Villanova Wildcats (10-4) vs St. John's Red Storm (10-4)
2024-01-06 13:00:00 EDT
The Line: Betting Odds: Villanova Wildcats -5.5 -- Over/Under: 142.5
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The St. John’s Red Storm and the Villanova Wildcats meet Saturday in college basketball action from the Pavilion. St. John’s is sitting on consecutive wins at 10-4 overall, most recently beating Butler on Tuesday. As for Villanova, they’ve won four straight. The Wildcats’ latest win came versus Xavier. Let’s get into our St. John’s vs. Villanova prediction. Check back all season long for free college basketball picks at Sports Chat Place.
St. John’s Red Storm
The Red Storm posted a 6-2 run over their first eight games, taking losses to only Michigan and Dayton. It’s been a 4-2 stretch for St. John’s since then. The wins have come versus Fordham, Xavier, Hofstra and Butler with losses otherwise versus Boston College and UConn.
In the Butler matchup back on Tuesday, the Red Storm took a 45-38 lead into the second half. St. John’s outscored the Bulldogs 41-32 from there in an 86-70 win. Both Chris Ledlum (13 points; 11 rebounds) and Joel Soriano (14 points; 12 rebounds) doubled up in the victory.
Villanova Wildcats
Over on the Wildcats’ side, they posted a nice 6-1 run over their first seven games of the year with a loss to Pennsylvania as the only blemish. Villanova would lose to Saint Joseph’s, Drexel and Kansas State before wins over UCLA, Creighton, DePaul and Xavier in the next quartet.
Matched up against Xavier on Wednesday, the Wildcats managed a five-point lead by the break. Villanova was outscored 36-32 from there but held on for the win 66-65. Hakim Hart came off the bench to lead the team in scoring with 14 points, five rebounds and three assists.
ANDREW’S FREE ST. JOHN’S VS VILLANOVA PREDICTION
I’ll try St. John’s in this one. We should have a pretty fun matchup on our hands regardless, though. The Red Storm didn’t have a ton of issues against a pretty good Butler team in their last outing, notching 50 percent shooting from the field and a 43-32 rebounding edge. The free throw shooting (12-of-21) wasn’t great, but otherwise it was a nice effort. The Storm have scored 77 or more points in 10 of their last 11 games, so if all goes well we’ll have a pretty high-total finish on Saturday. I like Villanova to hang around and post a solid game themselves, but I don’t think the Wildcats will cover.
