The St. John’s basketball team is riding high after its victory over No. 24 Creighton.
It secured a two-game lead in the Big East standings with five games remaining on its schedule and a rivalry game looms on Sunday afternoon inside Madison Square Garden against UConn.
However, a matchup with conference basement dweller DePaul comes first on Wednesday night for the No. 10 Red Storm (22-4, 13-2 Big East). The Johnnies have very little to gain and a lot to lose when taking the court in Chicago.
The regular season conference championship is St. John’s to lose at this point in the season, but slipping up against the Blue Demons puts Marquette, UConn, and Creighton right back in the race to earn at least a share of the title.
Rick Pitino started focusing his team on DePaul minutes after the Red Storm walked off the floor against the Bluejays, highlighting Seton Hall’s stunning upset over the Huskies on Saturday.
“All I’ll say to you is Connecticut Seton Hall,” the Hall of Famer said after the 79-73 victory by the Johnnies. “We can go to DePaul, lose, and all this hard work [goes] down the drain.”
“Anybody in this conference could beat anybody.”
DePaul (11-15, 2-13 Big East), despite its record, has seen a lot of improvement under Chris Holtmann this season and had bright spots with chances to land major upset victories over Marquette – leading by five with 30 seconds remaining in overtime – and UConn – holding 14-point lead on the road in the first half.
It’s only conference wins came against a severely undermanned Georgetown squad on the road and a home victory over Seton Hall.
“Each and every game we play, [Coach Pitino] tells us it’s the biggest game of the season, just because we do have the target on our back being in that number one spot,” Deivon Smith said.
“So, we're going to get each and everybody's best shot because beating us can change the narrative for a lot of teams.”
Tipoff is scheduled for 9:00 p.m. ET (FS1) inside Wintrust Arena.