St. John’s vs Butler Odds, Pick: Bubble Battle in Big East

St. John's faces Butler on Wednesday, February 28 at 8:30 p.m. ET on CBS Sports Network. Here's St. John's vs Butler odds and a pick.

Welcome to the Big East Bubble Battle, which fits almost any game between a myriad of middling Big East teams right now. The Butler Bulldogs host the St. John’s Red Storm, and the loser here will have a tough task ahead to make the NCAA Tournament.

The Johnnies responded to Rick Pitino's comments calling out his players with the team's biggest win of the season just seven days later when they blew out Creighton 80-66. It turns out that sometimes a legendary coach sprouting insults about players can occasionally turn into wins.

In two wins last week, the Red Storm scored 175 total points against Georgetown and Creighton. One of those wins is more impressive than the other, of course.

Veteran guards Jordan Dingle and Daniss Jenkins getting hot is the main reason for the Johnnies' offensive surge. It seems Dingle reached the Pitino doghouse before the year started, which halted his play this season. Dingle is looking better than ever now after scoring 36 points on 16-26 shooting in last week's wins. Jenkins went off for 26 points and five assists in the win over Creighton.

The best Pitino-coached teams typically have an awesome guard pairing, and these two could get hot in the final stretch.

St. John's has a fairly strong offense overall, ranking 35th in Adjusted Offensive Efficiency. When the shots don't fall, the Red Storm rely on offensive rebounds (ranking fifth nationally in Offensive Rebounding Percentage). While big man Joel Soriano has dealt with an up-and-down super senior season, he's a suction cup at the basket.

Butler enters Wednesday after losing four consecutive games, and a fifth could have them packing for the NIT. Before the lengthy losing streak, Butler’s strong offense masked some its major defensive problems.

The issue is that Butler’s offense is now struggling, which puts too much pressure on an already poor defense that is 92nd in Adjusted Defensive Efficiency.

Pierre Brooks's struggles have played a key role in Butler's offensive struggles. He is the Bulldogs' leading scorer at 14.4 points this year, but in Butler's last 10 games, he has scored fewer than 10 points per game on around 35% shooting. In trying times in the early stages of Big East play, Brooks bailed out Butler many times, but he's part of the problem now.

DJ Davis is also 5-29 from 3 in the past four games, and Jahmyl Telfort scored fewer than 10 points in two of the past four. It’s pretty clear why Butler isn’t winning right now: the players who performed well earlier in the season have all gone cold at the same time. Butler looked better than its talent level indicated, and the water has leveled off a bit.

Posh Alexander could solve some problems for the Bulldogs, mainly from a leadership and calming perspective. He won't light up the scorebaord, but Alexander can make plays for others and attack the glass. He's not one of the struggling Bulldogs, but Thad Matta needs a tone-setter.

The scuffling Bulldogs offense will try scoring against the Red Storm defense which limited Creighton to 67 points on Sunday.

I'm backing the road Johnnies here. I like how St. John's performed after Pitino called them out, and the Bulldogs' struggles have lasted for nearly a month. I don't see it turning around against a team that seemingly found something against Creighton.

The Bulldogs struggle against dribble penetration from guards, and Jenkins can collapse Butler's defense. He'll get into the lane and kick to shooters who can capitalize like Chris Ledlum, Glenn Taylor and Nahiem Alleyne.

Both teams cover the spread less than half the time — Butler is covering 42% of the time compared to St. John's at 46%. The Johnnies will improve that percentage on Wednesday.

Pick: St. John's ML +100