Seton Hall @ St. John’s

Who will WIN this matchup?

Seton Hall Pirates (19-9)

@ St. John’s Red Storm (14-14)

Current odds:

Seton Hall Pirates: (+125)

St. John’s Red Storm: (-145)

• The line for this game is St. John’s by 2.5 points.

• Seton Hall will not have leading scorer Desi Rodriguez in uniform when it goes for its 20th win Saturday in a Big East game at St. John’s. Rodriguez sprained an ankle on a wet floor in Providence on Wednesday and is slated to miss a week of action for the Pirates, who will close the road portion of their conference schedule against the suddenly dangerous Red Storm. In addition to the injury to Rodriguez, the wet floor at the Dunkin Donuts Center in Providence caused the game to be suspended and completed the following day at Alumni Hall, but the Pirates still managed to come away with the road win over a team bound for the NCAA Tournament.  Khadeen Carrington, a senior that has been dealing with adversity all season after being forced to move to point guard, enjoyed his second 20-point game against the Friars this season, including 14 points over the final 13 minutes played at Alumni Hall.

• For the first two weeks of February, the Red Storm looked like the best team in the country, knocking off No. 5 Duke, No. 3 Villanova and Marquette, but Chris Mullin’s team couldn’t complete the sweep of the Golden Eagles on Wednesday despite a breakout performance from freshman Bryan Trimble, Jr.

• While Carrington, Angel Delgado and Myles Powell could easily carry their team to victory, the Pirates will probably need more solid play out of Ismael Sanogo and Myles Cale to outlast the Red Storm. Sanogo came up with only his third game in double figures in the Big East this season with 11 points and also provided eight rebounds, two assists, two blocks and two steals against Providence. Cale’s eight-point contribution was more modest but that marked the second-highest total in the Big East for the freshman guard from Delaware.

• One thing the Red Storm couldn’t do in the second meeting with Marquette that it was able to do during their four-game win streak was get points off turnovers. After averaging 19.5 points off turnovers and holding a 78-53 edge in that category, the Red Storm were outscored 16-10 in the loss to the Golden Eagles. That combined with Shamorie Ponds being limited to 19 points after putting up 32.3 points per game in the four wins has St. John’s needing one victory to beat last season’s win total and at least two victories to avoid a third straight losing season and second under Mullin.

• Carrington, who is the 10th player in Seton Hall history to eclipse 1,700 points, has five 20-point games this season and 23 for his career.

• Rodriguez, Carrington, Delgado and Powell accounted for all the points in Seton Hall’s 75-70 victory over St. John’s on New Year’s Eve, narrowing their deficit in the series to 59-39.

• After never making more than three field goals or scoring more than nine points in a game, Trimble, Jr., who hails from Kansas City, Mo., had seven field goals and 19 points against Marquette.