Seton Hall's Big East schedule: 5 Thoughts

With Seton Hall's senior class having graduated, Myles Powell has green light to shoot Pirates back to NCAA Tournament for a fourth consecutive year. (Photo by Bob Dea/Daly Dose Of Hoops)

Kevin Willard has always stressed his notoriously difficult non-conference schedules when preparing his Seton Hall teams for the rigors of the Big East season that follows, emphasizing that the early-season tests the Pirates are subject to will end up being beneficial at the end of the year.

Such has been the case in each of the past three seasons, where Seton Hall -- the Big East tournament champion in 2016 -- has emerged from its non-conference season with battle scars that have forged resilient wins to lead it to back-to-back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances, and is repeated again this year after Willard's latest gambit serves as a prelude to a conference slate where four of the Pirates' first six games take place away from the Prudential Center, the end result of Disney On Ice and the New Jersey Devils having already booked Newark.

While the bulk of the early league games will be in hostile environments, the Big East comes back around to Seton Hall down the stretch, particularly in the form of two marquee home games to close out the season. That is one of the many takeaways when analyzing what lies ahead for the Pirates, a summary of which can be found in our five thoughts below:

1) Two tough trips out of the way early.

Immediately following Seton Hall's Big East opener -- a December 29 showdown at the Prudential Center with St. John's -- is a flight to Cincinnati for the traditionally difficult journey to Xavier, which serves as the second league game of the season on January 2. Ten days later, Marquette -- a road foe who dominated Seton Hall in Milwaukee last season -- opens up the new Fiserv Forum to the Pirates for the first time in what is sure to be a pivotal game as it relates to positioning in the standings through the first third of the schedule.

2) A blessing in disguise?

Willard has, at times, cited the schedule and the way it falls as a contributor -- sometimes positive, sometimes not so much -- in Seton Hall's ebb-and-flow performance during the Big East portions of the past few seasons, and with five games in fourteen days, there is no doubt that the attrition can play a factor in the start the Pirates get off to. Beginning with Xavier on January 2, and ending at Providence on January 15, The Hall runs the gauntlet early and often for a stretch that will baptize the younger players and push veterans like Myles Powell and Michael Nzei to the limit, but it will be more a boon than a bane come March.

3) Will it be sunny in Philadelphia?

Seton Hall takes on Villanova inside the Wells Fargo Center on January 27, marking the second straight season that the Pirates and Wildcats will face off in the home of the Philadelphia 76ers. Last year, Seton Hall matched the eventual national champions shot for shot through the first half, but foul trouble for Khadeen Carrington and Desi Rodriguez gave way to a game-changing 17-3 run that allowed Villanova to pull away. However, the odds are much kinder to the Pirates on paper than they would be if the game were at The Pavilion, Villanova's on-campus venue that has been a house of horrors for Seton Hall for the past quarter-century. A strong showing by the visitors could set the tone for a potentially productive February.

4) Three of four at home, plus a repeat opponent eight days later.

Seton Hall's make-or-break stretch in February begins with home games against Creighton (February 9) and Georgetown (February 13) before visiting the Bluejays in Omaha eight days after the initial encounter between the two teams. Together with Xavier, who invades the Prudential Center on February 20, the Pirates have a portion of the schedule where a 3-1 record in that span should be more the expectation than the goal leading into a February 23 quasi-home game against St. John's at Madison Square Garden, Seton Hall's second home of sorts over the past four years.

5) Saving the best for last.

Most of the early speculation regarding Big East rankings has centered on Villanova and Marquette presumably being predicted to be the top two teams in the conference, and as fate decrees, both will appear in Newark during the regular season's final week. Much like Villanova and Butler last year, the Golden Eagles and Wildcats will represent juicy showdowns for the Pirates to -- hopefully -- raise NCAA Tournament prospects on March 6 and 9, respectively.