In praise of Dre Davis, Seton Hall’s Mr. Consistency
As Seton Hall barely escaped Georgetown, Davis' development into a clutch scorer and aggressive rebounder deserves reflection.
NEWARK – When Dre Davis pulled down a defensive rebound and drove the length of the floor for a layup to finish the play himself, he reached 15 points with 4:43 remaining in the first half Wednesday. That was nearly half of Seton Hall’s total of 33 points at the time. Shaheen Holloway subbed him out, and the fans gave Davis a deserved ovation.
Of course Davis had scored in double figures – that’s what he always does. Wednesday was his 13th straight game scoring 10 or more. As the Pirates struggled to put Georgetown away in the second half, they needed Davis to keep scoring, and he delivered. After the Hoyas crept within 53-49, Kadary Richmond fed him underneath on a baseline inbounds pass, and Davis’ perfect hesitation going up for the layup allowed him to draw a foul as well.
The end result was a career-high 25 points for Davis, on a career-high 11 made field goals, plus 10 rebounds for his second straight double-double.
“It’s always easy when you’ve got teammates who put you in good positions to be successful, and Coach as well,” Davis said postgame. “I think that’s just what happened tonight. They kept putting me in good positions to be me, be successful.”
Richmond may be Seton Hall’s Mr. Indispensable, but observers are coming around to recognize Davis as the Pirates’ Mr. Consistency.
I’m not the first person to coin that nickname for Davis – credit belongs with Bryan DeNovellis of the Tri-State College Basketball Podcast, who dubbed him that about a month ago. I know I’ve definitely already praised the season Davis is having, on social media and in this newsletter. But the day after Seton Hall barely escaped Georgetown 76-70 – and, honestly, would have lost without Davis’ help – his development into a clutch scorer and aggressive rebounder deserves reflection.
Davis started 40 of his 50 games at Louisville in the first two seasons of his college career. Louisville, you may be aware, has been terrible at basketball the past couple of years, and the Cardinals fired coach Chris Mack during Davis’ second season. Davis and his brother Tae Davis, then an incoming freshman, made the decision to join Holloway in his first season at Seton Hall.
Dre Davis was the Pirates’ leading scorer at points last season, but he was doing so from a reserve role. There wasn’t room for him in the starting five yet – he started just one of 23 games and averaged fewer minutes per game (18.8) than he had at Louisville – yet his numbers went up. The per-40 average worked out to 20.4 points.
After Seton Hall missed the NCAA Tournament and Tae Davis transferred out, it could have been easy for Dre Davis to look elsewhere again, too, since the NCAA was in the habit of approving players’ two-time transfer waivers. But he stayed in South Orange, clearly ready to be a full-time starter for this team, and he repaid Holloway’s belief in him. Now the Pirates’ second-leading scorer, Davis’ 14.3 points, 5.9 rebounds, 1.4 assists, 0.7 steals and 1.0 blocks per game are all career bests.
“I think it’s a credit to the work he’s putting in every day,” Holloway said. “He’s one of those guys that’s an everyday guy, he’s been an everyday guy since he’s been here. … We kind of worked on some things in practice to free him up a little bit, but it’s good when he could get going and get (Al-Amir Dawes) going, get (Richmond) going, get Dylan (Addae-Wusu) going, those guys and all the guys that we need to get going. Dre carried us today, but he had a good week of practice too.”
Davis has always been considered a good rebounder, but he’s reaching new heights over his past two games. His 12 against DePaul and 10 against Georgetown were the first two double-digit rebound games of his career – facilitating his first two double-doubles.
“I’m kind of just putting more emphasis on it in my mind, just trying to go rebound,” Davis said. “(Jaden Bediako) does a great job with rebounding, so does Kadary. I’m just trying to get in there and help out as much as possible, try to go get some of my own.”
“That’s something that we’ve been working on. I want everybody to crash the boards,” Holloway said. “…We’ve been making a conscious effort on doing a lot of box-out stuff, because I think my guards need to rebound. I think a couple games, Dylan had eight, nine, 10 rebounds, so we gotta keep those guys rebounding.”
Davis was known as a downhill guy early in his Louisville career, and his 3-point rate wasn’t much to talk about, but at Seton Hall he’s become a three-level scorer who can operate from the midrange or at the basket. It was mostly layups for him against Georgetown, whereas his midrange shot was on fire in the triple-overtime loss to Creighton, when he finished 10-of-12 from the floor. Can I interest you in a jump hook:
And while Seton Hall went 0-2 in the Thanksgiving week tournament in San Diego, Davis showed early signs of what was to come.
With the talent that exists across the Big East, I’m not sure there will be room for Davis on the all-conference teams, but as the No. 2 player on a surprise top-four team in the league he is certainly doing enough to warrant consideration.
“(Davis) was great today. He was the difference-maker today,” Georgetown coach Ed Cooley said. “As well as Kadary played, I thought he was the difference-maker, right? He was really, really good.”
………
Happy Thursday. Seton Hall fans can exhale this morning: After beating lowly Georgetown twice this year by a combined 10 points, the Pirates have seven Quad 1 and 2 games in a row coming up, starting with an eminently winnable Quad 1 game this Sunday at a Villanova team that looks pretty lost right now. Then the Pirates finish the regular season at home against moribund DePaul, which should not cause any sleepless nights.
There was a colorful conclusion to Wednesday’s game, which saw the visiting Hoyas lose their seventh straight. Let’s clean the glass:
I wasn’t positioned near the Seton Hall student section and opposing team’s bench – now I’m sort of wish I were – but Jerry Carino was there to document this. Student-fan to Cooley: “That’s $7 million per win.” Cooley walked over and said: “You know what, I’m rich as a mother******. I’m rich as s***.” Cooley grinned when Carino tactfully brought it up in the postgame press conference: “Nothing gets under my skin. … I coach in the Big East at Georgetown University. What could get under my skin? Kids are gonna be kids. I have a problem when adults don't act like adults. When they're students, say whatever you want. ... I always try to have a good interaction with the kids. They deserve a comment every now and then, they do. Why not have some fun with them?”
Staying with Cooley, Pirates fans probably will like his answer when asked if Seton Hall was underrated this preseason as the No. 9 pick in the coaches’ poll. “If you listen to us coaches in the preseason, they’re not the brightest,” Cooley said. “At least I’m not, at least I’m not. When I saw the backcourt that assembled here and their toughness, Sha does a great job coaching them, putting them in a position of strength, I promise you I didn’t pick them ninth.”
Rutgers beat Maryland 56-53 on Tuesday for its second straight win, both on the road. (If I’m a Rutgers fan it just makes me all the more peeved that the Scarlet Knights no-showed against Penn State, because a win there would mean RU is 5-6 in the Big Ten now, in the same company as Michigan State and Iowa in the conference seeding race.) Two great defenses combined with two poor-shooting offenses led to a hard-to-watch, low-scoring tussle, but credit to Rutgers for getting ahead and holding on at the end. Mawot Mag has now followed two scoreless game with two 15-point games, and Jeremiah Williams followed his 10-point debut at Michigan with 14 on 5-of-9 shooting against the Terps. He should start every game the rest of the way.
Two updates out of Princeton. One: The men’s basketball program announced a sellout for this Saturday against rival Penn. It’s the first sold-out game at Jadwin Gym since 2002, when the Tigers hosted Kansas. Can you imagine a team like Kansas visiting a team like Princeton in this day and age? What a huge moment for Ivy League basketball, though. I wonder if the following week’s home game against Yale will sell out as well, or if it’s a certain magic to the Princeton-Penn rivalry with many Quakers fans being nearby.
Second, as Tosan Evbuomwan has begun his NBA career on a 10-day contract with the Memphis Grizzlies, members of the Princeton program headed out to MSG this week to see Evbuomwan face the New York Knicks. He made a 3-pointer in each of his first two games for Memphis and also grabbed 10 rebounds by halftime during a loss to the mighty Boston Celtics (he finished with a game-high 12 boards).