Without Kadary Richmond, Seton Hall a mix of good, bad and ugly
Richmond is one of the most indispensable players in Division I hoops, a major compliment to him and a major hazard for the Pirates.
NEWARK – Down by three with 2:20 and counting left in regulation, Seton Hall’s starting five jogged past midcourt hoping to make something happen. Dylan Addae-Wusu and Jaden Bediako passed back and forth a bit before the ball ended up in the hands of Dre Davis, deep on the left wing. He drove, and his fadeaway jumper at the end of the shot clock was long.
Providence, though, missed a shot at the other end to give the Pirates another chance. Addae-Wusu, who was 0-for-11 at that point, hoisted a 3-pointer about three paces behind the arc. Iron.
In Seton Hall’s 67-63 home loss to Providence on Wednesday, this is where the Pirates missed Kadary Richmond the most. As fans witnessed in the late stages against Butler and Creighton, no one matches the senior guard’s playmaking in crunch time.
Richmond missed his first game of the season Wednesday, with Shaheen Holloway only describing the reason as “soreness.”
Richmond landed hard on his back two games ago against St. John’s before playing 51 minutes in the triple-OT loss to Creighton Saturday, but Holloway didn’t confirm whether his back is where the soreness is originating.
“I found out he wasn’t going to play at the shootaround,” Holloway said. “I don’t know the timetable, I don’t know too much. I know he’s got some soreness going on.”
If soreness is all this is, then Hall fans can exhale knowing it won’t be a long-term absence. But parts of Wednesday’s contest amplified underlying concerns about how the Pirates perform when Richmond comes out of a game.
Richmond is a candidate for Big East Player of the Year with the way he’s guided Seton Hall in all areas and led them to overachieve preseason expectations. The simple eye test says the Pirates would have gone nowhere without him this season, but it’s cool that this can also be expressed via advanced analytics. The respected site EvanMiya.com formulates an “indispensability score” that “quantifies how much worse off the player’s team would be if he were not available.” Kadary Richmond is the fifth-most indispensable player in Division I hoops, a major compliment to him and a major hazard for the Pirates.
Without Richmond there to start the halfcourt offense Wednesday, the Pirates shot a season-low 32.3 percent. The chemistry was different, some passes were off-kilter and plays generally looked stagnant.
Addae-Wusu shot 0-for-13 and Davis, though he reached double-figure scoring for the 10th straight game, was an inefficient 4-for-11.
“They did a good job of taking us away, with denying (Al-Amir Dawes) and making somebody else bring the ball up and playmaking,” Holloway said. “I thought it was really hard when you’ve got two of your top main guys – I don’t think Dylan scored today. I thought he played hard as heck, he had 10 rebounds, but I need him to score the basketball. He’s 0-for-13 and Dre’s 4-for-11, that’s two of our top guys that we need to score, right?
“And even with all that being said,” the coach interjected, “we was up 10. I don’t know, we just got out of sync quick and we stopped running our offense and tried to go one-on-one against a good defensive team, and it didn’t work.”
The Hall’s lead was 51-41 with 12:07 left in regulation, but the Pirates made just four field goals the rest of the game.
Freshman Isaiah Coleman earned his first career start in Richmond’s absence and while his defense wasn’t perfect, he fared well overall and shot 5-of-8 for 11 points, with five rebounds and two steals. He was the only starter who wound up with a positive plus-minus (+5).
“I thought he was solid,” Holloway said. “I thought he came in and found out this afternoon (he would start), took the challenge and I thought he played well.”
Defensively, not much changed for the Pirates, which can be taken a few ways. They held another Big East team to 70 or fewer points, and in fact their offense was at their best when running out in transition off a steal by Coleman, Dawes or Bediako (21 points off 14 Providence turnovers). But open 3-pointers remained their kryptonite; the Friars would have had nothing to show for their first half if Ticket Gaines didn’t go 4-for-5 from three.
The night’s biggest takeaway was the way Dawes filled in for Richmond as an offensive threat. After playing the past two seasons off the ball, Dawes became a score-first point guard Wednesday night. He suffered a pretty bad knock on some apparent knee-to-knee contact late in the first half, but he came out to start the second a ridiculous 7-for-7 from the floor. Most of these were open threes, fast-break layups and bunnies – smart, high-percentage shots – though he also hit his seventh shot of the half high off the glass from an awkward angle.
Dawes said the role change was “not very much different” for him.
“Just me dribbling the ball a lot more, facilitating. Making sure the guys are in the right spots when needed,” Dawes said. “Just like another step of being a leader, making sure everything is good on the offensive end.”
Dawes may be called upon to fill the same role Saturday, when Hall visits another team that will want vengeance for an earlier loss as Providence did: No. 14 Marquette. The Golden Eagles almost never lose at home, and Wednesday showed the uphill climb this may be for the Pirates without their star.
After that, Seton Hall will be able to beat lowly DePaul next Tuesday without Richmond if need be. But the Pirates surely hope their Mr. Indispensable is back to full health by then.
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Good morning, and thanks for stopping by. The Pirates are now 13-7 with back-to-back losses, and their NET number dropped six spots to No. 68, but panic over their NCAA Tournament outlook would be premature. I largely agree with bracketologist Brad Wachtel’s take that the committee “HAS to” take Richmond’s absence into account in this case, provided the superstar returns soon. People were invoking Mawot Mag in his replies, but the difference last year was that Mag was not coming back for Rutgers in March, and without him the team was barely competitive.
Now, let’s clean the glass, starting with some better Seton Hall news:
The Seton Hall women’s team earned a 74-66 overtime win over St. John’s on Monday in South Orange. The first half was a rock fight, but the Pirates got scoring from not only Azana Baines and Micah Gray, but Kae Satterfield and Sha’Lynn Hagans. Off the bench, Hagans shot 4-for-4 and hit the dagger 3-pointer in overtime for her season high in points. Since I watched the Pirates lose 50-45 to Villanova with Satterfield nursing an injury, they’ve gone 3-2, their only losses in that span to two ranked teams. Several more Big East wins could push them into bubble territory, but next up is a visit to No. 21 Creighton on Sunday.
Thursday is a surprisingly busy day for New Jersey’s mid-majors, starting with Rider at Saint Peter’s. As mentioned in Tuesday’s newsletter for paid subscribers, Rider (2-5 MAAC) needs to fix the leaks on defense, and I’m curious to see how the Broncs will match up against a Peacocks team that isn’t known for high-powered offense but plays solid defensive ball. At 6-1 in the league, Saint Peter’s is in great position but needs to handle business against teams like Rider lying in wait. That good old MAAC parity could be just around the corner.
Also Thursday, FDU hosts Central Connecticut, Monmouth visits Stony Brook and NJIT hosts Bryant. FDU’s game begins at 5 p.m. ET and will be broadcast on ESPNU. I’ll also have my eye on a pretty evenly-matched road game for Monmouth before I head out to cover the Hawks Saturday against Hofstra. Monmouth and Stony Brook each allow exactly 72.6 points per game; Monmouth scores 71.5 and Stony Brook averages 70.9.