Seton Hall vs Monmouth 11/9/22 College Basketball Picks, Predictions, Odds

The Monmouth Hawks and the Seton Hall Pirates meet in college basketball action from the Prudential Center on Wednesday night.

The Monmouth Hawks come into the 2022-23 season retooling, as the Hawks went 21-13 including an 11-8 record in their final season in the MAAC before heading over to the CAA this season. The Hawks took out Niagara and Rider before falling to Saint Peter’s in the conference championship game. The Hawks will have to retool as the heart of their roster at the top is gone, with George Papas (14.9 PPG, 5.4 RPG, 3 APG), Shavar Reynolds (14.1 PPG, 2.7 APG) and Walker Miller (14.6 PPG, 5.8 RPG) are all gone. The leading returning scorer would be Myles Foster, who had just 5.3 PPG in 12.4 minutes per game last season. That just shows you how new and green this Hawks lineup is for opening night.

The Seton Hall Pirates will be looking to build on a solid 2021-22 season, finishing at 21-11 including an 11-8 mark in Big East play. As the 6-seed, Seton Hall took out Georgetown before falling to UConn in the conference quarterfinals. Seton Hall’s performance was good enough to snag an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament, but the Pirates would fall to TCU In the first round. New head coach Shaheen Holloway is expected to have some big numbers in his debut season coaching his alma mater, but he’s got some solid pieces to do it. Jared Rhoden (15.5 PPG, 6.7 RPG), Bryce Aiken (14.5 PPG, 2.7 APG) and Myles Cale (9.8 PPG, 3.9 RPG) are all gone, but the Peacocks hit the transfer portal hard, with the Pirates snagging guys like Al-Amir Dawes (11.3 PPG) from Clemson and KC Ndefo, following his old coach from Saint Peter’s to play for the Pirates. Kadary Richmond’s also logged 8.8 PPG and 4.1 APG for the Pirates last season. Only time will tell if the Shaheen Holloway era at Seton Hall will start on a high and sustain if until conference play, or if the Pirates end up starting the season with a dud.

Monmouth is 2-5 ATS in their last 7 games overall and 13-5 ATS in their last 18 road games while the under is 20-7 int heir last 27 road games. Seton Hall is 7-20 ATS in their last 27 home games and 1-4 ATS in their last 5 games overall while the under is 13-3 in their last 16 Wednesday games.

I get the case to be made either way here, but I think the stronger play is the under. Both teams lost a lot of their top depth and while it was easier for Seton Hall to retool with Shaheen Holloway taking over at head coach, to reload and bring guys in, it’s still a fairly new roster that needs time to galvanize some chemistry. On the other side, Monmouth’s offloaded a ton of talent from last year and it almost feels like a Niagara team in a rebuild. I’ll side with the under as I’m expecting Holloway to carry his slow pace over from Saint Peter’s and for the Pirates to slow down Monmouth, but I don’t expect a ton of points from Seton Hall either. Give me the under.