BIG EAST GAME PREVIEW: ST. JOHN'S @ GEORGETOWN

February 27, 2008


Georgetown looks to continue their quest for a Big East regular season championship and can not afford to slip up with Marquette and Louisville remaining on the schedule after tonight's meeting with St. John's.

For the Redstorm, another disappointing season winds down. After a three game winning streak provided some hope for this year and the future, SJU has lost four straight, scoring just 51 points a game and losing by an average margin of 18.5 PPG.

Here are the local media pregame stories and previews on the game:

Redstorm Can't Match Hoyas' Rise
Too Soon For St. John's to Quit on Norm Roberts (Staten Island Advance)
A Young Hoya Drives With a Steady Hand (Washington Post)
Georgetown is Next on Storm's Horizon (NY Post)

Goergetown and St. John's, longtime rivals and original cornerstone members of the Big East conference, met earlier this season in Madison Square Garden and the opposite directions both programs have moved in has never been so obvious. Georgetown, on the home floor of the Redstorm, handed SJU their worst Big East loss ever in a 74-42 defeat. The score was 41-14 at the half!

John Thompson III and Norm Roberts were hired to restore their programs' good names. Georgetown was in the Final Four last season, St. John's looks like their will miss the Big East Tournament for the third time in the last four seasons. Not the direction the SJU fans were hoping for.

Georgetown is a 17-pt favorite tonight, and again, I see St. John's struggling to score points against the Hoyas. Georgetown's defense stifled the Redstorm in the earlier meeting, holding them to 10 field goals in the entire game.

Offensively, Georgetown can come at you in many directions, Jesse Sapp is strong in the open floor, Jonathan Wallace can spot up and hit the three-pointer, DaJuan Summers is bursting with potential as an inside/out offensive threat and Big East Preseason Player of the Year Roy Hibbert mans the middle. Freshman Austin Freeman provides another new element to the mix as a scorer and off the bench comes Patrick Ewing Jr and Vernon Macklin, along with Jeremiah Rivers. The options to put the ball in the basket are endless.

For St. John's, they are not so lucky. Their offense basically starts and stops with Anthiny Mason Jr. Although, when Mason was injured, the 'Storm reeled off three straight wins, two with him unavailable and the first one with him limited because of injury. In his place, sophomore Larry Wright looked to regain some of the form that had people excited about him as a freshman and other players became more involved. However, they are in another swwon with a four-game losing streak and hardly competitive for LONG stretches in each game.

Again, Georgetown will score snough and St. John's will not. The Hoyas could very well be looking ahead to their tough close to the Big East schedule, but on their home floor, they should have an easy time with the Redstorm.

NBE Blogger Prediction: Georgetown 74 St. John's 55

BIG EAST GAME PREVIEW: MARQUETTE @ ST. JOHN'S

February 20, 2008


Marquette has won two in a row impressively and now they head out on the road to take on St. John's. The Redstorm have followed their three-game winning streak with back-to-back losses where they scored a combined 85 points.

Here are the local media previews and game stories on tonight's contest:

Stepping into the Fray (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)
Storm Read for a Rumble (NY Post)

The Golden Eagles are coming off their punishing of Pittsburgh Friday night and now look to finish the Big East schedule strong. It was an up and down first 2/3 of the conference schdule for Tom Crean's club, but wins over Seton Hall and Pitt in impressive fashion look to have righted the MU ship.

St. John's, well...their young squad has certainly taken their lumps. A three-game winning streak over South Florida, Rutgers and Providence showed the team is capable of gutting out a few wins, but their last two have been more of the same. Their young squad is very prone to horrendous offensive play against solid defensive teams, so the ball pressure that Marquette will apply will make scoring a very difficult chore for the 'storm tonight.

Marquette definitely is not the prettiest team to watch. They extend ball pressyre with physical guards. Not a great shooting team by any means, Marquette likes to attack the basket for their points in transition or in the halfcourt. A team in a zone with long and athletic players could give them fits (Louisville, UConn), but that is not the make-up of St. John's.

Marquette is about an 8-pt favorite, and with how difficult it will be for SJU to score points, I think the Golden Eagles cruise past that number.

NBE Blogger Prediction: Marquette 70 St. John's 58

BIG EAST GAME PREVIEW: ST. JOHN'S @ CINCINNATI

February 13, 2008


The theme continues tonight with Cincinnati looking to avenge an early defeat on the road to St. John's. The Redstorm beat Mick Cronin's Bearcats 70-58 earlier this season in Queens and now UC will look to even the season series at home.

Here are the local media pregame previews and stories on tonight's match-up:

Cronin Finds Kindrid Spirit (Cincinnati Enquirer)


Don't look now, but Norm Roberts and St. John's blow into Cincinnati riding a three game winning streak. Two of those wins have come on the road (South Florida and Rutgers) and their last two, including a thrilling win over Providence on Saturday, have come with leading scorer Anthony Mason out with an ankle injury.

While Mason has been out, the Redstorm have seem the re-emergence of shooting guard Larry Wright. The sophomore scored 16 in the win over PC and is averaging over 14 in the three-game winning streak.

Prior to the three-game rally, St. John's only had one conference victory, and that came over the Bearcats early in January. Since that game, the Redstorm has been a team languishing near the bottom of the standing fighting for a bid to the Big East Tournament at Madison Square Garden while the Bearcats have stayed around the upper half of the standings. Sitting at 6-5 with home games against St. John's and South Florida in their next two games, the Bearcats can solidify their position with a win tonight.

The Redstorm have picked it up on the defensive end of the court and they have the ability to be a tough defensive team. Sometimes it takes time for a young group to learn to maintain that intensity on defense, but over the last three games they seem to be coming around.

Cincinnati is also winning games in a similar fashion. They are not going to score a lot of points on most nights and rely on Deonta Vaughn a great deal for their offense. John Williamson is a tough forward as well. This promises to be a low-scoring affair and could come down to the wire.

The Bearcats are 6.5-pt favorites and should be able to pull it out in the end, but a confident SJU squad is likely to give them a tough battle as St. John's looks to sweep the season series.

NBE Blogger Prediction: Cincinnati 64 St. John's 59

BIG EAST GAME PREVIEW: PROVIDENCE @ ST. JOHN'S

February 9, 2008


The Provience Friars travel to New York City to take on the St. John's Redstorm in a Big East conference showdown Saturday afternoon. Just one game seperates the two teams in the conference standings and that one game could be the deciding factor between participation in the Big East Conference Tournament or staying home in March.

St. John's has come back to life a bit with wins over South Florida and Rutgers in the last week. Although those wins do not really mean a whole lot, since they were the two teams below SJU in the standings, they both did come on the road and has put St. John's in position to challenge for a spot in the conference's Garden Party next month.

The most impressive item out of their two wins was that the victory against Rutgers came without the services of their best player, Anthony Mason Jr, who missed the contest with an ankle injury.

Against Rutgers, St. John's was not pretty, winning 52-45, but they hunkered down on defense, hit the boards hard and scrapped their way to a win. They have players who are athletic and strong, just not overly skilled on offense. After being beaten badly in their previous three games, they have turned things around and now have a chance to pick up more steam at home.

Providence needed a 2nd half rally to save, at least momentarily, their season. While dropping four consecutive games to drop to 3-6 in the Big East, pressure was mounting as fans were getting louder and louder with their 'Fire Welsh' chants in reference to PC head coach Tim Welsh. In 10 seasons as the Friars' head coach, Welsh has no wins in the NCAA Tournament. This was the year they hoped would change that, but a preseason injury to Sharaud Curry has limited the point guard to just 8 minutes all season and he is officially out for the year.

Without Curry, PC has been VERY inconsistent offensively. They rely on the perimeter shooting touch of Dwain Williams, Brian McKenzie and Jeff Xavier for most of their offense. Geoff McDermott battles a sore knee to play the forward spot and the effecient Randall Hanke makes good of his opportunities, but he has a tendency to be pushed around the post too often.

With the lack of a true point guard, the Friars are not able to consistently distribute the ball to make scoring easier for their players. They will pressure St. John's with their outside shooting and if Weyinmi Efejuku can give Tim Welsh what he is looking for in terms of consistent effort, the Friars should have too many offensive options for SJU.

The Redstorm was effective packing it in against the poor shooting Scarlet Knights on Wednesday, but that strategy will be hard to execute against a better shooting Providence club. Freshman Justin Burrell is an athletic forward who faces an interesting battle against McDermott. Larry Wright has had a disappointing season as a sophomore for the 'Storm, but he is capable of scoring, if Mason Jr. is out or limited because of his ankle, they will need Wright to provide some scoring punch, otherwise, it will be very tough for SJU to score points, even against a defense that allows a lot of them.

With Mason being an unknown, I have to side with the deeper and better shooting Friars in this one.

NBE Blogger Prediction: Providence 67 St. John's 58

BIG EAST GAME PREVIEW: ST. JOHN'S @ SOUTH FLORIDA

February 2, 2008



Not much really to talk about this game as two teams likely heading nowhere meet in South Florida. To me, the Bulls are possibly the most disappointing team in the conference as they do have the talent to be doing more. Kentrell Gransberry is a load inside and Dominique Jones put up some good numbers earlier this year against solid competition. The Bulls have some more experience and being on their home court should result in a win.

St. John's is reeling right now. Their offense is atrocious and Anthony Mason Jr looks to be the only players capable right now of scoring against Big East competition. They are inexperienced and lack offensive talent. They do have some athleticism, but the season is quickly getting out of control.

NBE Blogger Prediciton: South Florida 70 St. John's 59