GAME THREAD: Seton Hall at Georgetown

Game 17: Seton Hall (13-8, 10-5) at Georgetown Hoyas (6-10, 4-7)

When: Today 5:30 pm

Where: McDonough Gymnasium

Series: Hoyas lead 59-52

Last meeting: Seton Hall won the first meeting this season 78-67 in Newark back on Christmas Eve, Eve.

TV: CBS Sports Network (Tom McCarthy & Pete Gillen)

Radio: The Team 980, SiriusXM 387, Radio.com (Rich Chvotkin, 47th season)

KenPom Ranking: Seton Hall 34, Georgetown 98

KenPom Projection: Seton Hall 73, Georgetown 69 (65 percent)

Line: Seton Hall -4, o/u 143

PREVIEW

After what seemed like the longest in-season week off ever, Georgetown is back at it tonight when they host Seton Hall. For the purpose of this blog I’m going to go ahead and classify 530 pm as tonight, especially during winter.

Moving right along the Pirates took the first meeting this season 78-67 on Christmas Eve, Eve in a game that was not nearly as close as the final scored indicated. Seton Hall jumped out early and took a 33-19 lead into halftime and led by as many 19. Myles Cale and Jared Rhoden had career nights with 30 and 26 points respectively as Pirates star big man was able to take the back seat as Seton Hall cruised. Cale and Rhoden combined to hit 8 of Seton Hall’s 9 three-pointers while center Ike Obiagu had nine blocks following in the footsteps of Romaro Gill who had eight blocks in the second meeting during the 2020 season at Capital One Arena.

Last time out, way back on Feb 13, the Hoyas got back to their post pause winning ways with a comfortable 78-63 victory over Butler. Jahvon Blair and Jamorko Pickett both joined the 1,000-point scoring club at Georgetown in all-around great afternoon if you can ignore turnovers because there were a TON of turnovers. Georgetown made 24 field goals while turning it over 23 times in the win. Let’s be honest, that’s not a sentence that is often written,

A win against Seton Hall would be a big step going forward for Georgetown as the Hoyas have lost four straight against Kevin Willard’s guys. None of those four games have been all that competitive with the Pirates racing out to big leads in all of them. I’m still trying to forget that 2019 Big East Tournament game.

So let’s get back to Obiagu’s nine blocks against Georgetown.

The former Florida State big is having a good year defensively but his next biggest block total against a Big East opponent is four. In two games against Villanova he had just one total block. Like I pointed out earlier, Seton Hall has figured out a way to swat Hoya shots recently going back to Gill who had a total of 12 in the two games last season. We’ll see if the adjustment is made by Patrick Ewing and the Hoyas. This block party can not continue if Georgetown wants to start winning games in this series again.

Seton Hall has it all to play for in terms of postseason play. They’ve won four straight after falling to 9-8 but the last two wins over Marquette and DePaul have been anything but pretty.

Although unlikely Georgetown still has a shot at finishing the regular season with a winning record. The Hoyas would have to go 5-0 in order to head into the Big East Tournament at 11-10. Hey, NIT anybody?

While the current record is disappointing at 6-10, Georgetown has had a legitimate chance against every opponent this season except tonight’s visitors. The only other ugly loss on the season in terms of a lack of competitiveness came in the second Creighton game. So while 5-0 is a huge ask - actually it would b 6-0 if you go back to the win last week - the Hoyas should have a chance late in each contest. There’s your glass half full look at the rest of the season. The games are winnable, just not with 20+ turnovers.

NOTES

With five games left plus the Big East Tournament, Jahvon Blair needs 9 more 3-pointers to join D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera and Jonathan Wallace as the only players in school history with at least 200 career makes from deep....Blair has made at least one 3-pointer in 29 straight games....Pickett (8.5 rpg) has dropped to second in the conference in rebounding behind Xavier’s Zach Freemantle (8.7). Qudus Wahab is third at 7.9.

Bobby’s Prediction

Seton Hall 80, Georgetown 77

I can seen this one going either way but Seton Hall is playing for an NCAA Tournament berth and in the end probably has a bit too much experience. As always, Chudier Bile could be the wildcard here as his role had completely chanced since these teams last met.

Leave your witty (and non-witty) in-game comments here!

HOYA SAXA!