NCAAB Odds, Pick for Villanova vs St. John’s

The Big East has some of the richest rivalries and storied traditions in college basketball, thus any game between the Villanova Wildcats and St. John's Red Storm carries plenty of juice.

Wednesday night's matchup, however, has even more riveting storylines than usual. Villanova and St. John's both sit in the middle of the Big East standings, where a win or loss will have a major impact on the trajectory of their season. The race for the top five spots in the Big East — and the ensuing bye in the Big East Tournament quarterfinals — will be hotly contested all year.

Both of these teams are also safely in the NCAA Tournament, with Villanova listed as a 7-seed and St. John's an 8-seed by BracketMatrix. But, the loser of this game will likely take a small hit and sneak closer to the dreaded bubble.

Villanova is having a season that will leave fans, bettors and probably even people inside the program scratching their heads. Villanova ranks in the top 40 nationally on offense and defense. The Wildcats boast impressive wins over North Carolina, Texas Tech, Maryland, Creighton, Memphis and Xavier. They also went winless in Big Five games, earning sixth place in the intra-city competition with losses to Penn, Drexel and St. Joe's.

This team is a mix of homegrown talent and highly productive transfer portal acquisitions. On paper, they should be able to keep pace with the best of the Big East (UConn, Marquette and Creighton). In practice, everything about this team feels a bit disjointed. The Wildcats toss up 3-pointers at one of the highest rates in the country, but only shoot 33.5% (188th-best nationally). Are they shooting too many 3s? Or are they shooting bad 3s? Or are the wrong people taking the 3s? It's all confusing, especially since they lead the nation in free-throw percentage. There's shooting talent here — it's just not leading to consistent offense.

It can't just be as simple as shooting luck, although that clearly is a factor. Villanova is 1-5 when shooting under 31% from 3-point range and 7-1 when shooting 37% or better. When their opponent shoots under 29%, Villanova is 5-0, but when opponents shoot 41% or better, the Wildcats are 0-4.

This team is extremely unpredictable, but is in desperate need of a win. Villanova has lost three of four and is just 2-3 in Big East games if we ignore wins over DePaul, which might as well count as byes.

St. John's was riding high after beating Villanova earlier this season, sitting near the top of the Big East. The Red Storm even avoided a letdown later that week, winning against Providence.

Maybe the letdown was delayed, though, because St. John's has since lost three straight, but I'd be quicker to blame the Big East schedule makers than the Red Storm. The Johnnies had to play at Creighton, at Seton Hall and against Marquette in a span of seven days, all while their head coach and a major contributor (guard Jordan Dingle) battled through COVID-19. All things considered, St. John's put up a good fight through that stretch. Two losses by a single point show just how competitive this team can be against the top teams in the conference.

The emergence of swingman RJ Luis has been a major catalyst for the Red Storm. After missing the first few months of the season with an injury, Luis has been a shot of energy for this team, bringing versatile defense and some downhill scoring punch. Add his contributions to the interior dominance of Joel Soriano and the two-headed perimeter attack from Dingle and Daniss Jenkins, and the resulting attack is tough to stop.

I wrote up the preview the last time these teams met, pointing out that the numbers on paper pointed toward Villanova, while the coaching matchup favored the Johnnies. Ultimately, I failed to take a side and went for the total.

A lot of that analysis holds true here. St. John's determination to attack the paint plays into Villanova's defensive gameplan, plus, St. John's is due for some 3-point shooting regression on the defensive end. The paper says Villanova.

Well, I'm tossing the paper away and daring Kyle Neptune to beat Rick Pitino on the road at Madison Square Garden. Maybe the Wildcats make half their 3s and steal the win, but my money is against it.

Pick: St. John's -3.5 or Better

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