Poor finish concerns Seton Hall: ‘Coach holds us to a higher standard’
Plus: The Pirates could have only eight healthy scholarship players to open Big East play.
NEWARK – When Seton Hall throttled Monmouth 79-52 to open the season, Shaheen Holloway focused not on the tone the Pirates set in Game 1, but the room for improvement. “It was a good win, but I thought we could’ve done a lot better,” Holloway said. “But it’s gonna be games like this to get us to where I think we could get eventually.”
When Seton Hall drilled Saint Peter’s 80-44 three days later, Holloway wouldn’t so much as agree that a foundation had been laid for his new program. “I don’t want to come off sounding crazy, but I don’t think we played that well,” he said.
Holloway may have been guarding against complacency. Or maybe part of laying that foundation was not allowing for a hint of self-satisfaction.
Because Tray Jackson, Dre Davis and Kadary Richmond were in no mood to celebrate a 66-49 win over Drexel on Wednesday, after the Dragons cut a 31-point margin down to 11 in just nine minutes and change late in the game.
“I just feel like Coach holds us to a higher standard,” said Jackson, who scored 12 points but fouled out with more than six minutes left. “Like Kadary said, we came off kinda slow toward the second half. Just knowing what we can do, and what we need moving forward, is what’s on our mind.”
Holloway tried to keep the particulars of his displeasure in-house.
“I’m not very happy right now. I’m not gonna say too much because I don’t want too much to come out,” the coach said. “I’m not very happy. If you want to be a good team, you can’t finish games like that. You’ve got to be able to take the next step. I’m disappointed because we’ve got a bunch of older guys but we’re still very immature. We’ve got to grow. We’ve got to watch this and grow from it and get ready for Saturday.
“If you guys got some other questions, I don’t really want to answer questions about things I said to them at the locker room. We can talk about the game.”
So let’s talk about it. Seton Hall had no trouble building a double-digit lead against an overmatched opponent. The Pirates allowed eight points to Amari Williams and eight points to Coltrane Washington, Drexel’s two top scorers, and gave up zero points to everybody else on a combined 0-for-14 shooting to lead 31-16 at halftime.
It started getting ugly early in the second half, with a 14-0 scoring run making it 49-18. After putting up bricks for the first 28 minutes of the game, Drexel finally saw other players – Kobe MaGee, Luke House, Yame Butler – get shots to fall. When House, Butler and Jamie Bergens combined to make four straight 3-point tries, it was already down to 55-37.
“Everybody who knows college basketball knows if you make some threes, you’re right back in the game and the momentum could swing really, really quick,” Holloway said. “That’s what happened tonight, and that’s what I was afraid was going to happen. … I thought we came out being aggressive this game, and then the second half, I thought the first eight minutes were unbelievable and we saw the last eight minutes were not really good at all.”
Seton Hall’s offense isn’t blameless for the poor finish. The Pirates missed seven straight shots at one point, including a dunk, and made some errant passes they’d have liked back.
Butler scored to cut the margin to 57-46 after the under-4 media timeout before Al-Amir Dawes and Seton Hall iced it.
Richmond had a busy night, leading the team with nine rebounds, four assists and three steals to go with eight points. But he quickly took ownership of some of the defensive lapses down the stretch.
“Got a little sloppy in the second half off the ball, me personally,” he said. “Just gotta get better at that.”
Holloway was asked about Richmond’s progress on that end of the court.
“I think he got spurts,” Holloway said. “Sunday he had (six) steals. I think tonight he was not very good on defense. Like I said, that’s being mature. These guys got to start looking themselves in the mirror. Everybody want to play at …”
The coach stopped himself. “He’s growing. He’s growing, he’s growing.”
If it’s a lesson learned for this group, it came in the nick of time before conference action begins. Seton Hall finished its nonconference slate 7-4 and hosts Providence on Saturday afternoon. And the program figures to be undermanned after two injuries Wednesday night.
Femi Odukale hurt his left ankle late in the first half and had to be helped off the floor. He returned to the bench later, wearing a boot. Jaquan Sanders suffered a groin injury, according to Holloway. The coach discussed both with the implication that they’ll be unavailable Saturday.
Odukale has started all 11 games this season and averaged 5.4 points, 3.6 boards and 2.1 assists. The freshman Sanders has seen 10.8 minutes per game across nine appearances and has made seven of 20 3-pointers.
With Alexis Yetna unlikely to return till January, it leaves the roster of healthy scholarship players at eight: Richmond, Dawes, Davis and Jamir Harris at guard; Jackson, Tyrese Samuel, KC Ndefo and Tae Davis at forward.
“Now I’ve got to go back to the drawing board tonight and be up all night and try to figure out if two guys are out, what I’m gonna do with the lineup and how I’m going to do subs and all that,” Holloway said. “That stuff is draining, man, but guess what? That’s part of the job, and I’m OK with it.”
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Happy Thursday, and thanks as always for reading. I’ll be back in Newark once more on Saturday to see what these Pirates manage to do in a game that shouldn’t be tilted 30 points in either direction.
For some stray notes and observations, starting with a glance at the Big East standings, time to clean the glass:
UConn is the clear team to beat in the Big East after going 11-0 in nonconference and rising to No. 3 in the AP Top 25 poll. The Huskies are the only team to have beaten Alabama, an exciting group that’s taken down North Carolina, Michigan State and Houston. Dan Hurley’s group also pulled out a 21-point win at Florida, and even if the Gators are below average this year, it sends a message to beat an SEC team on the road that soundly.
But let’s talk about St. John’s for a second. The 10-1 Red Storm technically own the top spot in the Big East as the only team to win a conference game so far, 86-67 over DePaul. They’ve beaten Nebraska, Temple and Syracuse; they’ve won blowouts and close games; their only loss came on the road to a top-25 Iowa State team, though they trailed by as much as 17 before closing it to 71-60. Joel Soriano leads the nation in double-doubles. This could be a sleeper team in terms of national notice, and I can’t wait to see how they fare next Wednesday at Villanova.
Butler, Marquette, Providence and Xavier are 8-3 as of this morning. Behind Seton Hall, Creighton has plummeted to 6-5 with five straight losses, joined by DePaul after a loss at Duquesne last night. Villanova is 5-5 and Georgetown is 5-6.In 40 games spanning two seasons at American in the Patriot League, Jamir Harris scored 13.3 points per game and shot 41.3% from deep. In 32 games for Seton Hall last season, he averaged 7.9 ppg and 36.9% from three. This season, averaging similar minutes to last, he’s down to 5.5 and 25.6% after going 0-for-6 from the arc Wednesday. “Jamir’s going to be fine,” Holloway said. “He’s a sixth-year senior, he’s been around. He’s just gotta see one or two go in, but he’s pressing right now. He’s living and dying with every shot, and I told him, ‘You can’t do that. Go get a couple of layups, get to the free throw line, see the ball go through the basket.’”
Iona beat Princeton 70-64 Tuesday night in Union in a game that could have gone either way in the final minutes. Princeton’s three losses now have come by a combined 13 points. The Tigers shot 52.1% despite the loss, and on a night his own shot wasn’t falling, Matt Allocco led his team with seven rebounds and eight assists. Princeton ranks No. 69 in Division I in the NCAA NET rankings and No. 101 on KenPom.com – in both cases second in the Ivy League to Yale. I think I see where this is going once again.
The final leg of the women’s basketball Jersey triad is tonight, when Princeton visits Rutgers. Last Saturday the Scarlet Knights got off the schneid by beating Hampton, and forward Chyna Cornwell is coming off back-to-back double-doubles, including 18 points and 14 boards against Hampton. Princeton is back to their motto of getting stops, averaging just under 55.3 points per game allowed over its last four (three wins and the near-upset at UConn).