On paper, tomorrow night’s Big East battle in the Big Apple against St. John’s shouldn’t even be close. Georgetown enters the game ranked sixth, winners of three straight, 16-2 overall and 6-1 in league play. The Red Storm, conversely, have lost five straight, are just 7-11 (1-6 Big East), and have not officially had a winning season since 1999-2000. St. John’s, which was forced to vacate 47 games between 2000 and 2004 due to NCAA infractions, last played in the NCAA tournament in 2002. Yet, in one of the most unpredictable Big East seasons in recent memory, nothing is guaranteed. Thirteen of the league’s 16 teams have between three and six league victories. Road teams are a dismal 17-41 on the season, with Georgetown (3-1) the only squad with a winning record away from home. Individual results have been just as surprising as statistics. In stunning defiance of the home-away imbalance, Rutgers (10-11, 2-6) went into Pittsburgh’s Peterson Events Center, a building in which the Panthers (16-4, 4-3) were 91-8 all-time, and won by 13 points on Saturday. Elsewhere, Marquette (14-4, 4-3) beat Notre Dame (14-4, 4-2) by 26 but lost to Louisville (15-6, 5-3) five days later by 20. The Cardinals also defeated West Virginia (15-5, 4-3), but lost to Seton Hall (14-6, 4-3) and Cincinnati (9-11, 4-4). As for the Bearcats, they fell to such basketball behemoths as Belmont, Bowling Green and Illinois State in nonconference play, only to beat Louisville, Syracuse, Villanova and Pittsburgh in conference. Strange, but true. uch of last Thursday’s Big East coaches conference call was spent trying to explain this season’s topsy-turvy league results. “This is the league right now that I think that when the powers that be have the 16 teams come together, that people envisioned that you’d get great parity, tremendous coaching,” Marquette Head Coach Tom Crean said. “There is star power in this league, and at the same time, there are a lot of experienced teams and then you add a really, really strong infusion of young talent into the league, and this is what you get.” Indeed, coaches who spoke on Thursday seemed in agreement that the league is even more up for grabs this season than any other since the league went to 16 teams for 2005-06. Even after Saturday’s road victory, Georgetown leads the conference by just a game and a half. “I think we all have opportunities,” Connecticut Head Coach Jim Calhoun said Thursday, two days before his short-handed Huskies went on the road and shocked then-No. 7 Indiana. “This pack that we have developed of about 12 or 13 teams – someone is going to break away. I don’t think even Georgetown has completely broken away since they’ve had a lot of very difficult games, being in overtime with Syracuse, going to a buzzer beater with us, and yet they are one of the three or four best teams in the country.” Calhoun attributed much of this season’s unpredictability to youth. A sophomore, Luke Harangody of Notre Dame, leads the Big East in both scoring and rebounding in league play. Cincinnati sophomore guard Deonta Vaughn is third in scoring, while freshman forward Donte Green of Syracuse is fifth and Villanova sophomore guard Scottie Reynolds is eighth. Syracuse’s Jonny Flynn, Georgetown’s Austin Freeman and Seton Hall’s Jeremy Hazell are but a few of the other freshmen who have already established themselves as key contributors. “The talent is always watered down, tainted at times, misguided at times, incredible at times, exuberant at times, fearless at times – all that creates is that nobody fears anybody anymore,” Calhoun said. “Nobody, including Georgetown, walks into a gym anymore where people have fear of them because of the youth. . We could make one heck of a sophomore or freshman team that could certainly win a national championship out of our league easily. . But that also creates some of the chaos that you see in games.” St. John’s has had a tougher go of it than most. Its only league win came on Jan. 5 at home against Cincinnati. The Red Storm have only been blown out once in league play, a lopsided 81-57 home loss to Pitt, but in their other five defeats, they’ve only come as close as six points. “We’ve had games where we’ve played well and we’ve played hard, but then you have guys making key mistakes, and in the Big East, it may come down to five or six possessions that may change a whole tone of a game,” Head Coach Norm Roberts said. “We’re just trying to get our guys to understand that and that we gotta make sure we’re on the positive side of those situations.” Leading the way for the Johnnies is Anthony Mason Jr., a junior forward and the son of the long-time NBA bruiser of the same name. Mason has scored 29 in each of his last two outings. Justin Burrell leads six freshmen who play at least nine minutes a game for St. John’s. Burrell, a 6-foot-8, 235-pound forward, has started all 18 contests and averages 11.9 points and 7.1 rebounds, which leads the team. Lately, Burrell has been joined in the starting lineup by 6-foot-6 frosh D.J. Kennedy, who chips in 8.6 points and 6.7 boards a night. “We’ve tried to build [our program] with young kids,” Roberts said. “We brought in eight freshmen this year knowing that we were going to take our lumps. We’ve got to battle through; we’ve got to be tough because there are no easy games at all in this league.” But with his team set to play host to the Hoyas tomorrow night at 7 p.m. at Madison Square Garden, Roberts is conceding nothing. “I think every game is a separate entity. . It doesn’t matter if one team is on a two-game winning streak and they come to your place,” Roberts said Thursday. “If you come ready to play and you execute and do those things, you’ve got a chance to win. I think that’s all over the country probably, but specifically in our league.”