Mike Anderson Officially Hired to Be New St. John's Head Coach

The St. John's Red Storm have their new head men's basketball coach.

On Friday, the Big East team announced it hired Mike Anderson. 

"My family and I are extremely excited to join the St. John's University community," Anderson said in the announcement. "This basketball program is rooted with such great tradition and it has a history built by legendary coaches, so this is a humbling experience. I look forward to mentoring the young men who will represent St. John's proudly on the court, in the classroom and in our community."

"We’re going to pick them up when they get off the bus," Anderson said Friday, per Adam Zagoria of SNY. "We’re going to press, press, press. You’re going to see a team that’s very entertaining. We’re going to play exciting basketball for two hours" 

This comes after Chris Mullin announced he stepped down from the position in a release on April 9. The Hall of Famer led his alma mater for four seasons and finished with a 59-73 overall record. While the Red Storm finished with a losing record in his first three campaigns, they reached the NCAA tournament in 2019.

Arizona State eliminated Mullin's team in the First Four, capping off a season that saw St. John's finish 9-13 in its final 22 games after a 12-0 start.

The team also went through something of a debacle during the hiring process, as Gary Parrish of CBS Sports highlighted:

Anderson inherits a difficult situation after Mullin's departure for a number of reasons.

Zach Braziller of the New York Post reported junior college prospect Cam Mack asked for a release from his National Letter of Intent, citing the departure of primary recruiter Matt Abdelmassih. Abdelmassih joined the Nebraska Cornhuskers, which means St. John's is now without Mack and one of its top recruiters.

Elsewhere, Shamorie Ponds declared for the NBA draft after he averaged 19.7 points, 5.1 assists, 4.1 rebounds and 2.6 steals per game in 2018-19. He led the Red Storm in all those categories but rebounding and was the primary facilitator, go-to playmaker in crunch time and engine who made the offense go.

Mack figured to be a natural replacement for him, but he will no longer join the roster.

There aren't many reinforcements, either, as the Red Storm's 2019 recruiting class was a mere 99th in the country, per 247Sports' composite rankings.

Anderson faces an uphill climb leading a program that has been to the NCAA tournament just three times since the 2001-02 season. Its last Sweet 16 came back in 1999, and the leading scorer is gone without a notable recruiting class arriving.

It is fair to temper expectations in the immediate future, but the Red Storm surely hope to compete for Big East championships down the line following this hire.

Fortunately for them, Anderson is a proven program builder. His first head coaching job was at UAB for four seasons from 2002 through 2006, and he led the Blazers to three straight NCAA tournament appearances for the first time since the 1980's.

He then spent five years at Missouri, reaching the Big Dance three times and advancing as far as the Elite Eight, and he has been with Arkansas the past eight seasons. The Razorbacks have been to the NCAA tournament in three of the last five years.