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Nova -2 at Butler FS1

Georgetown at Providence -3 CBSSports

Creighton -5.5 at St Johns FS1

Nova has won their last 3 games in Hinkle by a combined 11 pts, so I fully expect another close one tonight. Butler has stepped up big in their biggest games so far this season (IU, Zona, Cincy), and they are going to need that kind of performance and then some to knock off Nova tonight.

"You come at the king, you best not miss." - Omar, The Wire

Georgetown is coming off back-to-back losses. Providence has lost 3 in a row on the road. They're a better team at home, so I think they'll win a close one.

Will be a very interesting game. Similar to the Butler game, we can get throttled or we can use our home court advantage and make things interesting. It's really anyone's guess. SJ has been hyping this game up for the past few days basically begging all fans to get the place rocking. They're putting a lot of effort into trying to get the fans to the game. At least with the Butler game they gave away free shirts and bobbleheads PLUS it was a ranked team. This game we start much later at 8:30 and there are no giveaways, so it will be interesting to see the crowd size. I've always said one area our athletic department really lacks in is promotions. The diehard fans don't need anything and will gladly sit in a hot, sweaty high school level gym (Carnesecca) to watch their team. The casual fans however need to be enticed i.e. free shirts (not just free ones but cool ones worth wearing and show a picture of it before the game), bobbleheads, buy 1 get 1 free tickets, free pizza, raffles, jersey giveaways, mini basketball giveaways, drawstring backpacks, dufflebags, etc. they have zero creativity and I honestly think I just suggested better ideas than they have even considered. It may seem silly to some, but many people come out just for the free shirt if it's worth wearing. The key is handing them out on the way out so people stay. Why can't they do raffles where a random fan will be selected at halftime to win a signed Chris Mullin authentic jersey? Why can't they get something for Artest to sign and raffle off? Or Mark Jackson? I mean come on guys.

I always say this, but look at the Brooklyn Cyclones' promotions. They are always trailblazers and have amazingly creative ideas.

Bill Marsh wrote:Georgetown is coming off back-to-back losses. Providence has lost 3 in a row on the road. They're a better team at home, so I think they'll win a close one.

It's as close to a must win as you can have for Providence this early in the season. It's tough to see a realistic path to the bare minimum 9 conference wins w/o this game(and esp after that BC loss, they will need 9 wins to make the tourney). After tonight, PC is favorite in only 4 games the rest of the way in both KP and RPI forecast(sagarin)

For Georgetown, they are favorites in 7 BE games after tonight, so a win here puts them within 1 of getting on the right side of the bubble.

Wednesday 1/4:
6:30 - 1 Villanova @ 18 Butler, FS1 - Joe Davis, Donny Marshall
Line: Villanova -2

7:00 - Georgetown @ Providence, CBSSN - Tom McCarthy, Steve Lappas, Jamie Erdahl
Line: Providence -3

8:30 - 10 Creighton @ St. John's, FS1 - Brian Custer, Jim Spanarkel
Line: Creighton -5.5

I'd go Nova, PC, and Creighton. Not exactly going out on a limb for any of them, I know. Nova/Butler and PC/Gtown could go either way though. I'd give SJU more of a chance if Creighton wasn't coming off its first loss.

I'm thinking we might see 3 road wins tonight.

Pomeroy:

Villanova 70 - Butler 69
Providence 71 - Georgetown 69
Creighton 85 - St Johns 79

I am hoping my Johnnies can be competitive......the team seems to be gaining confidence and if we suffer a blow out loss, it could be tough on a young team.....our next 4 games (home to Creighton, at Xaver, at Gtown and home to Nova) are just brutal....if we could somehow win 1 of those, i would be happy at 3-3 six games into conference play....