Seton Hall is going to the (NIT) Final Four. Its coach isn’t going anywhere.
“I’m the coach of Seton Hall. Period,” Shaheen Holloway said after being linked to the Louisville coaching job.
SOUTH ORANGE – The chants that rang out through Walsh Gymnasium told the story best.
The one that will needle cocky bracketologists the most was the declaration that the “Mountain West sucks!” as Seton Hall ran up the score on UNLV in the third round of the National Invitation Tournament.
Only three teams from the Big East, the second-ranked conference by KenPom and fifth by NET, made the NCAA Tournament. Those teams have taken care of business, going a combined 6-0 to all reach the Sweet 16, while five of the six Mountain West teams to qualify are already out.
Now here was more proof, for an audience eager for any shred of it, that the Big East deserved better in the postseason. The Pirates shot 56.5% from the field and rolled over UNLV 91-68 to reach the NIT’s Final Four next week in Indianapolis.
The next chorus to bubble up was “One more year!”
It came as Kadary Richmond checked out in the second half, and Richmond, a first-team All-Big East selection who turns 23 in August, does have a difficult decision coming up. He is likely to test the NBA draft waters, but if he doesn’t look like draft pick material to the scouts, does he use his fifth and final year of NCAA eligibility at Seton Hall? Or does he transfer?
While he didn’t tip his hand as to whether this was his last home game in a Pirates uniform, Richmond expressed his gratitude to the fans who have attended Seton Hall’s trio of NIT games over the past eight days.
“They could’ve had a sour taste in their mouth and not showed up after what happened on Selection Sunday, but we appreciate them for being strong and sticking with us through it all,” Richmond said.
Finally, the chant most befitting of the night was “We love Sha!”
This Easter Sunday marks the two-year anniversary of Shaheen Holloway being introduced at Walsh Gym as the next head coach of Seton Hall basketball. While he hasn’t produced an NCAA Tournament team yet, part of that is beyond his control. It wasn’t Holloway’s fault we saw so many bid thieves a few weeks back, or that the SEC team he scheduled on a neutral court (Missouri) played so poorly that it dragged Hall’s NET down with it, or that a widely panned NCAA selection committee didn’t seem to care that Hall beat the No. 1 overall seed by 15 points.
Pirates fans recognize that. They got to enjoy three more home games for a team that should have played in the NCAA Tournament’s First Four. And they voiced their appreciation for their coach, an alum, one of them, after his name started getting linked to bigger programs’ coaching vacancies.
Late in the regular season, the online rumor mill was putting Holloway’s name in the pot for the opening at West Virginia. It appeared a rumor was all it was, and the Mountaineers hired Drake’s Darian DeVries instead. But more recently, Louisville was in a bind when its clear top candidate, Dusty May of FAU, spurned it for Michigan.
And Jeff Goodman, a well-sourced but long-pilloried national reporter, immediately said the Cardinals’ next top target would be Holloway.
This was met in New Jersey with something of an eye roll. Were these people there on March 31, 2022? Did they hear how important this job was for Holloway? What amount of money could possibly tear him away not only from his alma mater, but from the region of the country he’s spent his entire coaching life in?
Yet the question needed to be asked Wednesday night – with Holloway’s biggest accomplishment at Seton Hall now secure and Louisville apparently settling on another candidate – if he had spoken with Louisville and if he had a message for Pirates fans.
“What’s understood don’t need to be said, brother,” Holloway said. “That’s all I’m gonna say. I’m the coach of Seton Hall. Period.”
Holloway turned a different question – about what it meant to him for the Pirates to advance this far – into praise for the environment inside Walsh.
“Playing here, it’s different than playing down in Newark at the (Prudential Center),” Holloway said. “The Pru is great, but it’s a different type of atmosphere here. They’re on top of you, they’re loud, they’re after it. Our fans were into it from the St. Joe’s game all the way until now, and I think our guys fed off it. I’ll be honest with you, I’m not sure we would’ve been playing like this if we played at the Pru, because the Pru’s a little bigger, it’s kind of spaced out. These fans got these guys going all three games. There’s no doubt about that.”
All five starters scored in double figures and finished with plus-minus ratings of 21 or better. While Richmond racked up 16 points, 10 assists, four rebounds and five steals, Al-Amir Dawes scored a team-best 21 points in his final home game.
Dawes has used up his fifth year of eligibility and is wrapping up his college career.
“It feels great just to be a part of something and not home just sitting around playing (video) games, you know?” Dawes said. “From the beginning we all came together collectively and we said we wanted to play and that we were gonna finish it off strong, so we’re here.”
St. John’s, Oklahoma and more than a dozen other teams turned down the NIT’s invitation on Selection Sunday, but Seton Hall’s starters, all of them seniors, decided they would try to go out on a high note. Holloway says he told them they better be “trying to win the whole thing.”
Still, it might be tough for everyone to stay with it, so you have to hand it to Holloway for his modern-day motivation tactic.
“I just told these guys, be selfish,” Holloway said. “You’re playing in front of a different audience. ESPN is a different audience than Fox. You get a chance to keep improving your individual brand, which all these guys care about, individual brand, but you also get a chance to keep representing the school and keep playing basketball. And also, playing with your brothers that you’ve spent 11 months – from when we first got here to now – 11 months with, these friendships and this stuff won’t last forever.”
For now, Seton Hall fans don’t have to worry about next year. They get one more week to root for their team, and they’ll have their coach in place for much longer.
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Happy Thursday, and thanks for reading! I’m back from Pittsburgh, obviously, after tackling six tournament games last Thursday and Saturday for Field Level Media and enduring multiple overtimes (they’ve haunted me all season). Oregon-Creighton was even better than I expected, and coming back here for one last Seton Hall game was a fitting epilogue to the season.
The Pirates will meet Georgia on Tuesday at Butler’s Hinkle Fieldhouse, and if they win, they’ll face either Indiana State or Utah in the title game. They are aiming for their first NIT title since 1953. I’ll be following from home with the rest of you.
Which brings us to April. Like last year, I plan to wind the newsletter down with one weekly edition through the end of April. We’ll look ahead to the offseason, the NBA draft, possibly the Olympics and who knows what else. Stay tuned, and thank you again for reading and sharing my work this season.