#602 ASA FREE PLAY ON Xavier +1.5 over St Johns, Tuesday at 6:30 PM ET - This is an absolute must win for Xavier at home. After starting the season a perfect 6-0, they’ve since lost 6 of their last 9 games. They sit at 1-3 in Big East play and 3 of their last 4 games are on the road. Despite their 9-6 record, the Musketeers have actually played pretty well with 5 of those setbacks coming by 6 points or less. They only have 1 loss at home this season and that was by 2 points vs a very good Marquette team. XU had a huge boost on Friday when leading scorer Zach Freemantle (17 PPG & 8 RPG) returned to the line up after missing 3 straight games and he put up 16 points in 7 rebounds in his first game back. With Freemantle out, Xavier went 1-2 but lost very close games to Marquette by 2 points (mentioned above) and they lost in OT @ UConn. He gives them a big boost on both ends of the court. St John’s is off a come from behind home win over Butler. Now the Johnnies take off for just their 3rd true road game this season and their 5th game away from home (neutral or road) this season. They are 2-3 in those games and one of their wins was by 2 points @ Providence in a game STJ trailed by 16 points. XU should be able to take advantage of St John’s defensive weakness which is defending the arc. The Johnnies rank 239th defending the 3 point line while Xavier ranks 9th in the nation hitting their 3’s at 39.8%. The Musketeers also make 77% of their FT’s compared to St Johns 67% which could be a huge factor in what is expected to be a close game. This is a much bigger game for Xavier and our power ratings have them as a small home favorite so we’ll take the value.