Georgetown vs St. John’s Pick & Prediction: Blowout in NY

The Georgetown Hoyas are in a desperate place under first-year head coach Ed Cooley. They're 2-17 in the Big East and round off league play on the road at St. John’s.

Per Joe Lunardi’s latest Bracketology, St. John's is on the inside looking out of the NCAA tournament. The Johnnies would potentially be playing the First Four, so they can't afford to lose this game.

Here's a Georgetown vs St. John's pick and prediction for Saturday.

The Hoyas are a moderately decent 3-point shooting team. They have four shooters hitting above 35% from outside, which is why the team is shooting a touch above 34%.

St. John’s is allowing opponents to shoot over 33% from 3, so this could be an area of concern.

The Red Storm leave opposing players open from the perimeter, but as long as Rick Pitino's club can limit the number of attempts, this will cut into Georgetown’s only small offensive success.

The Hoyas are a decent offensive rebounding team, ranking in the top 55 in the country. St. John’s struggles on the defensive glass, but the Red Storm are one of the best offensive rebounding teams in the nation.

Expect plenty of put-back opportunities for both squads, with Joel Soriano and Chris Ledlum leading the charge.

The Hoyas have a tendency to get to the free-throw line more often than St. John’s. That said, it doesn't happen all too often, so the Red Storm should be able to negate this by simply playing at home.

On the other side of the floor, St. John’s does a good job of forcing turnovers and taking care of the ball. Georgetown is awful on both offense and defense in this regard.

In addition, Georgetown is one of the worst teams in the country at defending in transition, so this should open up a bevy of opportunities for the Red Storm to push the pace and manufacture buckets after the Hoyas make a mistake.

As much as it goes against the logic of modern basketball, St. John’s launches a good number of mid-range jumpers. Yes, this is typically an inefficient shot, however, Georgetown is one of the worst teams at defending the mid-range.

Simply put, this inefficient process employed by the Red Storm may play to their advantage against the Hoyas.

St. John’s doesn't shoot many 3-pointers, so the Hoyas need to be ready to defend the interior. Overall, St. John’s doesn't rank well in finishing at the rim, per ShotQuality. However, Georgetown is far worse.

Given how often St. John’s takes the ball inside, this will be a massive gap between the two teams. The Hoyas are allowing opponents to shoot 57.2% from 2-point range. Not being able to defend the mid-range — or any shot inside the arc for that matter — will lead to Georgetown’s demise in this outing.

St. John’s is the better team and should notch a much-needed victory going into the Big East tournament.

The Red Storm shouldn't have much of an issue scoring, so expect them to win by a landslide.

Georgetown’s defense is simply abhorrent.

Take St. John’s to -21.

Pick: St. John's -16.5 (Play to -21)

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