Game preview: Seton Hall welcomes Misericordia to Walsh Gymnasium in final preseason game

Date: October 28, 2019

By: Dylan Hunt

The No. 12 Seton Hall Pirates play their second and final exhibition game of the 2019-2020 season, Tuesday night against the Misericordia Cougars at 7 p.m. The Pirates are coming off an 81-52 win against the Bloomfield College Bears last Friday.

The Pirates look to keep the ball rolling against the Cougars, as they continue into their highly anticipated season. The Pirates, who finished 20-14 last season, ranked 12th in the AP Preseason Rankings this year on the back of Seton Hall’s star Myles Powell. He comes into his senior year following his strongest year of basketball to date.

Last season he averaged 23.1 points per game, with a field goal percentage of 44.7 in 34 games played. Powell looks to finish off his collegiate career strong in what could be one of the best years in Seton Hall basketball history. In his first game this year against Bloomfield, Powell put up 21 points in 18 minutes of play.

The game Tuesday night against the Pirates will be Misericordia’s first of the season. The Division III team finished last season with a 14-12 record with a 7-7 MAC Freedom conference record. The Cougars come into the game against the Pirates losing their star senior from last season Jason Kenny, who averaged 20.4 points per game in 26 games played.

Overall the Cougars averaged 75.1 points per game last season and let up an average 73.9 points per game. The Pirates in contrast, averaged 73.8 points per game last season, to their opponents 71.9. The Pirates will have the clear height advantage in the match as the Cougars do not have one player over the height of 6 foot 8 inches, while the Pirates have six players over the height of 6 foot 8 inches, including 7 foot 2 inch senior Romaro Gill, who averaged 1.26 blocks per game off the bench.

The Pirates as a team had a strong defensive season last year, averaging 3.9 blocks per game, 6.9 steals per game, as well as forcing 14.1 turnovers per game. The Cougars on the other hand averaged 2.9 blocks per game, 5.4 steals per game and forced 13.3 turnovers per game. Along with the hype surrounding the Pirates team as a whole, there is hype surrounding freshman forward Tyrese Samuel. Samuel came to the Hall as a four-star recruit and in the last game against the Bloomfield Bears, he scored five points and added 10 rebounds.

The Pirates hope to live up to the well-deserved hype and perhaps win the Big East Championship this year. Along with this, the Pirates will be eyeing the NCAA tournament, in which they could matchup against some of the nation’s powerhouse teams.

89.5 FM WSOU will have the coverage for Tuesday night’s game. Coverage for the game will begin at 6:45 p.m. On the call at 7 p.m. will be Heaven Hill and Liam Plate.

Dylan Hunt can be reached at dylan.hunt@student.shu.edu.

Posted in: Sports, WSOU, Men's Basketball