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Preview: Seton Hall Plays VCU in WNIT Second Round Home Showdown

Date: March 21, 2022

By: Justin Nicosia

Seton Hall's Mya Jackson stands on the court during a home WNIT game.

Lamar Carter/Seton Hall Athletics

The Seton Hall women’s basketball team (20-12, 12-8 Big East) will host the VCU Rams (16-11, 9-5 Atlantic 10) in the second round of the WNIT, set to tip at 7 p.m. Monday evening.

The Pirates head into Monday fresh off of a phenomenal 67-45 home victory over Fairleigh Dickinson from last Thursday night. Although they trailed by three at halftime, Seton Hall outscored the Knights 36-11 in the second half to cruise to victory.

The most impressive part of that victory? Seton Hall only allowed three points in the last 13 and a half minutes – a mid-range jumper with 1:48 remaining in the third, and a free throw with 0:51 remaining in the same quarter. That also means they didn’t allow a single point in the last ten minutes and 51 seconds of the game.

The other impressive part of that victory came at the hands of Lauren Park-Lane, who, despite the other two members of Seton Hall’s “Big Three” (Sidney Cooks and Andra Espinoza-Hunter) combining for 17 points on 8/24 shooting, carried the team’s offense with 29 points on 12/20 shooting and 3/6 from three.

Park-Lane has now scored 20 or more points in five of her last seven games and brought her scoring output up to 17.9 points-per-game. During that stretch, the Big East’s leading assister also averaged 6.4 assists.

The team’s other two stars, Cooks and Espinoza-Hunter, both rank in the top-10 of the Big East, averaging a shade over 15 points and help the Pirates excel in multiple areas.

Cooks is the conference’s fourth-leading rebounder and shot blocker with 7.9 and 1.6-per-game, respectively. Espinoza-Hunter ranks top-five in the conference in free throw percentage (80.0%), steals-per-game (1.8), and three-pointers made-per-game (2.3). This team has a star-studded roster with seemingly too many weapons to stop all of them.

As for VCU, they enter Monday night with a tight 56-48 victory over Stony Brook in which the Rams held the Seawolves to just 28.8% shooting and 18.8% from three. While VCU only scores 60.4 points-per-game, their stifling defense ranks 54th in the nation with just 57.7 points allowed-per-game.

They are led by graduate guard Taya Robinson, who averages 16.2 points-per-game and 1.6 blocks-per-game, which both lead the team. She also gets 1.6 steals-per-game, second on the team.

One other Ram, sophomore guard Sarah Te-Biasu, averages double figures. She averages 12.7 points-per-game, and is a lights-out three-point shooter, shooting 39.3% from deep. She also leads the team with 2.7 steals-per-game.

The NET Rankings (which Seton Hall coach Tony Bozzella famously called out two weeks ago), say that this should be a great game. The only team between these two is Delaware, with Seton Hall ranked at 91 and VCU at 93.

Be sure to tune into 89.5 WSOU Sports, with Spencer Gonzales and Joe Walls taking you through all the action at 7 p.m. from Walsh Gymnasium.

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

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

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