Newark, NJ - The losing streak is over. Seton Hall snapped a four game skid defeating DePaul 82-77 at the Prudential Center Sunday afternoon. The victory improves the Pirates to 18-9 (7-7 Big East). DePaul dropped to 10-16 and 3-11 in the Big East. The tempo free numbers of note…
Possessions: DePaul 73, Seton Hall 71 (an uptempo pace)
Offensive efficiency: DePaul 106, Seton Hall 116
Four Factors:
eFG pct: DePaul 62, Seton Hall 49
FT rate: DePaul 36, Seton Hall 42
OREB pct: DePaul 29, Seton Hall 51
TO rate: DePaul 15, Seton Hall 20
Leading scorers: DePaul- Marin Maric 23 points
Seton Hall- Desi Rodriguez 33 points (career high)
What DePaul did well: Forced Seton Hall into a 20% turnover rate. That is one of every five possessions wasted on a ‘TO’. Dave Leitao’s club cashed in the miscues by leading 14-11 on points off turnovers.
What Seton Hall did well...Pound the boards. Hall had a48-31 rebounding edge. The offensive rebounding (OREB pct) saw clear cut dominance. Angel Delgado, a 16 point scorer, ;ed all with 19 rebounds- 7 on the offensive end. Seton Hall had 21 offensive boards. That is 21 possessions extended by a rebound, which more than made up for their 14 turnovers.
Final notes: Resiliency was the key for DePaul. The game had seven ties and lead changes. Each time the Hall threatened to pull away the Blue Demons responded. Even in the final minute the outcome was not decided. Rodriguez’s two free throws with eight seconds to play iced it.
Maric, a 6-11 Graduate center, did a nice job for DePaul. Maric mixed it up inside shooting 10 of 12 from the floor while tying teammate Max Strus for team rebounding honors with 8.
Another Hall rebounding note, Pirates led 22-14 in second chance points.
Thomas Chen, Seton Hall’s media relations contact, made a good point at the half noting all three DePaul conference wins were on the road.
Close call but Seton Hall coach Kevin Willard was happy to get back to 7-7 in the Big East and end the slide. Willard was not surprised DePaul put up a challenge saying, "at this point in time nobody is blowing out anybody in the Big East."
