St. John's (NY) vs Butler Prediction, Odds & Best Bet for March 8 Big East Tournament (Red Storm Hammers Bulldogs)

St. John's (NY) vs Butler Game Info

• 2022-23 NCAA Basketball Big East Tournament Game
• St. John's (NY) (17-14, 7-13 Big East) vs. Butler (14-17, 6-14 Big East)
• Date: Wednesday, March 8, 2023
• Time: 3:00 PM ET
• Venue: Madison Square Garden -- New York City, New York
• Coverage: Fox Sports 1

Wednesday, March 8's NCAA college basketball schedule features a first-round Big East Tournament matchup between the St. John's (NY) Red Storm and the Butler Bulldogs.

Both teams head into this matchup in a rut. St. John's lost back-to-back outings to close out the regular season, falling 96-94 to No. 6 Marquette in its last game. Meanwhile, Butler dropped to 1-4 in its last five games with a 78-66 loss against ranked Xavier on Saturday.

So, which Big East squad has what it takes to advance to the next round?

St. John's (NY) vs Butler Odds & Spread

• All college basketball betting lines, odds and prop bets are from FanDuel Sportsbook.
• Moneyline: STJOHN: (-240) | BUTLER: (+195)
• Spread: STJOHN: -5.5 (-110) | BUTLER: +5.5 (-110)
• Total: 144.5 -- Over: (-110) | Under: (-110)

St. John's enters this contest as the clear favorite on the moneyline and spread per FanDuel Sportsbook's odds. This 3 p.m. ET clash also features an over/under of 144.5 points with both sides sitting at -110 odds.

St. John's (NY) vs Butler Betting Trends

• St. John's (NY) is 13-17-0 against the spread this year.
• As 5.5-point favorites or more, the Red Storm are 4-5 against the spread.
• Out of 30 St. John's (NY)'s games so far this season, 15 have hit the over.
• Butler has covered the spread 14 times in 31 games.
• The Bulldogs are 3-9 as 5.5-point underdogs or more.
• Butler has played 31 games this season, and 10 of them have gone over the total.

St. John's (NY) Rank	St. John's (NY) AVG		Butler AVG	Butler Rank
47th	77.6	Points Scored	65.3	329th
324th	75.7	Points Allowed	67.7	108th
8th	36.7	Rebounds	27.5	357th
13th	11.3	Off. Rebounds	5.5	355th
326th	5.8	3pt Made	6.5	277th
34th	15.5	Assists	12.5	228th
309th	13.3	Turnovers	11.2	109th

St. John's (NY) vs Butler Prediction & Pick

Although both sides have seen better days, I do like St. John's more today. This season, the Red Storm are a solid 11-6 at Madison Square Garden, where their offense averages 78.1 PPG. For comparison, Butler has been held to a 58.6 PPG clip over the last five games while being held to fewer than 60 points in five of its last six away contests.

St. John's also has the opposition beat from a rebounding perspective, averaging 39.4 rebounds (No. 8) compared to Butler's 30.0 RPG (12th-worst in the country). Considering how the Bulldogs have shot 41.7% from the floor and 23.1% from the three-point line over the last three games, I fully expect the Red Storm to take advantage of their rival's miscues.

After crushing Butler by 16 points in the Big East foes' last meeting at MSG in January, look for St. John's to recreate that result this evening.

Final Score Prediction: St. John's: 75 | Butler: 65

St. John's (NY) vs Butler Best Bet

St. John's has already proven that it can squad Butler at home, so I'm going with the former covering as -5.5 favorites today. On top of being 4-2 ATS in their last six conference matchups, the Red Storm are also 8-2 ATS in their last 10 games played in March. They've also covered in four of their last six games against the Bulldogs.

With St. John's being the clear-cut better team and boasting the home-court advantage, Mike Anderson's team has no excuse not to cover the spread.

Bet: St. John's (NY) -5.5 (-110)

Devon Platana is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Devon Platana also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username PepeSilvia0. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his personal views, he may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his personal account. The views expressed in their articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.

Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.