As Saint Peter’s makes Sweet 16, Shaheen Holloway gets a job endorsement
The Kevin Willard era at Seton Hall is over. His successor might still be at the dance.
This weekend featured a bit of drama in the local college coaching ranks, with two prevailing theories for how to interpret it.
1. Kevin Willard is brimming with confidence in Shaheen Holloway, who spent 12 seasons as an assistant on Willard’s staffs at Iona and Seton Hall. He’s seen unmistakable leadership traits in the 45-year-old Seton Hall alum that the rest of the college basketball world is now witnessing as Holloway takes 15th-seeded Saint Peter’s on an improbable run to the Sweet 16, downing Kentucky and Murray State.
Willard, who had been connected to the vacant Maryland job for months, knew more behind the scenes than he let on. He knew the Pirates would need a new head coach soon and he believes his former right-hand man, who also happens to be Seton Hall’s all-time assists leader, is the perfect replacement. Which, of course, he is.
2. Kevin Willard is being selfish. His Pirates looked vastly unprepared to handle TCU in Friday’s 69-42 loss in the 8-9 game in San Diego. Reasonably, observers like us can chalk it up to Willard setting his sights on Maryland and being too distracted to worry about crunching TCU game tape.
And to top it off, immediately after Seton Hall’s season came to an ugly halt, Willard had the gall to admit he might not be the Pirates’ coach next year and say Holloway would do a fine job replacing him – right before Holloway’s Peacocks had to play Murray State.
That’s the viewpoint Steve Politi took in a column this weekend, the headline of which called Willard “classless” for broadcasting that information and setting up a potential distraction for Holloway when he had a game to coach.
“What Willard did, first and foremost, was a big no-no in the coaching profession,” Politi wrote. “He caused a headache for a former assistant coach before the most important game of his life, and in the process, also looked like he had one foot out the door before his own team’s postseason moment.”
Let’s get a few things out of the way. Saint Peter’s went on to defeat Murray State Saturday night, and nobody on the Peacocks’ bench looked unprepared or preoccupied with the notion that Holloway might leave them soon. Maybe that says something about Holloway’s focus, or priorities, in contrast with Willard’s.
“I tell my guys all the time, you give me 100%, I will give you 200%,” Holloway said over the weekend. You’re free to draw your own conclusions.
I also agree with Politi’s additional point that the endorsement was “unnecessary.” Seton Hall AD Bryan Felt, who hired Holloway at Saint Peter’s in 2018, doesn’t need any extra nudging toward the guy who, oh by the way, is currently leading the biggest Cinderella of the tournament.
But classless? Nah. At worst, a bit shortsighted. Caught up in his own potential move, maybe Willard wasn’t thinking of how that statement might affect Saint Peter’s. Or maybe he knew that rumors swirl this time of year no matter what, and neither Holloway nor his team would be in any way bothered by it.
Also, as a journalist, I’m not going to be the one to discourage coaches or other sports figures from answering a question transparently. Willard had to face that question with Seton Hall’s season now over – again, he’d been linked to the Terps job since freaking December. With the Pirates eliminated, it was time to straighten this out.
Willard could have pulled a Lincoln Riley and said something technically factual, like, “Let me stop you right there. I love Seton Hall and right now I’m the coach of this program.” Then he looks two-faced when he’s introduced in College Park a few days later.
Instead, he said, “I’ll give you exactly what I can tell you. I have an agent who I haven’t talked to yet. I don’t know who he’s talking to. I have absolutely no idea. But when I get home I’ll talk to my agent and discuss things with my agent.”
I can’t vouch that he’s telling 100 percent of the truth there – really, “no idea” who the agent is talking to? – but I’d rather hear this than predictable buzzword nonsense. And from my brief exposure to his postgame press conferences, Willard doesn’t pussyfoot around the margins of what he really wants to say.
Willard was asked a follow-up about whether he believed his future would be resolved soon.
“I have no idea,” he said. “I literally have not – I’ve had three different agents in the last month. ... I’ll be honest with you. If I’m not here next year, I’d love, if Shaheen Holloway is here, that would be the happiest thing to happen to me.”
It reads to me like someone who strongly believed in his longtime assistant – who perhaps knows that’s the first and last call Bryan Felt would make when he left – and endorsed the connection a bit too eagerly. No, he didn’t have to bring up Holloway, but to describe it as some verboten move, even implying that Willard might have meant to distract Holloway from the task at hand, is a reach.
By now you’ve heard that Maryland (full disclosure: one of my alma maters) announced the Willard hire Monday morning, just after 9 a.m. Therein lies the trouble I encounter when I start writing these newsletters on a Sunday and wrap them up Monday morning. I’d even written a joke here that the move would be announced 10 minutes after I hit send on the newsletter. The Terps couldn’t wait.
So marks an awkward end to the Willard era at Seton Hall – a run in which the program was brought back from the Big East basement to become a regular tournament participant, in which a fantastic 2020 team was robbed of its chance at a Final Four run, and in which fans started booing Willard’s team at home in late January and were promptly scolded for it.
But seeing a Seton Hall alum taking Cinderella to the dance likely gives Pirates fans hope that the program’s next step may be right around the corner.
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Thanks for reading. There will be more to say about Seton Hall in the looming offseason. For now, let’s clean the glass with some notes and quotes on Saint Peter’s storybook run so far:
A word on Murray State. Though given a No. 7 seed, this was a team that went 30-2 in the regular season, with one of those two losses coming to (formerly) formidable Auburn. This was a team coming out of a respectable Ohio Valley Conference, winning blowouts and close games alike to remain spotless. It’s a program with previous tournament pedigree (does the name Ja Morant ring a bell?) and, as a fellow mid-major, it seemed impossible to me that the Racers would take the Peacocks lightly. Cut to Saturday, and there they were committing some of the ugliest shot attempts and turnovers I think I’ve seen all year.
That’s what the Saint Peter’s defense can do to an opponent. It happened to Kentucky (13 turnovers), and it happened again to Murray State. The Peacocks get under people’s skin. They get in your face, they chase you down the floor for blocks, and in general they appear to take more pride on defense than any other team left in the tournament. They’re up to a remarkable 28th in the country in adjusted defensive efficiency, per KenPom.com, after holding Murray State – a team that was scoring about 80 a game – to 60.
We all agree Doug Edert is insane, right? The junior from Nutley and Bergen Catholic comes off the bench for Saint Peter’s, but he plays starters’ minutes and hits more clutch shots, especially from the arc, than any other Peacock. I recommend this profile of Edert that Mark Cannizzaro wrote for the Post, which I couldn’t dream of being able to top.
My favorite quote so far, as Holloway discussed his team not backing down from the moment: “I’m going to say this. It’s going to come off a little crazy. I got guys from New Jersey and New York City. You think we’re scared of anything? You think we’re worried about guys trying to muscle us and tough us out?”
Don’t forget, there’s one more New Jersey team still dancing. No. 11 seed Princeton took down Kentucky 69-62 in the women’s bracket Saturday. It barely qualifies as an upset when you really break it down, but Kentucky was the SEC champion, after all, having upset South Carolina in the tournament final. Abby Meyers did Abby Meyers things and scored 29 points for Princeton. The Tigers play No. 3 seed Indiana (at Indiana) tonight at 8 and would advance to the Sweet 16 – likely a showdown with UConn – with one more win.
This will be my last edition of Guarden State for at least seven days. I’m excited to reveal I’ll be hitting the road for Field Level Media to cover the East Region semifinals and final in Philadelphia – where Saint Peter’s will face No. 3 Purdue and No. 8 North Carolina will meet No. 4 UCLA in the Sweet 16 Friday night. I’m focusing all my college basketball efforts there for the week. Follow along on Twitter for updates and read our coverage at fieldlevelmedia.com or via our partners, which include Reuters, Yahoo Sports, the New York Times and USA Today.