College basketball odds, picks Tuesday

Rick Pitino’s group has a big game on tap Tuesday in their home finale.

St. John’s faces off against Georgetown in a Big East battle and the Red Storm are huge 16.5-point favorites at BetMGM Sportsbook.

The Hoyas have not had the strongest season, sitting at 13-16, and are coming off of tough losses to Seton Hall, Marquette and Xavier.

The loss to Marquette was particularly troubling, considering St. John’s just beat them by six points, while the Hoyas lost by 16.

But basketball is not linear.

Georgetown vs. St. John’s prediction

The Hoyas lost to the Red Storm by 12 points at home earlier this season, and Pitino’s group is surely riding high after their largest Big East win of the season against Villanova.

Could Tuesday’s game be a spot for a letdown?

Betting on College Basketball?

My model has the Red Storm as 12-point favorites, so there’s certainly some significant value on Georgetown as 16.5-point underdogs.

Perhaps part of that reason is that Georgetown is missing its leading scorer, KJ Lewis, who will miss the rest of the season.

There’s no telling how badly the Hoyas will miss him going forward, but FTN’s ranking system still has Georgetown rated No. 81 overall, near Butler (76) and Xavier (79), both of which played tough games with St. John’s.

I’ll take a flyer on Georgetown here as St. John’s hasn’t been favored by this many points in quite a while, and they’re mostly a bad favorite to back due to their lack of quality shooting.

If they go cold, like they did against UConn last week in Hartford, they can lose to anyone.

But when they’re on, like Saturday against Villanova, the Johnnies seem capable of beating most teams in the country.

PREDICTION: Georgetown +16.5 (-110, BetMGM)

Why Trust New York Post Betting

Erich Richter is a brazilian jiu-jitsu blue belt but he has a black belt in MMA betting. During the football season he’s showcased massive profits at The Post in the player prop market the last two seasons. While constantly betting long shots, his return on investment is 30.15 percent since 2022.