There really is not much left to say at this point regarding the St. John’s Red Storm. They sit at the bottom of the Big East standings with South Florida, which should make for an interesting battle of the last place teams on Saturday down in Tampa. With an overall record of 7-11, the Johnnies hold the worst winning percentage of any team in the Big East. This program continues to become more and more meaningless to the rest of the college basketball world by the day. For the first time this season, I did not even bother to watch the 2nd half of the Louisville game. As a student of this school and longtime fan of this basketball team, I am truly embarrassed.
At the top of the Big East standings sit the Georgetown Hoyas. John Thompson III has his team playing great basketball, as they are currently 6-1 in conference and 16-2 overall. After hanging on to beat the Moutaineers by 1 point in Morgantown on Saturday, the Hoyas jumped from #9 to the #6 team in both national polls. The only two losses suffered by Georgetown were at Memphis back in December and at Pittsburgh 2 weeks ago. And although the Hoyas are the best team in the Big East, they are only winning games in conference by an average of 8 points. To me this tells you two things; from top to bottom this is the most competitive conference in college basketball AND Georgetown has the experience, talent, and composure to win close games.
This match up on paper clearly does not look good for the Johnnies. We saw what happened last week when Pittsburgh came into the Garden and wiped the floor with us, even without 2 of their best players. It would seem the same should happen Wednesday night, especially since St. John’s has no answer for the man in the middle, Roy Hibbert. Additionally, the Hoyas are very comfortable playing and winning on the Garden floor. They defeated the Johnnies by a score of 72-48 last season at MSG, and then went on to win the Big East Tournament by defeating Pittsburgh 65-42. My only hope is that St. John’s does get blown out early and can hang around long enough to make things interesting. If they can’t do that, I have little motivation to get on that E train and make the trip into Manhattan. SEE YOU AT THE GARDEN, MAYBE.
On Wednesday January 30th, the Red Storm of St. John’s University will take on the Hoyas of Georgetown University. The game will be played at Madison Square Garden, with tip-off scheduled for 7:00 PM. This Big East contest can be seen on FSNY and heard live on WFAN 660-AM.
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