The St. John’s Preview

DePaul Travels to New York to Have a Vincentian Throwdown

The Setup

DePaul plays the St. John’s Red Storm on Saturday, 1/6/2018 at 1:00 pm Central at Carnesecca Arena in Queens, NY.  It will be carried on UTOOH Channel 230 on Comcast) and on the Score (Radio 670).

St. John’s comes into the game with 10 wins and 5 losses.  Like your DePaul Blue Demons the Red Storm has started off 0-3 in Big East Conference games

Gambling Corner

Vegas will has St. John’s favored by 9.5.  Kenpom expects St. John’s to win by 9.

Recent History

St. John’s swept DePaul last year.  Last time DePaul won in this series was February 25th, 2016.   Since the forming of the new Big East in 2014, these teams have split every year, with the exception of last year.  This has been DePaul’s most competitive rival.

Fun Facts

There are only 2 Vincentian Divison 1 teams (followers of St. Vincent DePaul’s missionary work), St. John’s and DePaul.  These are truly sister colleges.  St. John’s was founded before DePaul University.

St. John’s 1985 Final Four Run

Current Coach Chris Mullin was the star of the 1984-85 St. John’s Redmen.  The Redmen only lost 4 games the entire season.  The really, really hated Georgetown that year.  3 of their losses, including the National Semi-Final were to the Hoyas.  Of course the Hoyas lost to yet another Big East team, Villanova, in one of the biggest upsets in College Basketball Championship history.

Religious affiliation:  Vincentian

 The Current Flavor of the Red Storm

St. John’s is an elite defensive team, 27th most efficient.  They pressure their opponents into turnovers.  The cause the 3rd most turnovers per possession in D1.  They block a ton of shots, funneling players into their waiting Center, Tariq Owens, who blocks at the 4th highest rate in the country.  They also steal the ball at the 8th highest rate in the country.

Their offensive is more in line with how the DePaul offense functions.  The Red Storm does not turn the ball over (51st out of 351), does not have a lot of steals from them (36th out of 351) , and they do not get blocked (47th out of 351).  They do shoot free-throws well.

However, they are below average at shooting from 3pt land (226th) and from the rest of the field (245th).

Who Should Scare the Blue out of Us?

Hard to say.  They are relatively balanced.  On the defensive end, the Demons should be weary of 6′ 11″ Tariq Owens, the human rejection machine.

Then again, you have Shamorie Ponds and Justin Simon who are both nationally ranked on creating steals.

This is a good all around team whose strength lies on the defensive end.

Quick Note

If DePaul had a true point guard, I would think this would be a winnable game.  However, we all know that the Demons are missing one of those.  I am kind of frightened as to how DePaul is going to operate on offense.

How does DePaul Matchup?

Let’s go to the tail of the tape.

Offense

If you get disappointed by DePaul’s poor 3pt. shooting, you will realize that St. John’s is just as bad.  If you are annoyed at how poorly DePaul shoots from the field, you will realize the Red Storm is slightly better.

Advantage:  These are 2 highly flawed offenses, St. John’s is slightly better

Defense

St. John’s is an elite defensive team that either steals or blocks their opponents shots and create the 3rd highest rate of turnovers in the country.

Advantage:  St. John’s

In Conclusion

These teams mirror each other in many ways.  However, St. John’s is a better version of DePaul on all fronts.  Both teams shoot poorly from 3pt land and 2pt land, but the Red Storm shoots better in both cases.  Both teams have above average defenses, but St. John’s defense is elite, and DePaul is the 100th best.

At the end of the day, St. John’s wins.