Romaro Gill speaks in hushed tones and isn’t prone to braggadocio.

At 7-foot-2, the native of Jamaica truly appears to be a gentle giant off the court.

But as No. 18 Seton Hall (13-4, 5-0 Big East) takes a seven-game winning streak into Saturday’s noon tilt with St. John’s (12-6, 1-4) at Madison Square Garden (noon, Fox), Gill has been anything but gentle on the court.

After reaching double-figures in scoring just once in Seton Hall’s first 13 games, Gill has now tallied double-figures in four straight games. In two of his last four outings — wins over Georgetown on Jan. 3 and at No. 5 Butler on Wednesday — he poured in a career-high 17 points.

They weren’t garbage-time points, either. Seton Hall likely doesn’t beat Butler without Gill scoring 15 of his 17 points after they trailed by 10 points at the intermission.

After averaging 2.3 points, 2.7 rebounds and 1.3 blocks last season, Gill is averaging 7.2 points, 5.1 rebounds and 2.9 blocks. In five Big East games, he’s averaging 12.2 points, 5.2 rebounds and 3.2 blocks.

Myles Powell’s roommate is tied for 12th in Division 1 in blocked shots.

“The leap that he has made, it’s amazing,” Powell said. “You guys know how I feel about Ro, and I’m at a loss for words to just say I’m proud of him.”

At this point, Gill, 25, has to be considered among the favorites — if not the favorite — to win the Big East Most Improved Player award. Considering that Powell is averaging 22 points, 5.1 rebounds and 2.3 assists for the league’s top team, he has to be considered the favorite for Big East Player of the Year. That means Seton Hall is in the mix for at least two major conference awards.

“Romaro Gill’s development within the course of this season is the most dramatic of any player in the Big East,” Steve Lavin, a Big East analyst on Fox and the former St. John’s and UCLA head coach, told NJ Advance Media. “During Seton Hall’s seven-game win streak, he has been a central figure and difference-maker in the Pirates’ schemes at both ends of the court.”

With his length and athleticism, Gill has always been a natural shot-blocker. In his second season at Vincennes University, a junior college in Indiana, he averaged 2.5 blocks while shooting 56 percent from the field and ranked 10th in the National Junior College Athletic Association in blocked shots with 85.

His coach, Todd Franklin, also knew that Gill had a blossoming offensive game given his instincts on the low block.

“He doesn’t have a bad little left-shoulder jump hook,” Franklin told NJ Advance Media earlier this season. “He’s so tall and long.”

Now he’s scoring off screen-and-roll lob dunks, which is virtually unstoppable. Against Butler, Gill scored nine points in a 15-6 run that ended with Powell’s 3 to give Seton Hall a 58-57 lead with 8:14 to play.

The win was their biggest of the season and their second over a Top-10 ranked opponent this season.

Gill’s improved offensive play has come at a time when the Pirates are without junior forward Sandro Mamukelashvili, arguably the team’s second-best player. He has been out since early December with a fractured wrist on his right (non-shooting) hand but is due back in the coming weeks.

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Without him, Gill and sophomore Jared Rhoden, who has moved into the power forward spot and excelled, have both played huge roles. Rhoden is now averaging 8.6 points and 6.2 rebounds on the season.

“What Jared has done as a sophomore, it’s amazing,” Powell said. “He went from being a guard to having to throw away everything he knows as a guard and everything he learned in the first two years to now he’s playing the four. And when you do that, that's a huge jump because you’re not doing nothing the same.

“He’s setting screens now, he’s rolling to the basket, he’s picking up the four man, he has to switch. It’s a lot that he has to do that most sophomores don’t pick up that fast. I just want to give him a lot of credit because I know me as a sophomore, I wouldn’t have been able to do that.”

When Mamukelashvili returns, coach Kevin Willard will have to figure out how to work him back in the rotation without disturbing the chemistry he has achieved on this current winning streak.

“I still want everybody to realize that we still don’t have Sandro,” Powell said. “We’re winning [seven] games in a row and we’re still not even at our peak yet because we still don’t have one of our best players on our team so we’re only going to keep getting better and better from here.”

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