After a week off to rest and take finals for the end of the fall semester, St. John’s will be back on the court for a mid-afternoon matchup with St. Francis Brooklyn of the Northeast Conference. The game is part of a triple header at the new home of the Brooklyn Nets, the Barclays Center. The Brooklyn Hoops Winter Festival will also see match ups of Fordham/Princeton and Michigan/West Virginia. This is a non televised event so make sure to grab a ticket and see this great triple header.
As for the Red Strom and St. Francis, this will be the 77th game in their long history. St. John’s leads the series 64-12 and last year at Carnesecca Arena the Red Storm finished the Terriers off easily with a 63-48 victory. This will be the Red Storm’s first game in Brooklyn since 1958 when they played at Brooklyn College.
Game Information
Date: Saturday, December 15th, 2012
Location: Barclays Center- Brooklyn, New York
Time: 5:00 PM EST
TV: None
Radio: WBBR 1130 AM (John Minko, Tim O’Toole)
St. Francis Brooklyn (2-6, 0-0)
Head Coach: Glenn Braica
The St. Francis Brooklyn Terriers are coming off a loss to Stony Brook at home and are losers of four straight. Glenn Braica’s club has played some quality competition so far this year including Illinois, Norfolk State and Boston College. So far this year Jalen Cannon is stroking it at a 65% clip from the field. The 6-6 forward also averages16 points per game and 9.5 rebounds.
The Terriers are a balanced scoring team with four of their players averaging over 10+ points per game. As a team they shoot it at about 45% from the field and 32% from behind the arch. The Terriers are similar to the Fordham game a week ago in the respects that they are a below average team that will play hard and try to steal one away from the Red Storm.
Projected Starting Lineup:
F Akeem Johnson
F Jalen Cannon
F Kevin Douglas
G Ben Mockford
G Brent Jones
St. John’s (7-3, 0-0)
Head Coach: Steve Lavin
After a week off the Johnnies are ready to get back to work and keep the momentum going before the conference schedule starts. Last game was a rough shooting night for most of the Johnnies. As a team they shot 33% from the field and star sophomore guard D’Angelo Harrison only went 3-12 from the field and 0-5 from three. Freshman forward JaKarr Sampson had another nice game with 16 points and 10 rebound while Chris Obekpa had a St. John’s record 11 blocks in the game.
There are so many ways St. John’s can win a game and the turning point against the Rams came with a steal and breakaway dunk by Sampson. They needed their overall team effort to escape with a win. Now if they can put it all together for a full 40 minutes they can really start to get on a roll. This will be the last game the Johnnies have to play without sophomore point guard Jamal Branch as this is the last game he has to sit out due to transfer rules.
Projected Starting Lineup:
F JaKarr Sampson
F Sir’Dominic Pointer
G Phil Greene
G D’Angelo Harrison
G Felix Balamou
Keys to Victory
- Oblockpa- Chirs Obekpa had a ridiculous 11 blocks against Fordham last Saturday and is one of the nations leaders in that category. If Obekpa can get half of that it should put St. John’s in a good position to win.
- Out hustled, out worked- It seemed like during the Fordham game all the Johnnies were getting out worked and out hustled, especially for rebounds. The small Rams team was able to beat the Storm on the boards 54-40 while Rams big man Ryan Canty collected 16 of his own. This is still a serious problem and it is not encouraging at all.
- Be the aggressor- You’re St. John’s University. You are the Red Storm. You play in the Big East. The Johnnies should be playing with fire and passion, if they do they will be able to easily defeat the Terriers and claim Brooklyn for their own.
- Where Dee goes…- D’Angelo Harrison did not have a good shooting night and the Johnnies still came away with a victory Saturday. That will not often happen in games. Harrison didn’t shoot great in the San Francisco loss either, it’s time to get him going before conference play starts and there is no better time to start then the present.
Final Prediction: St. John’s Wins, 67-57
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