The Hall win 7th straight - on the right track

Concluding the Pirates easy 86-68 victory over UMass in front of 5,800 at the Prudential Center, the Hall opened the season 7-0 for the first time since the 1988-89 season, in which they lost to Michigan in the NCAA Championship game. There is only one problem: the Pirates basically MUST win all of their non-conference games, due to the 206th best strength of schedule ranking in the country, for them to have a shot at making the NCAA tourney.

Sophomore Herb Pope (who earned Big East Weekly Honor Roll last week) dropped 22 points and grabbed 15 boards, junior Jeremy Hazell (check my new wallpaper in the section to the right --->) shot 8 of 14 from the floor and finished with 21 points, along with 5 steals, and sophomore Jordan Theodore added 12 points and 5 steals from the bench, proving himself a valuable backup to Harvey. Junior Robert Mitchell also added 13 and 8. Seton Hall out-rebounded the Minutemen 55-48, the Pirates highest total since the 2007 game against Navy. The Hall entered half time with an insurmountable 44-19 lead and used the second half as a highlight reel. UMass fell to 4-5 on the season, with Harris and Gurley both putting up 15 points. The Hall's torrid free throw shooting continued, shooting 20-39 from the charity line. Both head coach Bobby Gonzalez and Hazell received technical fouls in the game, but maybe Gonzo should be focusing his anger against his own players during practice when they are bricking foul shots left and right.

The win over UMass marks the Hall's fourth straight win of double figures, with the previous 3 wins coming by 29 points or more. So far this year, the Pirates' opponents have a combined record of 25-32, which is only held afloat by Cornell's 7-2 record. The current most frequently asked question for Seton Hall: will Gonzo's squad be ready for the meat of the schedule, where the final minutes of the game will be time for clutch performances and not "bring in the walk-ons" chants? "I think that we played a tight game in the beginning of the year against St. Peter's and we were lucky to win the game at the buzzer. I think the Cornell game was tight at times. You gotta play to win," Gonzalez told New Jersey Newsroom reporter Mike Vorkunov. "It's not like all of a sudden you get in a war and you don't know how to react."