After back-to-back wins, St. John’s now sets their eyes on an inter-borough clash with Fordham. The Red Storm will be looking to make it three in a row, while the Rams will be looking to shake up a three game losing streak.

How to Watch, Listen, or Stream

Game Time: 6:30 p.m. ET

TV: Fox Sports 1 (Rich Ackerman and Donny Marshall)

Radio: 570 AM WMCA (St. John’s), 90.7 FM WFUV (Fordham)

Stream: Fox Sports Go (Where Available)

Gamblin’ Info

Odds: St. John’s open up as 7.5-point favorites via Oddshark

Record ATS: Fordham (2-3), St. John’s (5-4)

O/U: The o/u for this game opened up at 136.

All-Time Series

There is a great amount of history between Fordham and St. John’s. In records dating back to the 1949-50 season, the programs have played each other a grand total of 61 times. For St. John’s, that makes Fordham the ninth-most played opponent and likewise makes St. John’s the fifth-most played opponent in Fordham’s program history. St. John’s holds the series lead at a win-loss record of 50-11. Fordham has never beaten St. John’s in back-to-back seasons. With having won last season’s meeting by a mark of 73-57, the Rams are poised to potentially accomplish this feat.

(info via Sports-Reference)

Three Points of Interest

Former Conference Mates: As previously mentioned, there is a great amount of history between St. John’s and Fordham. In their shared histories, Fordham and St. John’s have been conference mates twice, as a part of the Metro New York Conference and the New Jersey-New York 7 Conference. Both conferences were made up of schools from the Greater New York City Area. The New Jersey-New York 7 Conference led an extremely brief existence from 1976 to 1979 and also included fellow Big East member Seton Hall and former Big East member Rutgers.

The Metro New York Conference began as a ten school conference in 1933 with the Pratt Institute dropping out right away and ended as a five school conference in 1963. Former members include Manhattan College, New York University, and City College of New York, winners of the 1950 NCAA and NIT tournaments. The three aforementioned schools also left an indelible mark in college basketball history when they were all Metro New York Conference members with the 1950-51 points shaving scandal which affected seven schools in total across the country.

Interestingly enough, both this game and the next one on the schedule for Fordham and St. John’s are local meetings and former conference match-ups. Following this clash between the Rams and the Red Storm, St. John’s next game is against Long Island University and Fordham will be taking on Manhattan.

Other Options: Marcus LoVett sat out last game with an ankle injury and might miss this game against the Rams. While the potential loss of LoVett for another game is not great for the Red Storm, it does allow for Chris Mullin to get creative with his guards. Most likely, Shamorie Ponds will be the focal point with Federico Mussini and Bashir Ahmed being he secondary options on offense for the Red Storm, and Malik Ellison be the man off the bench. Ahmed posted a mark of 13 points and eight rebounds in St. John’s win over Cal State. Ellison also had a big game against the Matadors, scoring a season-high 10 points.

Getting Defensive: Last time out for St. John’s saw them make strides on defense that had been glaring marks in previous games. Most notable was the ability to get back on defense in transition, and the adoption of a zone defense after the first timeout. The zone did force the hand of Cal State and did bring a level of comfort to St. John’s as well. It might be something for the Red Storm to try again in this game against a faltering Fordham side. The most important improvement, that will hopefully be worked on in this game, will be getting set on the transition. When St. John’s gets that right, it makes their game click for the better.