Every second-half storyline to watch in New Jersey college hoops
Starting with the team I haven't covered enough, the Seton Hall women.
Next Thursday, Jan. 9, marks the midpoint between opening night of college basketball season and Selection Sunday. We’re about to enter the second half of the season, and as players lock in for the all-important conference run, it’s the perfect time for fans to do the same.
This morning, we’re taking stock of the local landscape and laying out what to know about each major storyline in New Jersey men’s and women’s college basketball the rest of the way. And we’re going to start with the women this time, because there’s one particular team that’s deserved far more coverage than I’ve given them this year, only underscored by what they pulled off on New Year’s night.
Women’s storylines
Can Seton Hall end its NCAA Tournament drought?
I truly don’t know whether ESPN does the “SportsCenter Top 10” anymore, but this should rank top-two from Wednesday at the very least.
I needed a non-Twitter link to embed here (thanks Elon!), but the vertical video cuts out the most important part. After putting up the only shot available with four defenders around her — a backwards hook shot/layup hybrid flip thing — Faith Masonius arches backward to watch her shot go down, upside down, then celebrates with her arms fully extended as if to ask, “Expect anything different?”
Seton Hall beat rival Villanova 56-55 on the road to improve to 11-3 and 3-0 in the Big East. The Pirates’ only loss since the start of December came to unbeaten LSU. Yet in the most recent ESPN women’s bracketology update, it’s not enough to get Seton Hall in the picture, as Charlie Creme includes a woefully low two Big East teams, UConn and Creighton.
I don’t think I’m applying any unnecessary extra pressure when I write that the NCAA Tournament has to be the goal for Seton Hall this year. Tony Bozzella has done a fine job leading the program, but they haven’t been to the big dance since 2016, and they’re surely getting tired of coming up short and settling for the WNIT and WBIT. The way Bozzella spoke about Masonius in particular this preseason, before she’d played a single game for the Pirates, indicated how high internal expectations were for this group.
And considering the way they’ve all played, you see why. Masonius is the leading scorer, but freshman Jada Eads has been a revelation with 25- and 26-point games in Big East play. Amari Wright is a great distributing point guard, center Yaya Lops is miles improved from last year and Savannah Catalon gives them another scoring threat.
Seton Hall doesn’t get in foul trouble, has a top-50 scoring defense and forces a lot of turnovers – Masonius, Catalon and Wright average 2.5, 2.5 and 2.3 steals per game, respectively. BartTorvik.com has the Pirates as the fourth-best team in the Big East, just two spots lower than the Villanova team they just beat.
But what if Creme is right and being the third-to-fourth-best Big East team doesn’t get you an NCAA bid? The Big Ten, a bigger powerhouse than ever thanks to the additions of UCLA and USC, gets a whopping 12 bids in ESPN’s latest projection. That’s what the Pirates are up against – they can’t afford any slip-ups in the Big East and need more resume-bolstering wins against teams like St. John’s, Creighton and Villanova, if not UConn.
There’s also an important injury to note, as Catalon hasn’t played since Dec. 14 and can be seen in the videos from Wednesday night wearing a walking boot on her right foot. That’s not a good sign, though I’ve seen nothing to suggest that this is a season-ending injury.
Where does Princeton stand in the Ivy without St. Rose?
Speaking of injuries, Princeton is forging ahead without their best player, Madison St. Rose, who tore her ACL in November. The Tigers’ nonconference was interesting; they beat three Big East teams, including the aforementioned Seton Hal, but lost to Duquesne, Quinnipiac (when St. Rose was injured in the fourth quarter), Portland and Utah. (I had no idea Portland was any good at women’s hoops until that game – the Pilots were unbeaten when they played Princeton and stretched it to a 14-0 start before losing in overtime Monday.)
Harvard and Columbia are the teams in Princeton’s way this season. The Crimson upset Indiana in the first week of the season, recently beat a team 86-26 and have been receiving three AP votes for several weeks in a row. They’re the real deal, especially Harmoni Turner (21.3 ppg). Columbia exited the Abbey Hsu era the same time Princeton wrapped up the Kaitlyn Chen era, they still have familiar faces like Kitty Henderson running the show. Torvik has Princeton, Harvard and Columbia rated Nos. 40, 44 and 57 nationally. (Three-bid Ivy?) It’s going to come down to Ivy Madness, of course.
The Tigers have won four in a row heading into Saturday’s Ivy opener vs. Cornell, and they’re back to their usual defense-minded selves, allowing 54, 45, 51 and 43 points in those wins. I’ll be at Jadwin Saturday and have more on this team in Sunday’s newsletter.
What can Rutgers accomplish behind its pair of stars?
Between Christmas and New Year’s I was invited by Thomas Costello of Land-Grant Holy Land, SB Nation’s Ohio State site, to discuss Rutgers women’s hoops ahead of the Buckeyes’ visit to Piscataway. Among the questions was, “How do you see the season panning out for Rutgers?” After all, with the league’s expansion only the top 15 teams will make the Big Ten tournament, and the bottom three will be left home.
Ultimately, I said Rutgers will sneak into the top 15, and you’ll see in a minute why that would be a huge accomplishment.
Those are the Scarlet Knights’ next 10 games. Not only are they not favored in any of them (again citing Torvik’s site), they’re given no better than 14% odds in any single game. That’s how much of a gauntlet the Big Ten is.
I’ve written about both Destiny Adams and Kiyomi McMiller this season. They’re phenomenal players. But you need more than a dynamic duo to cut it in a league like this. We’ll see if they can pick off an upset or two coming up.
Men’s storylines
What can Rutgers accomplish behind its pair of stars?
Copy, paste. Where the women have McMiller and Adams, the men are relying on Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey to win them some games in what’s probably the second-toughest conference in the sport.
How will they perform on the Big Ten stage night in and night out? Tonight’s visit to Indiana could be a big confidence-booster for the freshmen. Not that their confidence necessarily needs boosting, but facing a vulnerable Indiana team, to pick up their first road win of the Big Ten season in a historic venue like Assembly Hall would be huge at this early stage of the schedule.
I liked what Harper had to say after his triple-double helped Rutgers pound Columbia on Monday, per Sam Federman’s story for Daly Dose of Hoops:
“Seeing how locked in we’ve been recently. I think the attention to detail we all have, the film watching we all had, and just the biggest thing is sticking together and being a group. We’re going to compete against each other hard every day.”
Rutgers has a major three-game stretch at home against Wisconsin, Purdue and UCLA after the Indiana trip. How many of those can the Scarlet Knights win before playing their next four away from the RAC?
Does Dylan Harper challenge for the No. 1 draft pick?
Not every one of these storylines has to be “Will X make the tournament?” On the player evaluation front, what the first half of the season showed us is that Harper is as-advertised and has made a legitimate case to supplant Duke’s Cooper Flagg atop NBA draft boards. The second half of the season will show us whether Harper will close that gap and have people talking about Rutgers basketball not only into March, but in April, May and June.
“At this stage of the season, Harper has the most legitimate case to challenge Flagg atop draft boards, profiling as the type of shot-creation player that lottery teams prioritize in the draft,” ESPN’s Jonathan Givony wrote on Dec. 10. That was before Harper’s game-winning shot to beat Seton Hall and before his triple-double.
Another way to frame this storyline would be, “Does Dylan Harper beat out Cooper Flagg for national Freshman of the Year honors?” And that could be more likely, despite Flagg having the Duke brand on his side. Harper is playing more minutes, scoring more and shooting it better while ranking fifth among freshmen in assists. Flagg has the edge in defense and rebounding. But as far as I can tell, Harper has already provided more highlight-worthy moments we’ll be rewatching for a long time.
What is Princeton’s path through the Ivy, and does Caden Pierce play?
I declared in my “holiday honors” column that Princeton had the best chance of any New Jersey program to make the big dance. I’ve also written that the Ivy is flat-out good this year, with five teams reasonably setting their sights on the title in a league with a four-team tournament.
Yale, Cornell, Columbia and maybe to a lesser extent Brown are all capable groups this year. At both KenPom.com and BartTorvik.com, they’re projecting Yale to win the regular-season crown with an 11-3 record and Princeton to finish second at 9-5.
But the caveat with these predictive models is that I have no idea how they factor in potentially long-term injuries, and as of Thursday morning we don’t know how long Caden Pierce will be sidelined for the Tigers. We could get a better idea Saturday, when Princeton hosts Division III Kean. Is Pierce on crutches or in a walking boot?
The Tigers have taken a twist-ier path than last year to get to this point. A home loss to Loyola Chicago wasn’t the end of the world, but back-to-back neutral-court losses to Wright State and Texas State were more concerning. They beat Saint Joseph’s because of Xaivian Lee’s triple-double, then beat Rutgers and Akron by a point apiece on last-possession buckets by Pierce and Dalen Davis, respectively. Boy, do the Tigers live on the edge.
The Ivy season begins with a pair of potential trap games on the road at Harvard and Dartmouth before hosting the newly resurgent Columbia Lions.
Without Pierce, the interior defense could be in bigger trouble than it already was unless guys like Philip Byriel, Jacob Huggins and freshman CJ Happy step up. Lee and his backcourt mates will have to be at their best, too, to defend Columbia’s Geronimo Rubio De La Rosa, Brown’s Kino Lilly Jr. and Yale’s John Poulakidas. I think the Tigers have no chance of the No. 1 seed in Ivy Madness if they don’t split the series with Yale, at the very least.
Does Abdi Bashir Jr. keep it up?
As mentioned on Tuesday: Abdi Bashir Jr. is not a secret anymore. He’s oozing with talent and his game is undeniable. In this day and age, that means you’re probably setting yourself up for your next stop. Auburn fans on social media were close to begging Bashir to transfer to the Plains next season, and he didn’t even have a particularly good shooting night against them.
In the short term, what does it mean for Monmouth? Bashir has the top scoring average of anyone in the CAA, and he’s made his threes and free throws in much bigger gyms than the Hawks will play in this winter. Has the time come for them to parlay his talent into some wins?
I’m not convinced the Hawks have much going for them in the frontcourt, so Bashir is the focus. Opposing coaches have known Bashir is coming for months now and may even double-team him. On the other hand, more than half the CAA is pretty mid-to-bad at defending the 3-point line, and the Hawks open with two of the worst: Stony Brook (35.4% allowed) tonight and Delaware (36.4%) on Saturday.
What other mid-major races are worth keeping an eye on?
Quickly: The Northeast Conference and the MAAC.
FDU has a pretty well-rounded group by NEC standards, except for its rebounding that coach Jack Castleberry told me has been its Achilles’ heel. Well, what if rebounding returns to the mean when the Knights start playing teams their own size? What if Terrence Brown catches fire when they face league favorite Central Connecticut State in a few weeks? There’s room here for FDU to be a dark horse in the league.
The MAAC is… eh, anyone’s guess, just like always. I haven’t gotten eyes on Saint Peter’s lately and am interested in how they’ll fare against Quinnipiac on Friday at home. Rider has lost seven games in a row and showed up as a Hot Seat team on Trilly Donovan’s coaching carousel tier list this week, for what it’s worth.
As always, the MAAC won’t truly be decided until March in Atlantic City. I think the Peacocks will be a top-five seed or so by then, as they usually are. Check back here in a few weeks once more games get going.
Can Seton Hall salvage its season, and what does that look like?
When I begin posting occasional bracketology-focused newsletters a few weeks from now, I’m debating whether to include a Seton Hall section at all. What would have to happen for the Pirates to get an at-large bid – not a one-week run at MSG for the Big East tournament title, but an at-large bid – and how many leaps in logic am I doing to justify any such scenario?
If not a postseason invite, then, what is a realistic goal for the Pirates to chase? I’m not trying to be mean-spirited, so let’s do better than “not get embarrassed” or “avoid finishing last in the league.”
I think they need to get some growth out of individual players and establish some continuity for next season. Trying to build a new team out of the transfer portal isn’t going to be a winning strategy for Seton Hall at its current NIL budget. That much we know. So that means getting some more scholarship guys to stick around than last year, with meaningful improvement in their games.
That’s why it was encouraging that Shaheen Holloway gave freshman Jahseem Felton his first career start against Xavier on Tuesday. The three-star shooting guard was lightly used in November and missing in action in early December. But against Xavier, he set career highs in points (nine) and minutes (18) and shot 50%, making his only three. Incremental progress is better than none at all.
Does Gus Yalden start to establish more of a role? Can Scotty Middleton stick around for another year? The losses are going to pile up, so focus on the players who could help you in 2025-26.