St. John’s vs. Arizona State March Madness spread odds & analysis

Betting Line: Arizona State -1
Over/Under: 152 at Bovada

In one of the Big Dance First Four play-in games, Arizona State (22-10) is the slight betting favorite facing St. John’s (21-12) in a game where the winner will officially make the 64-team NCAA Tournament, which starts Thursday.

St. John’s has to feel a little lucky to even be in the NCAA Tournament, as they did not end the season well, to say the least, losing four of their last five games.

The defense has been the achilles heel of the team on the season, ranking 264th in the nation in points allowed and in their last five games that D was even worse, giving up an average of 83.4 ppg. Bettors may be a little wary of them as well, given they failed to cover the spread in seven of their last 10 non-conference games.

Arizona State finished 2nd in the Pac 12 this season and while a major conference they only sent three teams to the Big Dance. ASU had won three in a row before losing to Oregon in the Pac 12 tournament. The Sun Devils are much like the Red Storm in that their defense has been less than stellar on the season, but they can score averaging 77.8 ppg.

This season St. John’s is 14-18-1 ATS and they have an Over/Under record of 16-15-1 and Arizona State is at 17-14-1 ATS with an Over/Under record of 13-19.

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These teams last met in the 2017 season at a neutral site where Arizona State beat St. John’s 82-70.

The Red Storm have to forget their last game where they were bounced from the Big East tournament losing to 23rd ranked Marquette 86-54. In the blowout loss, they only shot 32.8% from the floor and missed 17 of their 20 3-pointers while they allowed the Golden eagles to shoot 50.9%. Only two players for St. John’s scored in double figures in Justin Simon and Shamorie Ponds, who combined for 27 points, but only shot 10/29 from the floor.

Ponds leads St. John’s on the season averaging 19.5 ppg and he has been pretty steady for a few games before only going for 13 points in the loss to Marquette. Mustapha Heron ranks 2nd on the team at 14.9 ppg and after totaling 28 points in two games he only went for eight points on 4/12 shooting in the last game. LJ Figueroa (14.3 ppg 6.2 rpg) is the 3rd leading scorer and leading rebounder for the Red Storm and he only had five points in the loss to Marquette.

Arizona State lost to Oregon in their last game 79-75 in OT in the Pac 12 semifinals. They shot a similar FG% as the Ducks (40% to 41.8%), but it hurt that they gave up more offensive rebounds and had more turnovers. Luguentz Dort led four Sun Devils in double figures with 16 points, but he was only 5/13 from the floor.

Dort led ASU this season at 16.1 ppg and while his scoring has been around his season average in the last three games in that span he is only a combined 15/39 from the floor. Zylan Cheatham is the 3rd leading scorer and leading rebounder for the team averaging a double-double (11.8 ppg 10.4 rpg) on the season and he has 27 points and 22 boards in his last two games.

St. John’s Red Storm betting trends

• 1-4 ATS in their last five games
• 3-7 ATS in their last 10 non-conference games
• Over record of 4-1 in their last five games

Take advantage of these betting trends with the best online bookies

Arizona State Sun Devils betting trends

• 4-0 ATS in their last four games after a loss
• 3-1-1 ATS in their last five neutral site games
• Under record of 5-2 in their last seven games

St. John’s Red Storm vs. Arizona State Sun Devils betting prediction

ASU has not been the best betting team on the season, but they have to be the pick in this game.

The Red Storm fell apart at the end of the season. They are 0-5 ATS in their last five Big Dance games and 1-5 ATS in their last six games facing teams from the Pac 12.

The Sun Devils will turn up the heat in this one, winning and covering the spread.

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