College basketball odds, pick, bets

Big East play is the best. 

Rick Pitino’s Red Storm hosts Dan Hurley’s defending national champions Saturday as UConn battles St. John’s at Madison Square Garden. 

The Johnnies need a win. They’ve dropped four of five. 

Meanwhile, Connecticut has stormed to nine straight Big East victories after losing the conference opener to Seton Hall. 

I like backing Pitino in these spots – as a home ‘dog with his back against the wall. But I can’t quite get there with the schematic matchup.

Instead, I think the X’s and O’s point toward a lower-scoring game, where I’m heading for my Duke vs. North Carolina prediction and pick. 

St. John’s vs. UConn prediction

Pitino runs an amorphous matchup zone defense that could work against UConn. 

The Huskies rely heavily on secondary actions to generate offense. Specifically, Hurley runs plenty of off-ball screens, hand-off sets and cutters in the half-court. It’s a complex motion-based offense among the nation’s toughest to stop. 

But a matchup zone neutralizes secondary actions, and Hurley’s offense works best when his off-ball shooters can run off man-to-man screens.

Nationally, the Johnnies allow the 44th-fewest cutting possessions per game (4.7), the 34th-fewest off-ball screen possessions (2.1) and 137th-fewest hand-off possessions (3.1). 

The zone denied those actions in the first meeting.

The Huskies came out with a narrow four-point home win, but they only scored 0.57 PPP on 21 possessions against the Red Storm’s zone, and they managed only five off-ball screen sets, three hand-off sets and 13 cut sets with below-average efficiency (0.9 PPP). 

UConn’s been held under 70 points in only five of 21 games this year, and one was at home against Pitino.

It’s also worth mentioning that UConn’s offensive rating drops about 15 points on the road (115) compared to at home (130) – the Huskies’ motion doesn’t travel well. 

But while I like the Johnnies’ defensive matchup, I don’t feel the same about their offensive one. 

Pitino’s offense is guard-heavy, leveraging the Jordan Dingle-Daniss Jenkins backcourt in perimeter ball-screen sets. If they miss, elite big man Joel Soriano ferociously attacks the offensive glass. 

Unfortunately for Dingle and Jenkins, UConn’s ball-screen defense is elite, especially on the perimeter. The Huskies rank in the top 50 nationally in pick-and-roll ball-handler PPP (0.66) and the top 90 overall (0.95). 

Meanwhile, 7-foot-2 Donovan Clingan anchors a rock-solid defensive rebounding unit, so I don’t expect Soriano to grab enough second-chance opportunities to compensate for his…