St. John’s vs. Northern Iowa Prediction
In the No. 5 vs. No. 12 matchup in the NCAA Tournament East Region, St. John’s vs. Northern Iowa is the first-round game with a trip to the second round on the line.
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How to Watch St. John’s vs. Northern Iowa
When: Friday, March 20th
Where: Viejas Arena in San Diego, California
Watch: TBD
Odds for St. John’s vs. Northern Iowa
(odds current at time of publish)
Spread: St. John’s -9.5 (-110), Northern Iowa +9.5 (-110)
Total: Over 130.5 (-115), Under 130.5 (-105)
St. John’s vs. Northern Iowa Prediction & Preview
Rick Pitino has done something at St. John’s that nobody in Queens has seen in a generation — back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances, back-to-back Big East regular season titles, and the first Big East team ever to win the regular season and conference tournament in consecutive years. That’s a legitimate resume builder for a program that was largely irrelevant before Pitino arrived. Northern Iowa, on the other hand, is back in the Dance for the first time since 2016 after winning four games in four days at Arch Madness as a No. 6 seed, beating the No. 3, No. 2, and No. 5 seeds in the Missouri Valley Tournament. Ben Jacobson did what Jacobson does, and now the Panthers get a date with one of the more decorated programs in this year’s field.
The problem for St. John’s is that we still don’t really know how good they are. Winning the Big East and going 18-2 in conference play sounds dominant until you realize the Big East finished fifth in Bart Torvik’s conference ratings, tied for their lowest finish since 2021. The Red Storm entered the conference tournament with just four Quadrant 1-A data points, and they played exactly one conference game against a team outside the Torvik top 100 — DePaul. Zuby Ejiofor, Bryce Hopkins, Dillon Mitchell, and Oziyah Sellers are real players and the defensive profile is legitimately strong, with St. John’s sitting as a top-40 team in eFG% and TO% and just outside that range in 2P% defense. But the offense is a real concern. St. John’s was below the national average in both 2P% and 3P% shooting, and that’s a troubling data point for a team that built its resume beating up on a weaker-than-usual conference. After getting bounced in the second round as a No. 2 seed last year, a wide range of outcomes feels possible here — including an upset.
Northern Iowa is exactly the kind of team that can make that happen. This isn’t the Panthers’ first rodeo. The program made the NCAA Tournament seven times between 2004 and 2016, including that Ali Farokmanesh team in 2010 that everyone who has ever filled out a bracket still thinks about. It’s been a long drought since, but Jacobson has his team playing its best basketball at exactly the right time. They allowed 59, 52, 69, and 69 points in their four Arch Madness games, and that defensive identity is the backbone of everything UNI does. This year’s squad is actually an even slower version of the Panthers than we’ve seen in recent memory, leaning hard into the things Jacobson has always done well — elite defensive rebounding, ball security, and closing out on the perimeter. They finished top five in 3P% against, a function of a starting lineup where all six primary rotation players are 6-foot-4 or taller. That length creates real problems for offenses that struggle to generate clean looks.
Here’s the thing: St. John’s already struggles to generate clean looks. A below-average shooting team running into a top-25 eFG% defense is not a great equation, and if the Red Storm can’t get to the offensive glass — where they’ve been strong all season — they’re going to find scoring a grind. Northern Iowa’s flaws are real: they’re poor on the offensive glass and have had issues at the free throw line all year. But eight of their 12 losses came by six or fewer points, which tells you this is a team that competes in every game regardless of the opponent. Pitino’s squad may have the bigger names, but Jacobson’s team has the stylistic tools to make this one of the more uncomfortable nights in the first round. Don’t sleep on the Panthers.
Estimated Score: TBD.
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