BIG EAST GAME PREVIEW: St. John's @ West Virginia

January 6, 2007


The Mountaineers wrap up their six game homestand in a match-up of conference unbeatens when they host St. John's Saturday afternoon. The redstorm are coming off a surprising 9-point home win over DePaul, while the Mountaineers are the talk of the conference by opening conference play by beaing Connecticut and Villanova.

St. John's is an interesting case study. In their win over DePaul, 10 players scored, but nobody had more than nine points. Aaron Spears returned from a suspension for violating team rules to score some key baskets and senior Daryll Hill hit some key baskets down the stretch. The Redstorm is athletic and physical and will look to disrupt the flow of the fluid WVU offense.

The Mountaineers have been riding the hot-shooting of Frank Young, the only returning starter for WVU scored 47 pts in the first two league contests and hit eight of 13 3-pt shots in their win over Villanova earlier this week. In that game, the Mountaineers attempted 44 shots in the game, 37 of them were behind the arc.

This Mountaineer team still does not hit the boards much and is a little more prone to turning it over than before. They still utilize the 3-pt shot often and have a bunch of shooters and their 1-3-1 still causes all kinds of confusion. St. John's will scrap with you,but they are prone to poor shooting efforts and turnovers, playing right into the hands of WVU and coach John Beilein.

I think this will be a tight game, as it was last year when they met at Madison Square Garden, but the Coliseum is a tough place to play and WVU heads to the road with another shot of confidence.

NBE Blogger Prediction: West Virginia 63 St. John's 58