…..Chris Mullin, Bill Wennington, and of course, Lou’s famous sweater. Oh wait. That was
25 odd years ago? Yah; there is that, and how things have changed at St.John’s. But it’s still a quality D-1 hoops name that carries some real live basketball cachet, and this would still be a major Tourney championship scalp to take for such a nubile Hokie hoops team, playing what is really only a Road game. But will we win b’street?
Several things jump out at me right away regarding St.Johns, so let’s use them to set the prediction table for later on:
- St.John’s is 16th in FG% Defense allowed, 33rd in 3-point% allowed, and 43rd in
Blocks. Ergo, this is quite possibly the best defensive team we will play all year (only the Miami Hurricanes are close) - St.John’s has an average ranking, or better, in all 16 catagories that I track, they are the only team I am recall to have this since I’ve been writing for TSL.com, not named UNC. They have the 3 above superlative rankings, and a whole bunch of B+ to B- rankings on their resume. In other words, St.John’s won’t beat themselves, we must beat them ourselves.
- St.John’s is the quintessential extremely balanced offensive team, as the Red-Storm
has 5 different ballers averaging between 10.8 and 11.7 points per game. Or to put it another way…this is a very unselfish basketball squad. (best of the bunch in my book is D.J. Kennedy on the right)
So……..after last nites game, I was pretty sure we were gonna win this Aeropostale Tournament, now I’m pretty sure St.John’s will give us a very good game. They have much more familiarity with playing in MSG, as MSG has been the Red-Storms de facto homecourt for years. I also expect that this conspires to mean that St.John’s gets the benefit of any close-calls in their own backyard. Right now I’d pretty well call this a coin-flip of a game. So I’ll just recycle the 2005 VT vs. St.John’s score, but tighten it up a bit. VT 65, St.John’s 64
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