After trailing by one point at the half, the Seton Hall men's basketball defeated the St. Peter's Peacocks 63-54 on Saturday night thanks to a strong second half effort.
The win moves the Pirates to 5-1 on the season while St. Peter's drops to 1-4.
The Pirates were led by senior forward Herb Pope who finished with his fifth double-double of the season, tallying 16 points, 14 rebounds, and two assists. Senior guard Jordan Theodore also notched his first double-double of the season with 13 points and 10 assists.
In the first half, the Hall struggled to keep up with the Peacocks after turning the ball over nine times. St. Peter's controlled the low-post for much of the first half as well, recording 12 points in the paint.
Junior forward Darius Conley was the catalyst for the Peacocks in the first half pulling down seven rebounds to go along with his four points at the halfway mark and finished the game with nine points and 14 rebounds.
St. Peter's leading scorer was junior Chris Prescott who scored 14 points and added six assists. Freshman forward Karee Ferguson also contributed 12 points, five rebounds, and two steals off the bench for the Peacocks.
At the half, the Pirates were shooting a below-average 33.3% from the field. The Hall came out firing in the second half, however, hitting 15 of their 30 shot attempts.
"We have to take better shots early in games," said Seton Hall head coach Kevin Willard, talking about the Pirates' sluggish starts this season. "We're a little selfish early in the game and we take ourselves out of it."
Seton Hall took 22 shots from beyond the arc, converting eight of them. According to Willard, he would like to see the team take even more shots.
"We took 22 three pointers tonight and I think that's not enough actually," Willard said. "I'd like to take 25, honestly. In order to win in college basketball, you have to hit shots."
The Pirates are now shooting 45.9% from the field on the season overall placing them No. 109 in the country. The team is also shooting 27.8% from behind the 3-point line, a place where coach Willard would like to see more production from his players.
"That's part of our system, we aren't just going to stop shooting because we might be in a slump," senior guard Jordan Theodore said. "I took a few bad shots tonight, but I take the open shots because I want to win."
According to Theodore, after going 3-29 from distance in their first two home games, the Pirates' 8-22 performance against St. Peter's was a breath of fresh air.
"We have some confidence now," Theodore said. "Sometimes you can't control if your shot just isn't falling but tonight our shots were falling, so we kept shooting. We have a lot of guys who can shoot the ball and it's still early, so confidence is big for us."
The Pirates continue their streak of six straight home games this Friday, Dec. 2 when they host the Auburn Tigers. Tip-off is set for 9 p.m.
