After falling to the No. 8 West Virginia Mountaineers on Saturday, Seton Hall will travel back to Newark on Tuesday to play their long time rival Rutgers for the first time this year.
As of Thursday, Feb. 18, both teams have almost identical in-conference records. Rutgers is 5-9 while the Pirates, who have played one less game, are at 5-8.
Rutgers will look to defeat the Pirates for the first time since the final game of both teams' 2007-2008 regular season campaign.
Since that 64-61 loss after J.R. Inman's last second three pointer, Seton Hall's two consecutive victories against the Scarlet Knights have been rather close games.
Both matches the Pirates won were by a combined margin of eight points, 70-67 and 65-60.
Currently Rutgers is riding a three game winning streak, including an upset win against the then No. 7 ranked Georgetown Hoyas, going into their Saturday matchup against Connecticut.
The Scarlet Knights have only one player averaging over 15 points a game, sophomore guard Mike Rosario.
Rosario is the only player that represents Rutgers on the top 25 individual scoring leaders list for the Big East with 16 points per game.
Junior guard Jeremy Hazell is second on that list to Notre Dame's All American forward Luke Harangody, averaging 22 points per game.
After Rutgers, the Pirates play their final home game on Feb. 28 against Marquette.
Editor's note: this article is an excerpt of the preview story that ran in the Feb. 18 edition of The Setonian, which looked at the Pirates' matchups with both West Virginia and Rutgers.
Nicholas Parco can be reached at nicholas.parco@student.shu.edu.
