MEN’S BASKETBALL GAMEDAY
NO. 15 UCONN AT SETON HALL
When: Wednesday, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Prudential Center, Newark, N.J. Records: UConn 15-4 (4-4 Big East), Seton Hall 11-8 (4-4 Big East)
TV: FS1
Radio: UConn Sports Network, WAVZNew Haven (1300 AM), WGCH- Greenwich (1490 AM), WATR-Waterbury (1320 AM), WICH-Norwich (1310 AM, 94.5 FM), WILI-Wilimantic (1400 AM, 95.3 FM), 97.9 FM-ESPN Hartford, SiriusXM-983, SXM App 973
KEEP AN EYE ON Friendly rivals: There's probably not a Big East coach that Dan Hurley roots for more than Seton Hall's Shaheen Holloway.
Holloway took over for Hurley as the Hall's starting point guard after Hurley graduated in 1996 and forged an even better career than his predecessor, scoring 1,588 points over four seasons.
After leading little Saint Peter's to a remarkable run to the Elite 8 last spring, Holloway took over the head coaching reins at his alma mater. It's been a rough transition at times — the Hall lost four of its first five Big East games — but things appear on the upswing. The Pirates have won three straight and are, amazingly, tied with UConn in the Big East standings at 4-4 heading into Wednesday night's bout at the Rock in Newark. Granted, those three wins have come against arguably the three worst teams in the league (Butler, Georgetown and DePaul), but the latter two were on the road, where it's never easy to win a conference game.
Seton Hall is allowing just 68.3 points per game in Big East play, tops in the league, and is allowing opponents to shoot just 41.7 percent from the floor (second
in the league). The Pirates struggle to score (71 ppg, 31.4 percent 3-point shooting), but then so has UConn lately. The Huskies' guards must break out of their slump — on both sides of the ball — or, beyond all likelihood just a couple of weeks ago, Holloway will have a better league record than his point guard predecessor.