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Preview: Seton Hall Plays Georgetown in 2022 Big East Men's Tournament Opener

Date: March 9, 2022

By: Justin Nicosia

Seton Hall's Myles Cale looks at the scoreboard during an away game at Madison Square Garden vs. St. John's.

Kayla Fonseca/WSOU Sports

The No. 6 seed Seton Hall men’s basketball team (20-9, 11-8 conference) head to Madison Square Garden to take on the No. 11 seed Georgetown Hoyas (6-24, 0-19 conference) in the first round of the Big East Tournament.

The top five teams in the conference standings earn a bye in the Big East Tournament. Seton Hall finished tied with Marquette for fifth in the conference but lost the tiebreaker due to a weaker head-to-head record.

Winning five games in a row and eight of their last 10, Seton Hall may be the hottest team in the conference right now. They will be facing off a Georgetown team that has not won since Dec. 15 when they defeated Howard.

The Pirates come into Wednesday as a consensus No. 7seed according to Bracket Matrix, a website which compiles bracket projections from over 100 different bracketologists. Although they’re a surefire lock to hear their name called on “Selection Sunday,” a loss to Georgetown Wednesday could be detrimental for their seeding in the tournament and may knock them down by as many as two seed lines.

Leading for the charge will be senior and 1st Team All-Big East forward Jared Rhoden. Rhoden leads the Pirates with 16.2 points-per-game, while also collecting 6.9 rebounds-per-game, second to only Alexis Yetna (7.7 rebounds-per-game).

After a rough start to conference play when Rhoden was still recovering from COVID, the Baldwin, N.Y. native has returned to form as one of the best players not only in the Big East, but in all of America.

Since Feb. 9, he has averaged 18.4 points and 6.8 rebounds-per-game, shooting the ball a scorching 45.7% from three.

He’s not the only Pirate that has been shooting the ball efficiently lately. Since Feb. 1, Jamir Harris (38.5%), Tray Jackson (41.7%), and Kadary Richmond (45.8%) have shot three-pointers at elite rates.

It cannot be understated what head coach Kevin Willard has done for this offense since Bryce Aiken went down with a season ending concussion on Jan. 15. As soon as he knew Aiken would not return soon, he immediately inserted Harris into a quasi-point guard role to alleviate some pressure from Richmond. He drew up eight new plays for Harris, which incorporated more motion into the offense, which then led to more open shooters.

These changes began to take into effect at the beginning of February, coinciding directly with an increase in the team’s offensive efficiency. Prior to Feb. 1, the Pirates shot 30.8% from three, and assisted on only 9.9 shots-per-game in games against Division-I opponents. Since then, they’ve shot 37.3% from distance, assisting on 10.7 shots-per-game.

The team has also improved defensively, especially on the perimeter. What was an already-elite defense before their Feb. 1 game against Georgetown, has since turned into one of the nation’s very best.

Up to that point, they had allowed their opponents to shoot 32.0% from three, scoring 68.0 points-per-game in the process. Since then, opponents have shot just 29.2% from three and score just 65.0 points-per-contest. On the season, the team is 17-0 when holding opponents to under 70 points.

On Georgetown’s side, there isn’t much to be happy about. Barring another miracle run in the Big East Tournament, Darth Vader has a better chance of building a successful Death Star than the Hoyas have of making next week’s NCAA Tournament.

That doesn’t mean they’re guaranteed to fall short on their last opportunity to notch their first win of the calendar year. All things considered, Georgetown has played relatively well recently. Over the last three weeks, they have stayed within single digits of Villanova, UConn, DePaul, and Seton Hall. The latter two have been by five points or less.

They’re led by Big East All-Freshman guard Aminu Mohammed (13.8 points-per-game, 8.1 rebounds-per-game) and senior guard Donald Carey (13.6 points-per-game, 39.5% from three).

Georgetown is also one of the few teams that can match up with Seton Hall’s immense size: three Georgetown rotation players (Timothy Ighoefe, Ryan Mutombo, and Malcolm Wilson) stand with a height of at least seven feet.

Keys To The Game

Seton Hall:

- Stay out of Foul Trouble

If there’s one thing that has plagued the Pirates this season, especially recently, it has been foul trouble. On Saturday, both Ike Obiagu and Jackson were limited to a combined 28 minutes due to foul trouble.

Against DePaul, Myles Cale fouled out in just 11 minutes. If the Pirates find themselves in a situation where either of those three guys (their best interior defender, their most consistent perimeter shooter, and their best wing defender) can’t play many minutes due to foul trouble, it won’t be as easy of a game as it is on paper.

- Keep Moving the Ball

Seton Hall has only lost two games all season by double digits: the game against St. John’s at Walsh Gym, and the game against Marquette at Prudential Center. It should come as no surprise that their lowest assist total of the conference season (six) came against Marquette and the game against the Johnnies saw an assist (10) total below the season average of 10.5.

In fact, after those two games, the biggest complaint from fans was that the team was playing too much iso ball and not passing the ball enough.

Look no further than the box score. The Pirates are 11-1 when they get at least 11 assists-per-game, with the lone loss coming on the road against Villanova.

- Contain Kaiden Rice

Although he usually comes off the bench, Kaiden Rice has the ability to get in the game and make a difference shooting. In the first half of last Wednesday’s game against the Pirates, he shot 5/6 from three and scored 17 points.

This season he has scored 20 or more points five times. That’s as many 20-point games as Jared Rhoden. Just because Rice comes off the bench, doesn’t mean Seton Hall needs to pay less attention to him.

Georgetown:

- Work the ball inside early and often

Obiagu is a physical defender who jumps at almost anything. While this helps him excel at blocking shots, it also gets him into foul trouble. The sooner Obiagu gets into foul trouble, the quicker Georgetown has a chance to use their three seven-foot giants to their advantage.

- Use small ball wisely, but often

Georgetown has four guards—Mohammed, Carey, Rice, and Dante Harris—who average at least 11 points-per-game. While Cale and Richmond’s defense is phenomenal, if Georgetown puts four guards on the floor, they may be able to force the Pirates’ less athletic bigs into awkward assignments and get good looks off of it.

Referees are also quicker with the whistle when a smaller guard has the ball than a big man, so it could aid in putting Obiagu in foul trouble, as mentioned in the previous key.

- Shift defensive focus to the perimeter

Seton Hall shot 20% from three the last time these teams squared off, and it kept Georgetown in the game until the very final minute. The Hoyas need to continue that perimeter intensity into Wednesday’s game, especially considering how well the team has been shooting from deep recently.

If Georgetown focuses just as much, if not more, on preventing the three as they did on Wednesday, they should be in a good spot to keep the Pirates’ scoring number within reach for 40 minutes. It helps that the Pirates shoot just 46.8% from two (297th in the country), so they can afford to focus away from the inside.

If Seton Hall can avoid a defeat Wednesday night, they will play UConn at 9:30 p.m. Thursday night. Depending on how the bracket falls, if Seton Hall wins the tournament, they will have the opportunity to add as many as three more Quadrant 1 victories to an already strong resume, and if Xavier moves up from 36th to the top 30 in the NET, Seton Hall’s home victory over them will become a Quadrant 1 victory.

That is a lot that needs to happen for the Pirates to move their already-strong 6-6 Quadrant 1 record to 10-6, but if it does, I believe they can claim a seed as high as a No. 5 or 6 seed on Selection Sunday.

But for now, we can only wait to see what happens. Alternatively, you can hear what happens on 89.5 FM WSOU, wsou.net, or the iHeart Radio app Wednesday night where Heaven Hill and Jorie Mickens will be on the call live from Madison Square Garden.

Justin Nicosia can be reached at justin.nicosia@student.shu.edu.

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

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