Marist heads to the Garden

After a week of rest, Marist will face off against Big East opponent St. John's in the Aeropostale Holiday Festival on Saturday at 4:30 p.m.
Columbia and Virginia Tech will tip-off at 2 p.m. to kick start the tournament. The MSG network will televise all of the games in the tournament. Saturday's winners will compete on Sunday for the title while the losers will play in the consolation game.
The St. John's game marks the second time this season that Marist will take on a Big East opponent. Many experts regard the Big East as one of the strongest conferences in the country. Marist fell at Rutgers, 63-61, in the Red Foxes' season opener.
Although the Red Foxes sit at 3-6 on the young 2008-09 campaign, the season has been a success thus far. Despite losing freshman Dorvell Carter to an ACL injury prior to the opener, the relatively inexperienced Red Foxes have performed well in one of the school's toughest schedules in history. Three of Marist's last four opponents are national threats come tourney time. Memphis is nationally ranked, Siena went to the tournament last season and upset No. 4 seed Vanderbilt, and Cleveland State is the preseason Horizon League favorite. The competition will only make Marist tougher when the MAAC schedule resumes on Jan. 2 against St. Peter's. The Red Foxes are 1-1 in conference play.
Senior Ryan Schneider and redshirt junior David Devezin have led the Red Foxes thus far. Schnieder leads the team in scoring and rebounding with 13 ppg and 8.6 rpg. Devezin has averaged 12.3 ppg and has dished out a team-high 30 assists. Schneider and junior transfer Javon Parris are the only two players to start all nine games this season.
In addition to Schneider and Devezin, Dejuan Goodwin has emerged as a lethal scoring threat. The Baltimore native leads the MAAC in three-point percentage and has given the Marist offense a spark since entering the starting lineup against Robert Morris.
Chuck Martin has also placed a premium on getting his young guys experience. R.J. Hall and Alex Vouyoukas have seen extended minutes with the hope that they can contribute come time for the MAAC tournament. Hall averages 20 minutes each game and Vouyoukas plays roughly eight each night. Both true freshmen started against Cleveland State.
Scouting St. John's
St. John's has yet to play a Big East team. Ironically, Marist has played more Big East competition than St. John's has. The Red Storm is 7-1 on the season, but has not played elite competition. In contrast to Marist, St. John's has played a realtively weak schedule. The toughest opponent the team has faced has been Boston College. Boston College won, 82-70. St. John's beat its last two opponents, Bethune-Cookman and NJIT, soundly. The Red Storm got by the Wildcats, 77-59, and NJIT, 82-54. NJIT has the longest winless drought in Division I basketball.
D.J. Kennedy is the Red Storm's biggest threat. Kennedy, the 6-foot-6 forward, leads the team in both scoring and rebounding. Kennedy scores 14.3 ppg and grabs 6.9 rpg. Paris Horne and Justin Burrell also score in double digits, averaging 12.5 and 10.6 ppg, respectively.

St. John's projected starting lineup is as follows:
G Malik Boothe, 5-foot-9
G Paris Horne, 6-foot-3
G/F D.J. Kennedy, 6-foot-6
F Justin Burrell, 6-foot-8
F Sean Evans, 6-foot-8

Injury Woes
Both Marist and St. John's have endured some tough injuries. It's no secret that Dorvell Carter is out for the season with a torn ACL on Marist's end. Leading point guard David Devezin missed the last game against Cleveland State with a heel injury, however. Chuck Martin said Devezin remained day-to-day and would be evaluated upon receiving treatment. Devezin is expected to play against St. John's, but Martin made it no secret following the Cleveland State game that the team would rather lose Devezin now than later during conference play.
St. John's has also suffered one big injury as well. The Red Storm lost arguably its best player in Anthony Mason, Jr. (right) to an ankle injury. The injury is considered serious. Mason suffered the injury earlier in the season and attempted to come back before it was fully healed. The timetable for his return is not known.

Around the MAAC
Marist has been idle for the past week but there has still been MAAC action. On Wednesday, Dec. 17, three MAAC teams all lost out-of-conference games. Rider struggled mightily on defense and lost to La Salle, 91-77, while Syracuse rebounded and crushed Canisius, 82-60. Frank Turner and Canisius gave Syracuse a fight early in the first half. Canisius jumped out to an early 8-2 lead and only trailed by nine at the half. Syracuse pulled away in the second half though.
Siena struggled on the road against national power Pittsburgh. The No. 3 Pittsburgh Panthers cruised to a 79-66 win over the Siena Saints. The score does not indicate how the game was played. Pittsburgh led comfortably for most of the second half. At one point, the Panthers led by 22. Siena never laid down though and cut the Pittsburgh lead to 10 on a Clarence Jackson lay-up with 1:21 remaining. Although Siena played arguably its worst game of the season, the team is still the favorite to win the MAAC.
As of today, Fairfield and Siena are the only two unbeaten teams in the MAAC at 2-0. Iona, Canisius, and Loyola have all started 0-2.