Seton Hall Basketball: 3 keys for Pirates to take down Fairleigh Dickinson
By John Makuch
2. Pirate frontcourt needs to step up, especially on the glass
Seton Hall was out-rebounded at home by Saint Peters 29-27, which just cannot happen if they want to compete in the Big East Conference. Seton Hall was forced to use the talent of their guard and wing play to get the job done in Newark, which is not sustainable in the world of college basketball.
This falls down to Jaden Bediako and Elijah Hutchins-Everett who help make up the frontcourt and center depth. Bediako had four points and five rebounds, while Hutchins-Everett did not get a single rebound in 19 minutes of play. Saint Peters was able to get a lot of their points off second-chance opportunities with 12 total offensive rebounds in this game.
It is going to be interesting to see how they approach this because game planning or lineup changes do not affect rebounding as much as other areas of the floor. This just comes down to boxing out, staying aggressive, and making sure these big crash the glass.
Having struggles from centers rebounding leads to players like Dre Davis needing to make an impact on the boards as he put up six rebounds. Seton Hall has had this issue in previous seasons, with Jared Rhoden being a wing who used to get a ton of rebounds.
As long as Davis is able to step up and rebound there will be a way for them to hang around in this area, but Davis is not getting rebounds over Donovan Clingan, Ryan Kalkbrenner, and others. This team needs their centers to step up, and it starts against Fairleigh Dickinson.