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| Tuesday, January 14, 2014 When: 7:00 PM Eastern St. John's Red Storm (9-6, 0-3 Big East) at DePaul Blue Demons (9-8, 1-3 Big East) Pomeroy Rank: St. John's: 66 | DePaul: 130 Allstate Arena (Capacity: 18,500) Where: Rosemont, IL TV: Fox Sports 1 | Fox Sports Go online Announcers: Eric Collins + Greg Kessler Radio: Bloomberg 1130 Line: 2.5, St. John's |
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If St. John's wins, it'll be ho-hum, thought the first Big east win and hopefully for them, a start of their winning streak.
If St. John's loses, it might be a Twitter and message board apocalypse.
Such is a fate of a team on the edge in a highly-competitive conference, a team painted into a corner that needs to fight its way out like an - I'm going to stop with the animal analogy. So trite.
Demons head coach Oliver Purnell knows that's how the Red Storm will play tonight. "This is a team that will come in very hungry. They're 0-3 in the Big East, and they never expected to be there," he said before the game.
Freshman guard Billy Garrett Jr., on track to win the Big East's Rookie of the Year award, added, "St. John's is more than capable of being a great team." Garrett scores 11 points with three assists per game, and will be key to the DePaul attack. "Early in the season, we would break apart. Against Butler [99-94 double-overtime win], we showed we can play better, longer, and we got a positive result."
"We know they're going to talk trash to us," Brandon Young, the Demons' second leading scorer, said of St. John's. "We've just got to match their intensity."
The Blue Demons sound like a team on the cusp after what Purnell called "an emotional win" that raised the team's spirits. And with so many losses to St. John's in recent years that hinged on two possessions, this is a team that is looking to... exorcise some demons.
I will be at the game for the Rumble; let me know any good nuggets from the TV side or things you can see with the benefit of rewind. And read today's previews!
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