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#19 South Carolina faces Seton Hall Monday
By: Zach Cohen - StatFox
Published: 12/11/2016  at  9:35:00 AM
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SOUTH CAROLINA GAMECOCKS (8-0)

vs. SETON HALL PIRATES (7-2)

Madison Square Garden – New York, NY
Tip-off: Monday, 9:00 pm ET
Line: Seton Hall -2.0, Total: 135.5

#19 South Carolina will be looking to stay perfect with a win over Seton Hall at Madison Square Garden on Monday.

South Carolina is one of the few remaining unbeaten teams in the nation, and it’s not like the Gamecocks have faced an easy schedule either. They have already earned victories over teams like Michigan and Syracuse, and their defense has been absurd all season. South Carolina has held two of its eight opponents under 40.0% shooting from the field, and the team held Michigan to only 19.2% when they met in Brooklyn. Seton Hall, meanwhile, has a nice win over Iowa, but the Pirates lost to both Florida and Stanford on neutral courts. Those were solid opportunities to pick up some meaningful wins, but it’d be big for Seton Hall to knock off an undefeated team on Monday. It helps that this will essentially be a home game for the Pirates, as they should really have MSG packed with their fans. One trend favoring South Carolina coming into this game is that the Gamecocks are 6-0 ATS when playing away from home after a non-conference game over the past two seasons. Seton Hall, meanwhile, is 13-3 ATS after allowing 60 points or less over the past three seasons. One thing that should really hurt the Gamecocks is the loss of G Sindarius Thornwell (Suspension). He will be out indefinitely for South Carolina, and that means that this team needs to replace 18.7 PPG, 6.7 RPG, 4.1 APG, 1.6 SPG and 1.3 BPG.

With Sindarius Thornwell out, the next guy up for South Carolina is G P.J. Dozier (12.8 PPG, 4.5 RPG, 2.5 APG, 2.4 SPG). Dozier has been hot recently, averaging 20.5 PPG, 6.5 RPG and 3.5 SPG over the past two contests. With Thornwell not playing, it’s likely that Dozier will need to score anywhere from 15 to 20 points on a nightly basis for this Gamecocks team. He doesn’t, however, want to sacrifice his efficiency. That is one of Doziers strong points, as he is shooting 45.1% from the floor and 44.8% from three this season. The outside shooting is an incredible improvement from the 21.3% he shot from the outside a year ago. F Chris Silva (9.3 PPG, 6.1 RPG, 2.1 BPG) will likely be the x-factor in this game for South Carolina, though. Silva is an energetic forward, and he is going to need to crash the boards and defend the rim in this one. It’d be big for him to grab 10 or more rebounds in this game, as he’s going up against one of the best rebounders in the country in Angel Delgado. With Delgado on the floor, the Gamecocks will also need to make sure that everybody else is crashing the glass as well.

As previously mentioned, F Angel Delgado (13.6 PPG, 10.9 RPG) will be taking the floor at MSG on Monday and he is an animal for this Seton Hall team. Over the past three games, Delgado is averaging 17.0 PPG and 12.3 RPG on 23-for-30 shooting from the floor. Delgado knows who he is, and that is a fantastic role player. He’s probably the best rebounder in all of college basketball, and he can score when his team calls on him as well. Look for him to put up a double-double in front of a big crowd on Monday. G Khadeen Carrington (20.0 PPG, 1.2 SPG) is, however, the team’s leading scorer. Carrington will need to come up big in this game, and he should be able to do just that. He has been scorching hot this season, shooting 54.7% from the field and 55.3% from the outside. Carrington won’t be able to keep that up all season, but he’ll certainly be hoping to put forth an efficient performance at MSG. Another guy to keep an eye on is F Desi Rodriguez (14.6 PPG, 6.8 RPG, 2.0 SPG). Rodriguez is another player that can score the ball for this team, and he hasn’t even played to his potential this season. Unlike Carrington, Rodriguez has been ice cold from the outside and that’ll change soon. He’s hitting just 17.4% of his threes this year, but shot 38.6% from the outside a year ago. That means that he should start creeping back towards last year’s mark soon, and Rodriguez will certainly be hoping that begins on Monday.


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