St. John’s plays host to Columbia on Wednesday

St. John’s excellent start to the season hit a snag over the weekend with a 70 to 68 loss to the Vermont Catamounts. Some great shooting from Vermont’s Anthony Lamb helped to hand the Johnnies their first loss on the season and some reassessment heading into the next game.

Now at 3-1 on the season St. John’s now turns their attention to a inter-borough clash as the Red Storm play host to the Columbia Lions. This will be the seventeenth time that both programs will be facing off against each other, with the first meeting coming in the 1967-68 season. Columbia won that game by a score of 60 to 55 and since then has only won once more against the Johnnies, with St. John’s taking home a win the other fourteen other times. The last meeting was during the 2013-14 season.

So far this season the Lions are sitting on a 1-3 record with their only win on the season coming against Binghamton. Despite the poor record so far they have played teams close with their first two games losing by only a margin of two points against Lafayette and Wake Forest. As expected they lost their last game, which came against reigning NCAA champs Virginia.

Mike Smith is the one to watch on the Lions as he is leading Columbia in points per game with a mark of 20.0 and assists per game at 4.8. Outside of Smith, Columbia’s roster does not present many other threats, though forward Ike Nweke is leading in rebounds per game at 6.2.

In all, if St. John’s can learn from the mistakes of last game and can continue to get a well rounded approach. The Johnnies should win this one, and, as expected Mustapha Heron and LJ Figueroa most likely will keep up their play. In all, it should a be good game for St. John’s to get things back on track after their loss to a pretty great Vermont team.

How to Watch & Odds

Time: 7:00 PM ET

TV: FS1

Stream: Fox Sports Go (Where available)

Spread: St. John’s (-8.5)