Pick Your Poison

The Big East Tournament has arrived and St. John’s finds themselves in an unfamiliar spot; a single bye in the tournament which means there are two teams competing before playing the Red Storm on Wednesday at 2pm at MSG. The winner of Rutgers and Seton Hall will play St. John’s the following day in the tournament.

St. John’s beat Rutgers in a nail biter at Carnesseca Arena and St. John’s lost to Seton Hall on the road just last week. So who would St. John’s rather see Wednesday afternoon?

Rutgers

Last time St. John’s faced Rutgers the game came down to a Justin Brownlee lay-up with 3 seconds left in the game to get the Red Storm a 58-56 win over the Scarlet Knights. Dwight Hardy led the way scoring 15 points and Jonathan Mitchell was the high man for Rutgers with 21 points. Rutgers out shot St. John’s 47.6% to 36.7% and also hit 7 three’s compared to St. John’s 2. The Scarlet Knights out rebounded the Red Storm 30-21 and blocked more shots, 8-1. In addition to having 16 assist on 20 made field goals while St. John’s only managed 6 assists on 18 made field goals.

Looking at these numbers you would figure Rutgers should have won this game, not lost, but here are the numbers that favored St. John’s. The Red Storm stole the ball 14 times while only allowing Rutgers 5 thefts. Rutgers turned the ball over 23 times compared to St. John’s 10. The Scarlet Knights committed 23 personal fouls sending St. John’s to the free throw line 31 times compared to their 14 attempts.

This game was a fairly even games with both teams having pro’s and con’s.

Why would St. John’s want to face Rutgers again?

St. John’s has had a tendency to play it’s best basketball this season at Madison Square Garden. Rutgers kept the score close due to Robert Lumpkins having a career day in the final minutes sinking three straight three pointers. Lumpkins averaging just 3.7 points a game didn’t score more then four points in his remaining 8 games. Another good thing for St. John’s is that Rutgers has been on a terrible stretch in their past 8 games winning only two (DePaul and Villanova) while falling to the likes of Seton Hall and Providence.

Seton Hall

The potential match up of Seton Hall would give St. John’s for a chance for revenge against the metro rival after their 84-70 loss last week. Head Coach, Steve Lavin, was ejected from the game for continuing to question an overturned foul call that changed the momentum of the game. Senior forward, Justin Burrell, also earn an ejection after an intentional flagrant foul with seconds left in the game. The Red Storm need to look for redemption more so then revenge.

Dwight Hardy paced St. John’s scoring 23 points on 9-21 shooting and Jeremy Hazell had a game high with 31 points.

The Pirates connected on 12 three pointers while shooting a remarkable 66.7% from beyond the arc. St. John’s shot 40.4% from the floor while only shooting 3-12 from three. Seton Hall had 17 assists on 27 made field goals while St. John’s only had 3 assists on 21 made field goals. Eerily similar to the game against Rutgers, St. John’s didn’t play their brand of unselfish basketball. This time though, the Red Storm weren’t as fortunate with the outcome.

A bright spot for St. John’s was that they forced 18 turnovers and went to the free throw line 33 times converting 25 of them shooting 75.8%.

This game really came down to Seton Hall getting into the heads of the Red Storm something Hazell said the Pirates wanted to do.

“Coming in we knew we were playing the Johnnies and we knew it was going to be a metropolitan area rivalry so we just wanted to come out with the win so we could be the big-time guys in the metropolitan area,” said Jeremy Hazell, “And our guys came out and played great and we stuck it to them and came out victorious.”

Why would St. John’s want to face Seton Hall again?

After beating St. John’s, Seton Hall finished their regular season with a win over Marquette. The Pirates shot very well from down town again making 12 three point baskets. So why would St. John’s want to get this win? These seniors have been on a mission to right all their wrongs this season and getting another chance at the Pirates plays right into their psyche. Though Seton Hall has been hot in their past two games from three, as a team they only shoot 30.7% which puts them second to last in the conference only ahead of South Florida. They are last in the conference in field goal percentage at 46.4%. Chalk up the regular season loss to a rare streaky night for Seton Hall.

Steve Lavin will have the Red Storm mentally prepared to play either team but if I to chose I’d vote to play Seton Hall. If you want to be the best, you have to beat the teams that are playing well. The road to March Madness has been paved but success comes from taking the road less traveled.