Three emerging problems for Seton Hall in wake of Fordham stunner
Seton Hall lost a buy game for the first time since 2013 and lost on campus in Walsh Gymnasium for the first time since 1989.
SOUTH ORANGE – There are three ways a fan might look at Seton Hall’s start to the new season.
“They should be 2-0.” This stance would nod to the inherent winnability of the Pirates’ games against Saint Peter’s and Fordham, maybe with a side of shade at the referees who called a shooting foul on Prince Aligbe that went on to doom them Saturday (more on that in a bit). The Pirates should win these games without much of a sweat.
“They should be 0-2.” Call it doomerism or just being realistic. Before Fordham ever posed a threat to Seton Hall, I wrote in Tuesday’s newsletter that my only surprise from the Saint Peter’s affair was that the Peacocks didn’t finish the job. They outplayed the Pirates in every main facet of the game except ball-handling. We really could be looking at a disastrous 0-2 start right now.
The third reaction would be something more down the middle and acquiescent, if not happily so. The fact is, Seton Hall clawed out a win in a low-scoring game against Saint Peter’s, which it’s supposed to do, then failed to manage the same against Fordham after making hard-to-watch mistakes. In other words, “1-1 is about right.”
The tone I’m aiming for in today’s newsletter isn’t snark, nor performative disappointment. It’s bluntness. Seton Hall lost a buy game for the first time since 2013 and lost on campus in Walsh Gymnasium for the first time since 1989 (to Fordham). The upset came at the hands of a team your Big East rival blitzed by 32 earlier in the week. It’s bad news!
The Pirates were probably going to crawl away from the wreckage with a win before Aligbe was whistled for a foul on this sequence. Watching it in real time, watching the replay on the overhead scoreboard and watching this clip the next day, I fail to see a foul by any definition.
The Pirates still led by one after three free throws, but Aligbe’s pass to Dylan Addae-Wusu to beat the half-court press went right through his hands and out of bounds. Fordham drew up the winning play you’ve surely seen by now, with Jackie Johnson III’s buzzer-beater delivering Fordham a 57-56 win.
This loss will hang like an albatross around the Pirates’ necks for the rest of the season, hampering their tournament resume. Fordham was picked 14th in the 15-team Atlantic 10’s preseason poll. It reminds me of Seton Hall’s loss two years ago to Siena, a team that went on to finish 17-15 and No. 207 in KenPom, but that was during a November tournament in a sterile gym in Florida. This one’s worse.
This quote from the start of Shaheen Holloway’s press conference got some attention when I posted it on social media:
“We didn’t lose the game today, we lost the game on Wednesday. We just, we’re not practicing well, we’re not playing well right now. But sometimes you’ve got to lose to win. I think we’re gonna learn from this game. I’ve got to do a better job with these guys. I’m still getting to know them. It’s not an excuse, it’s the truth. But give Fordham credit. They came here, they played hard. I think two games in a row, teams just outscrapping us, outplaying us, which is not good. That’s kind of what we do. But we’ll get better. We’re gonna learn from this, and when we put it together it’s gonna be really good but we ain’t there yet.”
Holloway said a few other things this week that I want to examine as the basis for the rest of this piece. To me, they illuminate three big problem areas for the Pirates in the early stages of the season.
It’s not lost on me that I’m doing some version of a three lessons/three takeaways format about a Seton Hall game for the third year in a row. Two years ago, it came after Seton Hall lost to Providence despite a 28-9-5 game from Kadary Richmond; last year’s was three lessons packaged with three positives after a three-overtime loss to Creighton that could have gone either way. I can’t help it if Seton Hall’s issues remain some of the more easily diagnosable ones you’ll find anywhere in the state.
1. Turnovers and the mental game
Holloway (emphasis mine): “I thought we had opportunities. If we make some free throws, take care of the ball, make better decisions, this game is ours. We made some boneheaded plays down the stretch.”
Addae-Wusu had eight points, five assists and four steals in this game but kept holding the Pirates back with missed passes and poor decisions, leading to four of their 15 turnovers. There were forced plays. There were shot-clock violations. And when the Rams had a takeaway, Seton Hall didn’t usually stop them at the other end – they allowed 19 points off turnovers.
The last two came on the game-losing bucket, in which Fordham made a tough shot over what appeared to be tight defense. But Holloway wasn’t happy with the execution.
“Even at that last play, we knew exactly what they was going to do,” Holloway said. “We told our guys in the huddle they would come up, set a ghost screen and (Johnson) was going to drive left. Try to keep him on his right. And we didn’t.”
That said, this is by and large an offense-centric problem, one of two on the list. Holloway mentioned free throws (they missed 8 of 16), which I’ll parlay into the second and most obvious shortcoming of this team:
2. They can’t score
Asked why the Pirates couldn’t hold the lead, Addae-Wusu said, “We’ve just got to defend better. That’s really it, down the line. That’s our M.O. Guard your yard, play defense.”
My initial instinct was to wholly disagree, to argue that allowing 57 points to Fordham on 36.5% shooting and 29.2% from three should be enough defense to win you a game if you can just put the ball in the hoop.
I thought about it some more, and I’m realizing that maybe the truth in this quote is that the Pirates know their identity and therefore know their shortcomings. They know they aren’t going to score 80 a game or win track meets. It’s always been a matter of out-uglying the other guys.
That said: Seton Hall scored 56 points on 61 possessions Saturday and 57 points on 60 possessions against Saint Peter’s. Though it’s a small sample size, the Pirates rank No. 201 in KenPom offensive rating – the worst of any power-conference team. They need to figure out who will make shots in the clutch and get those players in the right position to take those chances.
Which brings us to No. 3…
3. The rotation
Holloway, after the Saint Peter’s win: “I’m happy we won – a win I’ll take all day over a bad loss. But I’m trying to get used to these guys. I’m trying to get to know these guys, and I don’t.”
This section isn’t me suggesting I know anything more than Holloway knows about his own team. It’s his own view of the situation. Against Saint Peter’s, he second-guessed his substitution patterns that let the Peacocks back into the game before halftime. There’s not much time left for experimentation when you start playing two games a week.
Other than Chaunce Jenkins, who’s played admirably and finished with positive plus/minus ratings for two games, most of the backcourt has been a source of frustration. Isaiah Coleman missed the season opener with a muscle strain and looked cold in his first game back Saturday, missing several open shots. Zion Harmon didn’t get any minutes till the second half. Garwey Dual and Scotty Middleton, the most lauded incoming transfers, have done almost nothing on offense.
Besides his foul trouble, center Yacine Toumi had a terrific game with 12 points on 5-of-5 shooting and three boards. He looks at times like the Pirates’ most complete player, and it should only be a matter of time before he replaces freshman Godswill Erheriene in the starting lineup. Under sunnier circumstances someday, I’d like to investigate how the Pirates will use two bigs at a time this year, because Toumi spent time sharing the floor with both Erheriene and Gus Yalden.
But that isn’t today. Holloway and his staff have plenty of work to do. To be sure, the head coach pointed not only at his players but at himself when he said the team needed to learn from the film, “including me, all of us. Not just the players, the coaches too.”
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Hi there, etc. What a year this week has been. Grateful that college basketball is officially in full swing.
I mentioned this on Twitter and Threads, but the plan after today is to return to a Thursday-Saturday-Monday publishing cycle for at least the next several weeks, as it aligns with the local game schedule and when I’ll be out on the trail. Also, if it wasn’t clear by now, every editions is still free to read until we get about a month into the season, and like last year, I will make one issue per week available only to paid subscribers (likely Monday/Tuesday each week).
Alright. Let’s cleaning the glass and get on with our Sunday:
When the FDU women’s basketball team defeated American 62-59 on Friday, coach Stephanie Gaitley became the 17th women’s coach to reach 700 Division I wins. Gaitley, in her second year at FDU, is the first to do so while coaching at six different programs. She even had a previous New Jersey stop, accruing 57 wins in three years at Monmouth (2008-11). Gaitley and the Knights, the preseason favorites in the Northeast Conference, are off to a 2-0 start.
The Princeton women picked up a 79-58 road win against DePaul after their surprising season-opening loss to Duquesne. Madison St. Rose racked up 24 points, and Tabitha Amanze gave big minutes on the inside with nine points, five rebounds and four blocks. Next up is another Big East foe for the home opener, Villanova. I’ll be there for Guarden State.
We just had the second edition of the “Jersey Jam” in Trenton on Friday; I wasn’t in attendance, but Princeton rallied past Duquesne after Monmouth fell to Temple. Continuing the Jersey theme, because what else is this newsletter for, this week will feature several in-state matchups. The Rutgers women host NJIT this afternoon, and the Rutgers men are getting ready to face both Saint Peter’s and Monmouth.