St. John’s Red Storm at Louisville Cardinals, KFC Yum! Center, Louisville, KY
Wednesday, January 19, 2011, 7:00 pm Eastern, TV: ESPN3
Opening Line: Louisville -8.5
Current Line: Louisville -7
Opening Total: 142
Current Total: 141
Money Line: Louisville -320 / St. John’s +260
The 19th-ranked Louisville Cardinals (14-3, 3-1 Big East) needed a miraculous finish for their last home victory and hope to avoid that scenario on Wednesday when they host the St. John’s Red Storm (11-5, 4-2). The Cardinals (-7) overcame an 18-point deficit in the final six minutes on Saturday against Marquette, outscoring the Golden Eagles 24-5 down the stretch to pull off a 71-70 win.
Kyle Kuric scored the game-winning basket for Louisville with four seconds left to beat Marquette and finished with 10 points. Preston Knowles led the Cardinals with 17 points while Stephen Van Treese added 10. Now they will try to beat a St. John’s team that shocked them 74-55 a year ago. Samardo Samuels was the only player to score in double figures in that game with 18 points.
Louisville will face a much better team this time around than the Red Storm who finished 17-16 overall and 6-12 in the Big East last season after a loss at Memphis in the first round of the NIT. New head coach Steve Lavin has injected some energy into his squad despite the fact that they have lost two of their last three after getting off to a 3-0 start in conference play.
St. John’s is coming off a huge 72-54 win over Notre Dame on Sunday which followed a home loss to Syracuse and a road loss against the Fighting Irish. D.J. Kennedy and Malik Boothe powered the Red Storm with 14 points apiece while Dwight Hardy scored 12 and Justin Brownlee added 11. As a team, they held a 31-21 rebounding edge and held Notre Dame to 41 percent shooting from the field, down 10 percent from the previous meeting.
The Cardinals also rebounded from a loss in their latest win, as they fell 88-74 at Villanova before beating Marquette. Sophomore point guard Peyton Siva was benched in favor of freshman Elisha Justice during the comeback against the Golden Eagles after turning the ball over four times and missing all five of his shots. This proves Pitino is not afraid to shake things with his young team and will be something to watch as they try to make it two in a row against St. John’s.
Louisville had won the previous four meetings with the Red Storm prior to last year and has failed to cover three of the last four meetings along with five of seven. The UNDER is 4-1 in the past five games between the teams.
If you are betting this Big East college basketball game between Louisville & St. John’s, be sure to check out the winning basketball picks packages we offer. You can also get free winners on our free NCAA basketball picks page.
