Seton Hall Hosts Monmouth
11/17/2013 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Nov. 17, 2013
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SOUTH ORANGE, N.J. - The Seton Hall men's basketball team returns to the Prudential Center on Monday night as the Pirates are slated to host in-state rival Monmouth University in what will be their fourth contest of the 2013-14 season.
SHU is coming off a hard-fought, double-overtime loss at Mercer as a career-high 35 points from senior standout Fuquan Edwin (Paterson, N.J.) wasn't enough to lift The Hall past the reigning Atlantic Sun regular season champions.
Edwin converted on 15 of his 25 field goal attempts, coming up just one shy of becoming the fifth Pirate ever to make 16 in a single game and the first since SHU Athletics Hall of Famer Mark Bryant did so against Villanova on February 27, 1988.
The Paterson product also notched five steals in the game and now ranks as the BIG EAST leader with nine steals and an average of 3.0/game in the early going. He now needs five more to pass former Seton Hall star and current associate head coach Shaheen Holloway for third on the SHU steals list and is within 33 of the program's all-time leader Dan Callandrillo who recorded 260 for The Hall from 1978-82.
As a team, the Pirates are tied for second in the league with an average of 8.7 steals per contest and will look to improve that number against a Monmouth squad that has totaled 32 turnovers in its first two games.
Center Eugene Teague (Vineland, N.J.) grabbed a game-high 12 rebounds while logging a career-high 41 minutes in the marathon at Mercer, coming up just one point shy of his first double-double of the season.
Seton Hall has emerged from a season-opening stretch that featured three teams that advanced to the postseason a year ago with a 2-1 record and fourth-year head coach has made full use of his expanded options after an injury-plagued 2012-13 campaign; going at least six deep into his bench in all three outings.
Red-shirt junior Patrik Auda (Brno, Czech Republic) was used in a reserve role at Mercer after starting the first two games of his return from an injury that forced him out of the final 28 games of last season and sits third in the conference in field goal percentage (.692). Inserted in the starting lineup after exploding for career-highs in points, rebounds and assists in his Seton Hall debut, red-shirt sophomore guard Sterling Gibbs (Scotch Plains, N.J.) has added a new element to the Seton Hall offense, attacking the rim with regularity. Through three games he ranks as the BIG EAST leader with 33 made free-throws and has helped SHU record nearly 40 more attempts from the line than their opponents (125-to-86).
While Mercer started five seniors against The Hall, the Pirates head into a matchup with a King Rice-led Monmouth team that does not have one senior on its roster. MU has split its first two games to open the year, scoring a road win at Hofstra before falling at home to Pennsylvania in their last time out.
Junior guard Deon Jones, a Towson transfer, delivered 22 points in the win over the Pride and is averaging 19 points and 8.5 rebounds per game. Backcourt-mate Andrew Nicholas holds averages of 16.5 points and 4.5 boards per game and is coming off an outing in which he scored a team-high 19 points against Penn. Both Jones and Nicholas rank among the conference scoring leaders in what is Monmouth's first year as a member of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC)
Seton Hall and Monmouth will be meeting on the court for the 12th time in the history of the respective programs with SHU boasting an unblemished 11-0 record to this point in the series. Jeremy Hazell scored 26 points to lead the Pirates to an 87-72 win when the teams last met on November 15, 2009, helping The Hall to its 10th double-digit victory over the Hawks.
Monday night's contest is the first of two consecutive home games against in-state competition for Seton Hall as the Pirates will play Fairleigh Dickinson on December 1 after playing two games at the Barclays Center to wrap up the 2013 Coaches vs. Cancer Classic. Dating back to the 2006-07 season, Seton Hall has won 18-straight games against non-conference opponents from the Garden State.
Tip-off is scheduled for 8:00 p.m. from Newark and the game can be seen live nationally on FOX Sports 2. The Seton Hall radio team of Gary Cohen and Dave Popkin will be on the call for 970 AM and SHUPirates.com.
