Seton Hall
Preview: Seton Hall Plays VCU in WNIT Second Round Home Showdown
Date: March 21, 2022By: Justin Nicosia
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.
!!
— Seton Hall Women’s Basketball (@SHUWBB) March 19, 2022
Here's the updated @WomensNIT Bracket after round one...#HALLin ☠️ pic.twitter.com/zkKXTartRy
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.
March is all about surviving and advancing! On to the next round of the @WomensNIT pic.twitter.com/oLXPo71FCk
— Seton Hall Women’s Basketball (@SHUWBB) March 18, 2022
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.
Seton Hall WBB coach Tony Bozzella not a fan of the NET or of "national media" relying on numbers rather than actually watching games when talking about who the best teams are
— Raoul (@Raoul_000) March 7, 2022
—transcript: https://t.co/pjSOV5zkDp
—video: https://t.co/hrmICDE93j pic.twitter.com/LqcGFUCS4Q
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