10* St. John’s (2:30 ET): It just feels right to be able to once again call these teams conference rivals. UConn has rejoined the Big East this season and this will be the first meeting w/ St, John’s since 2013. The Huskies not only comes in ranked (#25), but they’ve covered six in a row. The Huskies’ only loss came by two points against Creighton (a top 10 team). They’ve won four straight (SU) since including a 3-0 January record with all those games coming on the road. UConn hasn’t taken the court in a week due to a game with #3 Villanova being postponed. This game will be on FOX Monday afternoon.

St. John’s hasn’t had nearly the amount of problems with COVID cancellations than UConn has. The Red Storm have played nearly twice the number of games the Huskies have and come into today sporting a 7-7 SU record. It’s been a bit of a struggle recently as the team started 5-1, but has now dropped six of its last eight including a 2-point home loss to Marquette on Saturday. As an underdog, the Johnnies have struggled and they are also winless on the road (0-4 SU). They are in both roles Monday, but I’m expecting this to be a strong effort off the narrow loss 48 hours ago.

This boils down to the fact that I feel UConn is due for a bad game. Coming off a week layoff and playing a rare weekday afternoon game, it just “feels” like this might be it. St. John’s has had several narrow losses, just not Saturday, while UConn’s won a couple close ones. The Huskies are without leading scorer James Bouknight and quite frankly were lucky to beat Depaul last week as they were outrebounded and shot the ball poorly. Depaul was careless with the basketball and that’s why UConn won the game. St. John’s averages almost 80 PPG and will be a lot tougher to beat. Take the points. 10* St. Johns