WSOU

Preview: Pirates look for signature win on the road vs. Xavier

Date: December 29, 2020

By: Ryan Henry

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Seton Hall has started off Big East play at a record of three-and-one, but Wednesday night will bring the Pirates’ toughest conference game so far this season in a road matchup against the 8-1 Xavier Musketeers. Xavier started off this season with eight straight wins and ranked in the AP Top 25 before losing their last game on the road to the No. 11 ranked Creighton Bluejays by five points.

 

Seton Hall is coming off a comfortable 11-point win against the Georgetown Hoyas to improve to 6-4. Both teams have not played a game since Dec. 23, giving the squads ample time to prepare for this highly anticipated matchup. Leading the Pirates is senior forward Sandro Mamukelashvili, who has cooled down a bit since his hot start but is still having a career year averaging 18.2 points-per-game, 6.7 rebounds-per-game and 3.3 assists-per-game. Mamukelashvili only played in one of the two games last year against Xavier, where he logged 16 minutes, scoring 10 points and grabbing three rebounds in a 12-point loss to the Musketeers.

 

To complement Mamukelashvili are guards Myles Cale and Jared Rhoden. Cale and Rhoden are coming off career nights against the Hoyas, combining for 56 of Seton Hall’s 78 points on 57 percent shooting. Cale earned BIGEASThoops Player of the Week honors this week for his 30-point performance against the Hoyas and his 16-point outing on 66 percent shooting against Providence. Both players have been a huge boost for an offense that has not found much consistency outside of Mamukelashvili.

For the Musketeers, who lost forward Naji Marshall to the NBA and Tyrique Jones to graduation, they are now led by senior guard Paul Scruggs. Scruggs was selected to the Preseason All-Big East Second Team and has lived up to those expectations.

 

He has career-highs in points-per-game at 15.8 and assists-per-game at 6.7 while shooting 49.5 percent from the floor and 39.5 percent from three.

Former selection of the Big East Freshman Team, Zach Freemantle has also stepped up in his sophomore season, leading the Musketeers in scoring at 16.3 points-per-game and rebounding at 7.6 rebounds-per-game. He has also improved as a three-point shooter, going from 35.3 percent his freshman season to 41.4 percent this season on two more attempts-per-game.

 

Transfer guard Nate Johnson has been a huge addition to this team, serving as the Musketeers third scoring option and best shooter. Johnson has matched his scoring output from his last season at Gardner-Webb while increasing his efficiency, shooting 48 percent from the field and nearly 54 percent from three on six attempts-per-game.

These teams are very comparable so the two main goals for Pirates to win is to establish a balanced offense early on and contain Scruggs and Freemantle on defense. Many games this season, the Pirates offense has been run exclusively through Mamukelashvili or he has been non-existent. On defense, the Pirates did limit Georgetown’s leading scorer Jahvon Blair to four of eleven shooting, but Scruggs’s ability to create open looks adds another dimension to his game.

 

For Freemantle, the Pirates need him to take difficult shots and earn his points from free throws, where he is only shooting 50 percent for the season. If Rhoden and Cale can carry their momentum from last week and the defense forces Xavier to take tough shots, the Pirates might be able to pull off this upset on the road.

 

Coverage for the game begins at 6:30 p.m. on 89.5 FM WSOU with tip-off being at 7:00 p.m. Rony Jerez and Ronny Castaneda will be on the call from inside the South Orange Studios of 89.5 FM WSOU.

Ryan Henry can be reached at ryan.henry@student.shu.edu.

Posted in: Men's Basketball, Game Previews, WSOU, Sports

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