Pirates to Host Michigan State in 2019 Gavitt Games
5/29/2019 2:00:00 PM | Men's Basketball
NEW YORK - The Seton Hall men's basketball team will host a marquee opponent in November this upcoming season as the Pirates will take on Michigan State at Prudential Center on Thursday, Nov. 14 as part of the 2019 edition of the Gavitt Tipoff Games that pits members of the BIG EAST against members of the Big Ten.
The clash between two programs that are both consensus "way-too-early" top 25 teams in 2019-20 will be televised on FS1 with a game time to be determined.
This will be Seton Hall's fourth appearance in the Gavitt Tipoff Games, a unique early-season series played between the two conferences and named in honor of Dave Gavitt, founder of the BIG EAST and basketball visionary. So far, the Pirates are 2-1 in Gavitt Games competition, defeating Iowa on the road in 2016, taking down Indiana at Prudential Center in 2017 and falling at Nebraska in 2018. Meanwhile, Michigan State is making its first-ever Gavitt Tipoff Games appearance in the challenge's fifth year.
LOCK IT IN!
— Seton Hall Basketball (@SetonHallMBB) May 29, 2019
📆: 11.14.19@PruCenter will be 🔥🔥🔥#HALLin | #GavittGames pic.twitter.com/aD6yPIzqo1
Seton Hall and Michigan State have a limited hardwood history with only three prior matchups. The first came on March 18, 1994 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament in St. Petersburg, Fla., where the No. 7 seeded Spartans came away with an 84-73 victory over the No. 10 seeded Pirates. Then the two teams scheduled a home-and-home a few years later; on Dec. 19, 2000 at the Meadowlands, Michigan State won 72-57, and on Dec. 22, 2001, the Spartans again won, 68-64, at the Breslin Center.
Both teams will go into 2019-20 with tremendous buzz. The Pirates return four starters from last year's NCAA Tournament squad, including rising senior All-America candidate Myles Powell, who was one of the nation's top scorers in 2018-19. The Spartans return two starters from last year's squad that won the Big Ten Tournament title and advanced to the Final Four, including All-American guard Cassius Winston.
Scheduled through 2022, the Gavitt Tipoff Games are played on consecutive days in the first full week of the college basketball season. The series spans eight years, with games played at home sites. Each BIG EAST team is participating a minimum of six times, while Big Ten programs are taking part a minimum of four times. Teams from both conferences already meet in some traditional rivalry games, such as the Garden State Hardwood Classic between Seton Hall and Rutgers, and those matchups will continue outside of these Gavitt Tipoff Games. In addition to playing at Rutgers during the 2019-20 season, Seton Hall is also slated to host Maryland and could face Michigan in a potential matchup in the 2019 Battle 4 Atlantis.
After splitting the games in each of the first three years of the event, the Big Ten won the 2018 Gavitt Tipoff Games, 5-3, and holds a slim 17-15 edge over the BIG EAST.
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2019Â Gavitt Tipoff Games
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Monday, Nov. 11
DePaul at Iowa
Tuesday, Nov. 12
Minnesota at Butler
Creighton at Michigan
Wednesday, Nov. 13
Villanova at Ohio State
Purdue at Marquette
Providence at Northwestern
Thursday, Nov. 14
Michigan State at Seton Hall
Penn State at Georgetown
