The St. John's Red Storm take on the Marquette Golden Eagles in Milwaukee, WI. Tip-off is set for 12 p.m. ET on FOX.
Marquette is favored by 3.5 points on the spread with a moneyline of -180. The total is set at 144.5 points.
Here are my St. John's vs. Marquette predictions and college basketball picks for March 8, 2025.
St. John's vs Marquette Prediction
My Pick: Marquette -2.5 or Better
My St. John's vs Marquette best bet is on the Golden Eagles spread, with the best odds currently available at DraftKings. For all of your college basketball bets, be sure to find the best lines by using our live NCAAB odds page.
St. John's vs Marquette Odds, Lines
| St. John's Odds | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spread | Total | Moneyline |
+3.5 -110 | 144.5 -110 / -110 | +150 |
| Marquette Odds | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spread | Total | Moneyline |
-3.5 -110 | 144.5 -110 / -110 | -180 |
- St. John's vs Marquette spread: Marquette -3.5
- St. John's vs Marquette over/under: 144.5 points
- St. John's vs Marquette moneyline: Marquette -180, St. John's +150
- St. John's vs Marquette best bet: Marquette -2.5 or Better
My St. John's vs Marquette NCAAB Betting Preview
St. John's Basketball
St. John's won the first meeting between these two teams, bullying the Golden Eagles just as the Johnnies have bullied opponents all season long. Marquette was out-rebounded 50-28 in that game, with the Golden Eagles committing 24 personal fouls against the aggressive Red Storm.
In fact, that game acts as a perfect microcosm of the Johnnies' season. They shot just 16 3s (359 teams in college hoops average more than 16 outside attempts per game) and only made three of those, a paltry 19%.
Add in 14 St. John's turnovers, and you'd assume Marquette bottled up the Red Storm in a win. That rebounding advantage — plus eight blocks and nine steals by St. John's — offset any shooting disadvantage and powered the Johnnies to victory.
That's been happening all year. St. John's is shooting 27.1% from 3-point land in Big East play, worst in the league. Inside the arc, they aren't much better, as the Red Storm shoot the second-worst percentage on 2-pointers in the conference. Free throws? Also the second-worst percentage.
How does a team that struggles to put the ball through the nylon end up winning the league by at least two games?
Rick Pitino's guys hammer the offense glass at the best rate in the Big East and at a top-10 rate nationally. All of those misses from the field lead to putback looks around the rim or kickout 3s.
Even more than the rebounding, this team makes its name defensively. St. John's has the best defensive efficiency metric in conference play of any power conference team, and the best mark in that metric of any team in the Big East since the conference re-aligned in 2014.
The Red Storm smother opponents, losing just twice since Thanksgiving.
Marquette Basketball
While St. John's wins on rebounds and defensive stops, Marquette has built its foundation on turnovers. The Golden Eagles rank fifth in the nation in avoiding turnovers and ninth nationally in forcing turnovers.
Marquette has turned the ball over on just 12.9% of its possessions in conference play, the lowest by any Big East club since West Virginia in 2006.
On the season, Marquette has committed just 271 turnovers, 166 of which were steals by the other team. The Golden Eagles have forced 454 turnovers, including 276 steals, more than their own turnovers of all kinds.
That leads to a wild discrepancy in scoring chances. Marquette and its opponents average the same number of free throws per game (16) and grab about the same number of rebounds (35.4 to 34), but Marquette's turnover advantage lends the Golden Eagles 11 extra field goal attempts per game.
It doesn't take an analytics expert to see how much that can help a team. A cold shooting night can easily be overcome simply by more shooting volume.
Maybe the best example came in a December win over Butler. The Bulldogs shot 41% from outside the arc and 51% from the field. Marquette made just 6-of-30 from deep, shooting 42% from the field.
Yet Marquette won easily because the Golden Eagles took 75 field goals to just 47 by Butler, thanks to a +12 turnover margin.
You'd feel a little better if Marquette used its extra possessions more effectively. The Golden Eagles are 3-point happy — despite a percentage outside the nation's top 250 — and rarely earn free throws.
It's a team that wants to win on the perimeter and gets beat by stronger teams inside the arc.
St. John's vs. Marquette Betting Analysis
This one is hard to handicap, given its place on the schedule.
St. John's has already won the Big East regular season crown, with little to play for in this final regular season game. NCAA Tournament seeding would likely be unaffected by a win or loss for the Johnnies.
Marquette, similarly, could move to second in the Big East, but would need a Creighton home loss to Butler (unlikely). Big Dance seeding, again, won't shift much this late in the year. It's senior day, if that adds any motivation, or jitters in the wrong direction.
If both teams were motivated, I'd be weighing the Red Storm's advantages on the interior and on the glass against Marquette's ability to outshoot the clunky St. John's offense. Marquette comes off a 3-of-22 outside shooting performance at UConn on Wednesday, which makes it due for some regression here.
I'll lean towards that outweighing a repeat of the Red Storm's bully ball performance in the first meeting, though I do so with plenty of late-season trepidation.
