Kadary Bowl serves as a sharp reminder of Seton Hall’s NIL disadvantage
"Believe me, if the money was the same, he would be playing for Shaheen," Rick Pitino said of Kadary Richmond.
NEWARK – Of course the opening tip-off landed in the hands of Kadary Richmond. As far as every Seton Hall fan in the building was concerned, he was going to be the center of attention, the target of their animosity in a way few before him have felt.
That possession, the first in Prudential Center history to feature Richmond in a St. John’s jersey, ended with Richmond setting up Zuby Ejiofor for a dunk. The former Pirate was booed every time he touched the ball.
He was booed again when he drove to the rim on back-to-back possessions for layups that made the score 9-1. He was taunted when he was called for a charge. Fans proudly waved signs with a snake emoji or the “General Soreness” meme that cropped up from Richmond missing a few games for Seton Hall last January.
The fans’ passion cannot be discounted, though it wouldn’t be honest to say the boos endured throughout the entire game. Some Richmond touches went unremarked upon in the second half. The crowd, however, lasted longer than their team’s chances on the court.
While this game was always headed toward a lopsided score, Seton Hall’s 4-for-30 effort from the field in the first half ensured it as quickly as possible. The team with the better NIL fund won 79-51 to move to 7-1 in the Big East, alone in first place.
Red Storm coach Rick Pitino was glad to spell it out postgame.
“Every one of those students and everybody in the building would have done the same thing (Richmond) did,” Pitino said. “Believe me, if the money was the same, he would be playing for Shaheen (Holloway). If the money was close, he'd be playing for Shaheen. So he's a free agent just like all free agents. He loves Seton Hall, he loves Shaheen, playing for Shaheen, loved his teammates here, but you know, it’s not a level playing field.”
Pitino added that he hopes Seton Hall benefits from the upcoming revenue sharing model and believes the program would return to being “just as good as any team in the league.”
“Right now there, they don’t have the revenue that most of the other teams have,” he said. “Probably it’s the lowest in the league.”
That’s the reality and the theme of this lost Seton Hall season. To be competitive in the new age of college sports, particularly in the revenue sports, you must be able to pay for the best players. That can mean retaining who you’ve got or competing for the best transfers, but Seton Hall was unable to do either after winning the NIT just nine months ago.
Richmond decamped for rival St. John’s, a twist of the knife for the fans. Dre Davis had a phenomenal season in Pirate blue but got picked up by Ole Miss. And the collection of newcomers hasn’t worked out in a way befitting of a Big East contender. The top two scorers among Hall transfers on Saturday night, Prince Aligbe and Garwey Dual, combined for 16 points with eight turnovers.
Holloway wanted nothing to do with the talk of NIL budgets, but you could tell he understood the questions, why they were being asked right now.
“I’m just playing the hand I was dealt,” Holloway said. “You know, this is kind of the hand I was dealt. I’m playing it. I’m not going to complain. I’m not going to argue. I’m still going to coach and keep coaching and keep trying to fight and fight and get better … What we have is what we have. That’s what I got to deal with. I’ll deal with it and try to make the best of it.”
On Richmond specifically, and the idea that he’d still be a Pirate if the money were close to the same, Holloway offered, “Who knows? I don’t know that answer. You know, it’s certain people could talk about money and talk about things and certain people can't, right? You know, I think that coaches, he's a Hall of Fame coach. He's been around. He did some things. He can make those type of statements. I make statements like that, they might say, ‘Who is he to make those statements?’ or things like that.
“You know, he made those statements. He might know something I don’t know. Maybe Kadary told him that. I don’t know.”
Richmond was his usual self, revealing little at the microphone other than a desire to focus on whatever game is in front of him. The boos hardly made a dent.
“It was nice to come back and get a win, despite all the boos and stuff like that,” Richmond said. “I think I carved out a very good career here so I appreciate that.”
Teammate RJ Luis Jr., who posted a game-high 24 points and eight rebounds, said Richmond prepared for Saturday’s game just like any other. Richmond’s final line, by the way, was a neat 12 points (5-for-7 shooting), five rebounds, six assists and two steals, the sort of do-everything contribution Seton Hall is sorely missing at the point guard spot this season.
This game served as one more golden opportunity for the media and fan base to take a peek backward; the coaches and players are going to look forward and try to put this one out of mind as quickly as possible.
At this stage in the season, though, Holloway has few answers why his team won’t click. Asked what his team must to do to get off to better starts: “Something that I’ve been trying to figure out for a minute now. I don’t know, I’m trying everything.” About Seton Hall shooting 6-for-27 on layups: “We work on it, right? I don’t know. I think it’s lack of focus, concentration? I don’t know how to answer that question.”
Even with Chaunce Jenkins’ injury near the end of the first half, Holloway said he didn’t know if it was a hamstring or an ankle. Jenkins missed the second half, and Dylan Addae-Wusu sat out his second straight game with a sprained foot. We got confirmation that guard Zion Harmon, who hasn’t been seen since November, is no longer with the program.
It would be disingenuous to paint one player on the other side of the Hudson River as the answer to all of Seton Hall’s issues in 2025. The Pirates aren’t one Kadary Richmond away from being an NCAA Tournament team. But he is the avatar for many fans’ frustrations with the current state of play amid the Wild West of NIL.
According to Richmond, he and Holloway did not meet up to chat before the game. Afterward, Holloway was only complimentary of the player he molded into an All-Big East guard.
“He was with me for two years. He was good for me,” Holloway said. “I thought he grew playing for me, with the year he had last year, I thought he carried us along with Al (Amir Dawes) and Dre. It’s part of the business now that we’re in, guys do things. I can’t tell the crowd how to react to things. That’s what they did.”
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Good morning, and thanks as always for reading. I kept myself busy Saturday with a doubleheader as the college hoops season keeps on churning throughout the state. Without wasting time, let’s clean the glass:
The opener of my doubleheader was FDU’s home game against Central Connecticut, which resulted in a 71-60 Knights loss. In one sense, no shame in losing by 11 to KenPom’s No. 219 team, the best squad in the NEC by that metric. In another, defense let FDU down – it allowed 56% from the floor in the second half when two stops in a row could have made a massive difference in a close game. Terrence Brown, one of the top scorers in America, was in street clothes and missed his first game of the season for undisclosed reasons. We’ll see what the Knights look like on a quick turnaround Monday at woeful Chicago State, and I will weigh in with more on FDU in my Tuesday edition.
I can confirm that it was NOT too early for me to name Xaivian Lee the Ivy Player of the Year frontrunner last week. Here’s the final three of Lee’s 33 points at Dartmouth on Saturday. Don’t discount Caden Pierce’s performance either (19 points, 12 rebounds, seven assists, three steals) in a tough annual road trip. But I like Lee for the award until further notice. The usual suspects of Princeton, Cornell and Yale are 2-0 in the Ivy – I’ll be at Jadwin Monday to watch the Tigers face Columbia.
In a battle of 2-0 Ivy teams, the Princeton women crushed Dartmouth 63-39. Not much worth remarking on here, other than the contributions of a pair of reserves: Freshman Toby Nweke went for a career-high 10 points and Taylor Charles took a notable turn in Princeton’s frontcourt rotation, tallying nine points (4-for-4 FG), seven rebounds and five blocks.
What has gotten into the Rider Broncs? After opening MAAC play 0-4, they’ve won three straight, their most surprising result coming Saturday evening at Marist. Flash Burton scored 17 of his career-high 21 points in the second half to help Rider put Marist away 64-57 for the Red Foxes’ first league loss (6-1); they were on a nine-game winning streak coming in.
Props to NJIT for winning its first America East game! The Highlanders got on the board with a 64-59 home win over New Hampshire. Sebastian Robinson hit four crucial free throws in the final minute after New Hampshire came back to force a 56-56 tie. (Fun fact: The two best free-throw shooting teams in New Jersey are Monmouth and NJIT, at 73.4% and 72%.) Robinson scored 10 of his 17 points at the foul line, Tariq Francis had 19 points and eight assists and fellow guard Ari Fulton hit double digits for the fifth time in six games (11).
Monmouth star Abdi Bashir Jr. said last week there was no reason why the Hawks couldn’t take their home success on the road with them. They began a four-game road stretch this week by digging in to beat North Carolina A&T 72-63, then laying an egg in an 81-58 loss at Campbell. There’s some good competition in the CAA this year, but the only team left unbeaten is William & Mary – the last stop on Monmouth’s road trip next Saturday.
Wild stat of the day: Kiyomi McMiller was held scoreless at Michigan. She shot 0-for-8 and had five turnovers to just one assist, playing 18 minutes in objectively her worst game of the season. Bright side: JoJo Lacey went ballistic with six 3-pointers and 27 points, both career highs, but Rutgers still fell 87-71 on the road and is now 0-8 in the league.