After an impressive runner-up finish at the Big East Tournament, the Seton Hall men’s basketball team now has its eyes set on the NCAA Tournament. The Pirates enter their fourth successive post-season tournament as a 10-seed and are poised to face newly-crowned Southern Conference champions Wofford.
Wofford enters the tournament on a 20-game winning streak that dates back to late December and is ranked 19th best team in the AP Top 25 Poll. The Terriers boast the 14th-highest scoring offense in the country with 83.0 points per game and a three-point field goal percentage of 42 percent, which ranks second only to Lehigh.While Wofford’s overall schedule for the season was not particularly difficult, its only four losses of the season came against 1-seed North Carolina, 4-seed Kansas, 5-seed Mississippi State and 9-seed Oklahoma. Aside from a 25-point blowout loss to Kansas in early December, each of these losses were by respectable 11-point margins.
Seton Hall’s offensive statistics may not equate to Wofford’s this year, but the Pirates have shown their capacity to rise to the occasion against quality opposition. The Pirates’ win over 2-seed Kentucky in December is arguably their best achievement of the season, as well as defeating 5-seed Marquette in the Big East Tournament semifinal and providing 6-seed Villanova with a hefty challenge in the Big East Tournament Championship.
Fletcher Magee, Wofford’s star-studded 6-foot-4 senior guard, leads the Terriers’ offensive line with 20.5 points-per-game and a 42.8 percent three-point field goal percentage. Kevin Willard already identified Magee as a major threat to the Pirates come game day, saying that he believes the guard is up there with Myles Powell as one of the country’s best shooters.
The Pirates’ meeting with Wofford in the first round will likely come down to which guard can provide more points for his team. Powell still averages more points-per-game than Magee at 22.9 in a more competitive Big East Conference, but Magee is in line to break an NCAA 3-point shooting record.
On top of surpassing Steph Curry as the Southern Conference’s all-time leading three-point scorer, Magee looks set to establish himself as the NCAA’s all-time leader. Sitting at 502 three-pointers made, Magee needs to make three more shots from the arc to etch his name in the record books. Breaking this record against the Pirates on Thursday would mean Magee did it in four less games than current record holder Travis Bader and with almost 100 less three-point shots attempted.
The back-to-back Southern Conference Player of the Year also maintains a 90.7 percent free throw conversion rate, sixth amongst all players in the nation.
Seton Hall did tend to find themselves in foul trouble when a game’s momentum did not flow in its favor, but Quincy McKnight and Myles Cale have been providing the team with stellar defense in recent games.
The matchup is sure to be a well contested affair between two of the tournament’s promising underdogs. All eyes will be on each team’s respective sharp-shooting guards and which of the two upperclassmen can push his team into the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
Justin Sousa can be reached at justin.sousa@student.shu.edu or on Twitter @Sousa7474.
