Pitt (2-2) has had a very hot-and-cold start to the 2019-20 basketball season, starting with a big win against Florida State followed by two tough losses at home to Nicholls State and West Virginia. Monmouth (1-3) enters Monday night’s contest on a three-game losing streak, including their most recent 112-57 loss to no. 4 Kansas on Friday, Nov. 15.

Fast Facts

• Pitt and Monmouth have never played against one another in a regular season college basketball game. Tonight’s matchup will be their first.
• To my eye, Monmouth has not beaten an ACC opponent on the road going back at least 30 years. They beat Miami during the 1987-88 campaign, but Miami was an independent at the time. Monmouth took down no. 17 Notre Dame 70-68 at home in Nov. 2015, however, for an impressive ACC win.
• The Hawks had a really impressive run in 2015-16 in addition to the Notre Dame win, as they beat USC (83-73) at a neutral site, as well as both Georgetown (83-68) and UCLA (84-81) on the road. The Hawks finished that season with an impressive 28-8 record.
• Pitt enters tonight’s game on a two-game losing streak at the Petersen Events Center for the first time ever.
• Monmouth Head Coach King Rice is in his ninth season with the Hawks, and has amassed a 132-136 record as head coach. The Hawks are just 26-44 since the start of 2017-18.
• Impressively, however, is the fact that Rice led the Hawks to the MAAC Championship game last season after the Hawks jumped out to 12 consecutive losses to start the year. Following their 0-12 start, Monmouth went 14-8 on their way to the championship contest. They lost the game, and thereby just narrowly missed an automatic NCAA tournament berth.
• Monmouth is currently ranked no. 252 in the KenPom rankings, while Pitt has dropped to no. 83 in the ranking following their loss to West Virginia.

Monmouth Preview

Monmouth comes into the 2019-20 season with much of its roster intact from the previous season. They return their top two scorers from a year ago in junior guards Ray Salnave and Deion Hammond, who put up 11.9 points and 11.8 points per game, respectively. Salnave also added 4.0 rebounds and 2.8 assists per game last season. Through four games this season, Salnave (14.0 ppg) and Hammond (13.3 ppg) are Monmouth’s leading scorers once again, with Salnave also adding 3.8 rebounds and 3.0 assists per game.

Perhaps most impressively, Salnave is putting up his excellent numbers while playing just 21 minutes per game and without having started a single game yet this year. Part of his ability to score big points in fewer minutes is his efficiency at the free throw line. He has taken 18 free throws in just 85 minutes of action this season, making 16 of his tries.

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