The second team out: Seton Hall misses NCAA Tournament while Saint Peter’s dances
New Jersey gets one team in March Madness and two in the NIT after a hectic weekend. Here’s how it happened.
The Seton Hall Pirates couldn’t have seen this coming.
Dre Davis couldn’t have known in December that Seton Hall’s 74-54 loss at Xavier was going to be the first of a trend – that all of the Pirates’ road losses in the Big East would come by lopsided margins.
Jaden Bediako couldn’t have known that an instant-classic, triple-overtime loss to Creighton by three would be as costly as it was in hindsight, as Seton Hall let an opportunity for another major win get away.
Kadary Richmond couldn’t have known that his two-game injury absence the following week would lead to two Pirates losses that hurt their metrics even more, because the metrics didn’t know he was out and the humans on the committee may not have cared.
Shaheen Holloway couldn’t have known, well, many things. He certainly didn’t think USC, Iowa, Rutgers and Missouri, four of the five main fixtures of his non-conference schedule, would all miss the NCAA Tournament. He could not have predicted people would be saying the Pirates should have scheduled tougher. Did any of you think Missouri would lose its last 19 games and tank our strength of schedule metrics?
But Holloway must have had a sense of foreboding on Thursday after Seton Hall let St. John’s get away in the second half for a 91-72 win in the Big East quarterfinals.
“I think we let an unbelievable opportunity slip away,” Holloway said. “We kind of put our faith in somebody else’s hands instead of us, you know, taking care of business.”
Because despite everything, despite how many of us said “Win three of these last five regular-season games and they’re in the tournament,” Seton Hall was firmly stuck to the NCAA Tournament bubble. And then we had the craziest weekend of bid thievery in recent history. The Pirates didn’t lose their ticket to the dance until Saturday night.
New Jersey got one team in March Madness, two in the NIT and one in the women’s tournament after a hectic weekend. Saint Peter’s prevailed in the MAAC tournament, Seton Hall and Princeton were seeded for the NIT and the Princeton women earned yet another trip to the NCAAs as well.
Since I was covering the Big East tournament, I wasn’t at Columbia’s campus on the Upper West Side nor in Atlantic City for up-close-and-personal reporting. But let’s break down how this all happened, one key moment at a time.
Thursday, 10:25 p.m.: This day actually starts out promising for the bubble teams, as No. 1 seed Richmond bows out of the Atlantic 10 tournament to Saint Joseph’s in the quarterfinals. Bubble teams don’t want anyone else but Dayton to win that league title, the common wisdom being that Dayton would get a bid one way or another.
Then, the Flyers lay an egg, making 16 of 50 shots in a loss to Duquesne. This is the site of the first of five, count ’em, five bid thefts. The A-10 is now a two-bid league; it isn’t until Sunday that Duquesne (a good team that Princeton beat by three on the road, for what it’s worth) finishes the job themselves and wins the league tournament.
Thursday, 11:40 p.m.: “I’d just like to remind you guys that when we practice, we actually do practice basketball, it’s not a wrestling match,” Bashir Mason says with a wry smile.
Mason understands. He knows his Saint Peter’s Peacocks often look like they’re getting on the mat for a few rounds. Every loose ball is a battle they mustn’t lose, every defensive stand life-or-death.
“We just play hard, though,” Mouhamed Sow adds after contributing 10 rebounds and four blocked shots to Saint Peter’s 50-48 win over Rider in the MAAC quarterfinals.
Michael Houge goes off for 20 points, eight rebounds and two blocks, including the one that sealed Rider’s fate in the final seconds. The Peacocks were seeded fifth, but seed doesn’t matter when their defensive principles are on display like this. They’re two wins away from a return to NCAA Tournament glory.
Saturday, 12:50 p.m.: Freshman Dalen Davis is trying to save Princeton’s season.
The Tigers had trailed upstart Brown by as many as 22 points before Davis’ personal surge, and there’s some irony that for a Princeton team that plays its bench less than anyone in Division I, it’s a reserve who is going on a heroic run. Three-point play. Jumper. Three-point play. One free throw for Xaivian Lee, then it’s back to Davis for five more points.
Princeton claws all the way back to within five, and it’s fully believable that the Tigers are going to finish the comeback, something they’ve shown they can do in seasons past. Matt Allocco nails a 3-pointer to make it 84-81 Brown. But the Bears don’t miss the rest of the way. A team that was once 6-17 stuns the Tigers 90-81 and halts their pursuit of another Sweet 16 run.
“We played 28 games and had great fight and togetherness, but today we were a step off at all spots,” coach Mitch Henderson says. “Maybe that’s my fault. We turned the ball over. We’re No. 1 in the country at not turning the ball over and we turned the ball over a lot. It really hurt us.”
Saturday, 8:10 p.m.: FAU, like Dayton, was going to be in the tournament on the merits of its resume. You can debate how those merits compare to Seton Hall’s – FAU has fewer Quad 1 wins, multiple Quad 4 losses and nearly the same strength of record as the Pirates – but the committee apparently loves those predictive metrics a lot more.
So it’s time for alarm bells to start going off as 11th-seeded Temple, of all teams, has FAU on the ropes in the American Athletic Conference semis. FAU star Johnell Davis drives to the basket with time winding down. With multiple defenders ready for him, he rises and dishes to his teammate – and the pass bounces off his fingertips.
FAU loses 74-73. UAB beats Temple the next day to snap up the league’s auto bid.
Saturday, 9:50 p.m.: Houge led Saint Peter’s in scoring on Thursday. Sow put up a season-high 15 points in Friday’s upset of top-seeded Quinnipiac. Tonight, it’s Corey Washington’s time.
Washington – who signed with the program a few months after the Peacocks’ improbable Elite Eight run, after Holloway left for Seton Hall and Mason took over – scores 20 of his 24 points in the second half. He tallies nine rebounds and four blocks, the sign of a player committed to both ends of the floor, absolutely necessary when you play for a team like Saint Peter’s.
His fallaway jumper with 16:12 left drops, igniting both the crowd and the Peacocks’ bench when the team was down by eight to Fairfield. It’s part of a major 14-2 run for Saint Peter’s, and once it has the lead, it’s on lockdown. The Stags charge back and trim it to 61-60, but Washington makes four free throws in the final minute to secure Saint Peter’s 68-63 win in the MAAC title game.
“Corey Washington was willing to fly from Arkansas on his own dime and try out for a scholarship,” Mason said of Washington. “I asked him what he thought — this was after guys were diving all over the floor, bouncing off the walls, there’s no out of bounds, there’s no fouls — that kid walked up to me and said, ‘Coach, I love it here.’ I told my staff, ‘We’re not letting him leave.’”
Saturday, 11:20 p.m.: Pirates fans may have already tuned out the tournament discourse by time the final three bid thieves strike during the night.
New Mexico finishes its run through the much-ballyhooed Mountain West. NC State – 14-loss NC State, 10th-seeded NC State, nowhere-near-the-bubble NC State – wins the dang ACC tournament with an improbable five-game run that featured wins over Duke, Virginia and North Carolina. Finally, Oregon beats Colorado in the Pac-12 tournament.
It’s later confirmed by the selection committee chair that New Mexico wasn’t going to be in the field of 68 without the auto bid. That’s how the Mountain West – a mid-major league certainly playing a good brand of basketball, but one that’s never had overwhelming success in the sport – gets to six bids.
And that’s when the bubble pops for Seton Hall. New Mexico, NC State, Oregon – if two of those three don’t do what they do, Seton Hall is the last team in.
Sunday, 9:45 p.m.: After St. John’s, Oklahoma, Pitt, Indiana and other programs declare they don’t wish to play in the NIT, Seton Hall coach Shaheen Holloway explains why the Pirates are going for the second straight year.
“It was the players’ decision,” Holloway told reporters on Zoom. “Last year kind of I decided on it. This year I let the five seniors go in a room and weigh it out, and told them to come upstairs when they’re ready to talk, and they came upstairs and said they all want to play.”
Seton Hall has been appointed the No. 1 seed in the top-left portion of the NIT bracket and will open against Saint Joseph’s on Wednesday at Walsh Gymnasium, a smaller venue for a decidedly second-tier event. Princeton is the No. 2 seed in the same quadrant of the bracket, and at least they’re getting a home game at all – some mock brackets projected the Tigers would have to open at Hall.
Whatever you think of the NIT, tournament basketball is about to be played in New Jersey. Can one of these teams go the distance? If seeds hold, they would meet in the third round with a trip to the NIT’s Final Four up for grabs.
“I said, ‘Are you sure? Because I don’t want guys not playing if we’re not trying to win the whole thing,’” Holloway said. “All five of them said they want to play.”
………
Thanks for reading, as always. It was one hell of a weekend, and there’s more basketball ahead.
Did the Big East as a whole get screwed by receiving half as many bids as the Mountain West? Yes. But instead of further litigating where Seton Hall belonged in the tournament bubble discussion – whether the Pirates had a better case than Virginia or FAU or overseeded Michigan State – this newsletter is going to look forward. You hear about people’s doubters and chips on shoulders every day in sports, so much that it’s become cliched to death. I personally wonder if Kadary Richmond and company are going to enter the NIT angry, with a newly reignited desire to prove the world wrong by running the table. Time to show up.
With that said, let’s wrap up with a viewing guide for the New Jersey teams still alive, and since I focused on the men above, we’ll start with the dynastic Princeton women’s team:
No. 9 seed Princeton WBB plays No. 8 West Virginia on Saturday at 5:30 in Iowa City. The Mountaineers spent large parts of the season ranked in the AP Top 25 poll but lost four of their last six games. Of course, it’s impossible for fans not to peek ahead to Monday, when the Princeton-WVU winner, barring an upset, will get Caitlin Clark and top-seeded Iowa in the second round. That game might be a primetime choice for ESPN – and it would be far more competitive than casual fans realize.
No. 15 seed Saint Peter’s plays No. 2 Tennessee on Thursday at 9:20 in Charlotte. The Vols were in the running for a No. 1 seed before getting pasted by Mississippi State early in the SEC tournament. Their coach, Rick Barnes, has a reputation for underachieving in March. A bunch of people are about to pick the Peacocks in their bracket, remembering the 15-over-2 upset of a different SEC team two years ago, but just be warned: Tennessee’s defense is going to be as stout as Saint Peter’s, if not more.
Seton Hall plays Saint Joseph’s on Wednesday at 7 in South Orange. If they win, the Pirates would host No. 4 seed LSU or North Texas over the weekend.
Princeton plays UNLV on Wednesday at 8 at Jadwin Gym. If they win, the Tigers would host No. 3 seed Providence or Boston College over the weekend. (Devin Carter vs. Xaivian Lee? Please and thank you.)
In previously saying that the Seton Hall women were destined for the WNIT, I was completely forgetting about the all-new Women’s Basketball Invitation Tournament (WBIT), which is poised to supplant the WNIT as the second-tier tourney and has a better field to show for it. Seton Hall, ironically, is heading to Saint Joseph’s one night after the men’s team is hosting the Philly school. They’ll play Thursday, with the winner drawing the winner of Cal vs. Hawaii.