Seton Hall
Pirates lose momentum against Louisville, fall 70-65
Date: December 1, 2018By Michael Daly
Seton Hall lost to Louisville 70-65 on Saturday afternoon at the Prudential Center.
Just under thirty seconds into the game, Sandro Mamukelashvili put the Pirates on the board with an early 2-0 lead when he had a monstrous two handed dunk. The Pirates extended their early advantage over Louisville after Myles Powell was fouled in transition, giving his team a 9-3 lead.
The Pirate lead would be elongated to a score of 15-5, following Michael Nzei’s put-back dunk with 13:57 left on the clock. Louisville would make a roaring comeback though, when Dwayne Sutton’s layup evened the score at the 3:02 mark. Nzei answered back with a turnaround jumper of his own with 2:33 left. The score was tied at 34 with under a minute remaining, when Louisville’s Sutton drove in the lane and gave his team a 36-34 lead entering halftime.
At the 15:23 mark in the second half, Mamukelashvili gave the Pirates a 48-41 lead when he made one of two free throw attempts. Nearly six minutes later with 9:56 left in the game, Louisville would pull within a basket of Seton Hall after Malik Williams’ uncontested three pointer in the left corner. On the next possession, Myles Powell would give The Hall a 57-52 by going to the line and sinking three consecutive free throws.
Trailing 59-56 with just over six minutes left, Christen Cunningham’s made three pointer tied up the game at 59. With just 22 seconds left, Anthony Nelson intercepted an inbound pass and scored a layup. Despite being down 66-65, the Pirates were forced to foul four times. Louisville took advantage of the free throw opportunities and ended up defeating Seton Hall 70-65.
When asked about Louisville having a 14 rebound advantage over Seton Hall, Mamukelashvili said; “We had a few moments where somebody’s guy cut behind and got to the basket to get the rebound. Some of it was my fault because I did not box out my man well enough.”
During the postgame press conference, Willard mentioned the change in offensive play for this season’s team; “One thing I am getting used to is not having the ability to put the ball inside as much as we did down the stretch last year.”
Myles Powell had a game high of 23 points and added to his scoring totals with four rebounds and two assists. Louisville’s Sutton led the team in scoring with 12 points. As a collective unit, Seton Hall shot 40% from the floor and 16.7% from behind the three point line.
Seton Hall falls to 4-3 on the season with the loss and looks to rebound Tuesday night at 6:30 pm against New Hampshire at the Prudential Center.
Michael Daly can be reached at michael.daly@student.shu.edu.
