Seton Hall fell to No. 12 in the AP Top 25 poll on Monday ahead of a monster week with games at Georgetown and at No. 10 Villanova.

The Pirates (16-5, 8-1 Big East) had been No. 10 in the nation, their highest ranking in two decades, but lost at home to Xavier, 74-62, on Saturday in a game in which Quincy McKnight injured his left knee. McKnight had an MRI Monday and the school reported it came back negative. Seton Hall lists McKnight as day-to-day.

“Hopefully we’re going to have him back for Georgetown so I’m really happy nothing serious happened to him,” said junior forward Sandro Mamukelashvili, who described the injury as a “bruise.”

The Pirates still maintain a one-game lead over Villanova (17-4, 7-2) atop the Big East because the Wildcats also lost at home Saturday to an unranked team in Creighton.

Now Seton Hall, No. 1 in the NJ.com Power Rankings, must prepare for a Georgetown team (13-9, 3-6) that is coming off a come-from-behind victory over St. John’s at Madison Square Garden on Sunday in which they trailed by 17 points and still won without injured star Mac McClung.

Against the Hoyas and the Wildcats, Seton Hall must step it up on the boards after getting out-rebounded 51-22 by Xavier.

“Yeah, that was [coach Kevin Willard’s] message, that we gotta work on our rebounding and be more tougher and physical,” Mamukelashvili said. “We gotta start working on box-outs and just be more tougher.

“He said it happens sometimes, we had a great 10-game winning streak so we just gotta move on and just come in for Georgetown ready to get another win.”

Senior All-America candidate Myles Powell had an abysmal day against Xavier, scoring nine points on 3-of-14 shooting and 1-of-9 from deep. But Mamukelashvili isn’t worried going forward.

“Myles really has a Kobe mentality, he always just kind of moves on so I feel like Myles is having an amazing year so we’re just going to come back, get some shots up, get his mind right and you know coach and him have a great relationship,” he said. “They’re going to watch film, they’re going to talk it out and Myles is going to be back.”

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As for himself, this was Mamukelashvili’s second game back after being out since Dec. 8 with a fractured wrist and he described himself as 85-90 percent healthy.

“I feel like I gotta get my strength back a little bit, my grip is not there yet,” he said. “ I feel like I’m right around the corner.

“I feel like our trainers did a great job because I’m a little early and I feel like that’s all them. They didn’t give me no days off, our doctors were always here checking on me.”

With the winning streak behind them, maybe it will be easier in some sense for the Pirates to get back to business and just focus on trying to get a win Wednesday before the huge game at Villanova.

“Our next week is really big so our mentality has to be back to where it was recently,” said sophomore forward Jared Rhoden.

Adam Zagoria is a freelance reporter who covers Seton Hall and NJ college basketball for NJ Advance Media.