively firm in the middle of the table after a tough loss to Seton Hall, but their ability to bounce back against Stony Brook was no doubt impressive.
Will St. Francis win a game in non-con play? The world may never know.
St. John's Takes Down Fordham in Queens
While the final score might not show it, Fordham put up a pretty decent fight against the Johnnies in the first half of their Sunday Night matchup. According to SJU Head Coach Mike Anderson, this game was a "neighborhood brawl," and the third year Red Storm coach had nothing but praise for Kyle Neptune and his vision for Fordham basketball.
St. John's was able to best Fordham while also making some pretty interesting changes to their lineup. The most notable change came when Joel Soriano, a former Fordham Ram, was absent from the starting lineup for the first time this season. He got some decent minutes throughout the game, and provided some very physical defense against his old team, but a lot of his usual court time was instead given to Esahia Nyiwe.
This clearly paid off, as Nyiwe snagged 8 rebounds to go along with 7 points. Dylan Addae-Wusu also got his second start of the year, recording a double-double with 11 points and 11 assists. As we get closer to Big East play, it looks like Mike Anderson will continue to reach deep into his rotation to find success.
Despite the fresh rotation, the Johnnies duo of Posh Alexander and Julian Champagnie looked as fresh as ever, as they each scored 23 and 16 points respectively. Coach Neptune described his team's game plan defensively to mainly be focused around locking down Champagnie, and while he thinks his team did a pretty solid job, Champagnie proved that he's on another level in terms of Big East guard play.