The Seton Hall Pirates (14-4) and St. John’s Red Storm (13-5) are set to face off on Tuesday night, going head-to-head at Madison Square Garden. The Big East showdown will tip off at 7 p.m. EST on FS1.
The Red Storm are 10.5-point favorites at home with -625 Moneyline odds and the total has been set at 145.5 points. Here is a preview of the conference matchup featuring odds and lines from DraftKings Sportsbook.
Seton Hall vs. St. John’s Preview, Prediction
Seton Hall Preview
The Pirates opened the season by running the table against five low-major opponents at home. Seton Hall finished third in the Maui Invitational, beating then-No. 23 NC State and Washington State but losing to USC, before additional wins over Kansas State and Rutgers. In the early goings of Big East action, the Pirates lost to Villanova and beat Providence, Villanova, Marquette, Creighton and Georgetown. They went 0-2 last week, falling to both No. 3 UConn and Butler at home.
Miami (FL) transfer A.J. Staton-McCray and Merrimack transfer Adam Clark make up Seton Hall’s starting backcourt. The former is averaging 11.9 points per game on 35.3% three-point shooting, while the latter averages 10.4 points, 4.7 assists and 2.0 steals per game. Tajuan Simpkins provides reinforcements off the bench, averaging 10.1 points per game on .454/.396/.831 shooting splits. While Jacksonville transfer forward Stephon Payne III is just 6-foot-8, he is averaging 6.9 points, 7.2 rebounds and 1.4 blocks per game. The Pirates have 6-foot-10 center Najai Hines coming off the bench, putting up 7.4 points, 6.3 rebounds and 2.4 blocks a night.
Seton Hall ranks No. 8 in points against per game, No. 10 in blocks per game and No. 16 in steals per game, holding teams to a bottom-25 field goal percentage. Offensively, however, the Pirates rank No. 238 in assists per game, No. 276 in points per game, No. 316 in two-point percentage and No. 330 in three-point percentage.
The Pirates rank No. 50 in the updated KenPom ratings, boasting the No. 144 adjusted offense and No. 10 adjusted defense. As for the NET rankings, Seton Hall comes in at No. 48, going 1-2 against Quad 1, 4-2 against Quad 2, 2-0 against Quad 3 and 7-0 against Quad 4. Tuesday’s game at St. John’s constitutes a Q1 matchup.
St. John’s Preview
The Red Storm did not play a single true road game during nonconference play, beating up on mid-majors, Ole Miss and DePaul at home. They lost to No. 15 Alabama, No. 15 Iowa State, No. 21 Auburn and Kentucky at neutral sites, only beating Baylor at the Players Era Festival. Since the start of their Big East slate, St. John’s is 4-0 on the road and 1-1 at home, beating Georgetown, Butler, Creighton, Marquette and Villanova while losing to Providence by six.
Forward Zuby Ejiofor is the Red Storm’s leading scorer, rebounder and shot blocker with 16.2 points, 7.4 boards and 2.0 rejections per game. His 53.8% field goal percentage is also the best in the conference. Providence transfer Bryce Hopkins, Stanford transfer Oziyah Sellers and North Carolina transfer Ian Jackson are getting similar usage, each averaging between 11.1 and 13.6 points per game on at least 8.6 field goal attempts a night. Cincinnati transfer forward Dillon Mitchell recently snatched Arizona State transfer guard Joson Sanon’s spot in the starting lineup, adding 8.6 points and 6.4 rebounds per game to the equation. Sellers, Jackson, Sanon and Lefteris Liotopoulos are Rick Pitino’s most prolific three-point shooters, but Liotopoulos hasn’t carved out a consistent role in the rotation.
St. John’s ranks No. 10 in free throws, No. 17 in blocks, No. 31 in offensive rebounds and No. 31 in points on a per-game basis. They also force the 28th-most turnovers per game in the country.
Per the latest KenPom ratings, the Red Storm rank No. 26 on offense, No. 20 on defense and No. 20 overall. They come in at No. 23 in the NET, going 4-4 against Quad 1, 1-0 against Quad 2, 4-1 against Quad 3 and 4-0 against Quad 4. Tuesday’s game versus Seton Hall constitutes a Quad 2 matchup.
Seton Hall vs. St. John’s Pick, Best Bet
Of the Pirates’ 11 games against high-major competition, eight have failed to reach 146 total points. The same goes for six of their seven Big East contests thus far. The Red Storm, meanwhile, have gone over 145.5 points in each of their last six games and 10 of their 13 games against high-major opponents. Even their last game, a road showdown with the glacially paced Villanova squad, reached 165 total points. Seton Hall boasts the second-strongest defense St. John’s has played this season, but they notably dropped 82 points against a top-10 defense in Iowa State back in November.
St. John’s is 8-5 against high-major competition, only winning by 11-plus points in six of those eight wins. None of those have come at MSG, while three of them have come against teams outside the KenPom top-100 in Georgetown, DePaul and Marquette. Seton Hall is a top-70 team in the KenPom, against whom the Red Storm have covered a -10.5-point spread just three out of 10 times.
Seton Hall has only lost by double digits once all season, and it was their most recent game against Butler. They only lost by five to UConn, and although that was at home, they are a perfect 4-0 on the road and 6-1 outside of New Jersey this season. Even if the score starts to crawl higher, expect the Pirates to muck it up and hang in this one.
