While the St John's Red Storm have won three in a row, the Georgetown Hoyas are trying to go on a winning streak to close out the season, having already won one game against Seton Hall. These last five games are really important, but the Red Storm has had convincing wins in the three games that they have won. Before the Hoyas win against Seton Hall, they had lost 3 out of 4 games.
The main focus coming into this game for both teams is going on winning streaks and preparing for the Big East tournament. For St John's, they are peaking at the right time, while Georgetown needs to get back to mid-season form when they were on a streak of their own. Going into this game, the Hoyas are projected to win, but St John's is rising to the occasion and the wins that they're getting are not sloppy, which is good. There are three things going into this game to watch out for:
1. Georgetown cannot allow St Johns to score more than 80 points
During their latest winning streak, St John's has scored over 80 points in two out of the three games, which is huge because the offense is starting to click on all cylinders. Also, they're shooting over 50 percent, which is impressive and that probably means a lot of the offense is coming from three of the main players on the team. D'Angelo Harrison has been terrific this season, but the most impressive thing is that he has been assertive and playing defense.
The Hoyas defense needs to be on-point, because if Harrison, Sir'Dominic Pointer and Phill Greene IV get hot, it will be hard for the Hoyas to contain all three of them at once. It will be interesting to see what defense John Thompson III draws up to contain them, because they can not be stopped, so D'Vauntes Smith Rivera has to do a good job at communicating to the team on defense and they need to be aware of all back door cuts and mid range jumpers.
2. Joshua Smith has to dominate Chris Obkepa
Joshua Smith has not been playing to the level that we all know that he can play at because a variety of reasons, but Chris Obkepa will get dominated but if that happens. In that case, Georgetown guards have to find a way to get him the ball early because it will get the offense going as a whole. The one thing that will be interesting is to see how much Obekpa will play because of that ankle injury he has.
Smith has not been looking good because of the foul trouble that he gets into early in the game. If the guards can get him going, it will benefit the offense because it will put the Red Storm in a situation were they will need to decide if they want to focus on Smith being on the block or allow D'Vauntes Smith-Rivera to shoot the ball in transition, which is a strength of his. For this reason, it will be important for Smith to dominate the game early and not wait until the second half.
3. Who will win?
Going into this game, I think Georgetown will win, but it will not be a blowout because if St John's' offense plays like it has been playing the past few games, it might be in the high 80's. Georgetown has to produce on offense and play very good defense. It will be close like the past few games that have been going on in the Big East conference, including Villanova-Butler and Creighton-Butler.
