St. John’s to Close Regular Season at Xavier

QUEENS, N.Y. – Part of a five-way tie for third place in the conference standings entering the final day of the regular season, the St. John's men's basketball team will look to secure the no. 3 seed in next week's BIG EAST Tournament when the Johnnies visit Xavier for a Saturday showdown.

The contest, which will be broadcast live nationally on FOX, is set to tip off at 5 p.m. with Justin Kutcher and Donny Marshall on the call. The game can also be heard over the air in New York City on 970 AM WNYM, as John Minko and Brian Mahoney will narrate the action from Cintas Center.

The Red Storm (20-10, 8-9 BIG EAST) will look to secure its best BIG EAST Tournament seed in nearly two decades with a win. The Johnnies, who will clinch the no. 3 seed with a victory regardless of other outcomes around the league, were last slated that high in the conference tournament in 2000, which coincidentally is also the last time the Red Storm won a BIG EAST crown. With a loss, the Red Storm could still fall as low as the no. 8 seed in next week's college basketball showcase at Madison Square Garden.

Saturday also presents the Red Storm with another opportunity to bolster its NCAA Tournament resume, as the Johnnies will look to improve to 6-5 in Quad One opportunities on the year. Prior to Wednesday night's slew of games, the Johnnies had been 6-4 in Quad One games, but Georgetown falling out of the top 75 and Providence moving into the top 75 shifted the Red Storm's record. The Musketeers fell two spots from no. 70 to no. 72 following their loss at Butler, but maintained Saturday's classification as a Quad One game by staying in the top 75. Xavier (16-14, 8-9 BIG EAST) had won five straight before falling to the Bulldogs inside Hinkle Fieldhouse.

The Johnnies will look to snap a two-game slide when they take the floor in Cincinnati on Saturday, having lost consecutive decisions to Xavier on Feb. 28 and DePaul on March 3. St. John's has not lost three-straight games this season. The Red Storm had a hard time keeping its opponent off the free throw line in those two losses, committing 54 total fouls compared to just 35 for Xavier and DePaul. The Blue Demons attempted 42 free throws, a season high for a St. John's opponent, in that Sunday win. At Carnesecca Arena last Thursday, the Musketeers out-chanced the Red Storm from the charity stripe, 33-5.

Shamorie Ponds is coming off a 29-point performance in the team's loss to DePaul, a contest that saw the Red Storm lead by nine at the intermission before Max Strus, the reigning BIG EAST Player of the Week, scored 36 points in the second half. As a team, the Blue Demons shot 71.4 percent from the floor and tallied 59 points in the latter stanza.

Ponds bumped his career scoring total to 1,795 against DePaul and is currently 15 points shy of tying Zendon Hamilton for sixth on the program's all-time list. On the season, Ponds ranks third in the BIG EAST in scoring at 19.8 points per game while his 5.0 assists per game are good enough for second. Since conference realignment, only two BIG EAST players have finished inside the top three in both scoring and assists over the course of a season: Providence's Bryce Cotton in 2013-14 and Seton Hall Isaiah Whitehead in 2015-16. Both of those players also led their teams to conference tournament titles.

In his first game against Xavier at Carnesecca Arena, LJ Figueroa scored a team-high 23 points on 10-of-16 shooting. The former NJCAA All-American also added five rebounds and four assists. Over his last two games, the Lawrence, Mass., native is averaging 18.0 points per game on 59.3 percent shooting from the floor (16-of-27), including a 73.7 percent mark from inside the three-point arc (14-of-19).

St. John's will look to secure its first win over Xavier of the Chris Mullin Era, as the Musketeers have captured eight-straight victories against St. John's dating back to the start of the 2015-16 season. Last year, Xavier won the BIG EAST Regular Season Championship before receiving a no. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. The Red Storm's last victory in Cincinnati came on Feb. 14, 2015, nine days before the Johnnies completed the season sweep of Xavier with a victory at Madison Square Garden.

The Red Storm will seek to contain Naji Marshall, the Musketeers' leading scorer at 14.9 points per game who posted a career-high 31 his last time out against St. John's. The Johnnies will also look to limit Tyrique Jones, who tallied a double-double with 11 points and 10 boards at Carnesecca Arena. Jones, who leads the conference and ranks 15th nationally with 3.4 offensive rebounds per game, collected six of his 10 boards off the offensive glass on Feb. 28.

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Players Mentioned

LJ Figueroa

Shamorie Ponds

St. John's University Athletics