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