A tour of the Seton Hall Basketball Performance Center
A tour of the Seton Hall Basketball Performance Center
SOUTH ORANGE – The last time Seton Hall basketball played in Walsh Gym, in March, the place rocked for two hours as the Pirates rolled into the NIT semifinals.
On Saturday, the crowd that filled the old bandbox left in stunned silence.
A comedy of errors in the closing seconds led to a 57-56 loss on buzzer-beating floater by Fordham’s Jackie Johnson.
“We didn’t lose the game today; we lost this game on Wednesday,” head coach Shaheen Holloway said afterward. “We’re not practicing well, we’re not playing well right now. Sometimes you’ve got to lose to win. We’ve got to 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.”
It marked the Hall’s first defeat in a guarantee game – where the opponent is taking a paycheck – since 2013 against Saint Peter’s. And Seton Hall’s last regular season loss to a non-conference opponent inside Walsh actually came against Fordham, 65-60, on Dec. 16, 1989 – right after the Final Four appearance.
The Pirates blew a four-point lead in the final 20 seconds after Chaunce Jenkins missed the back end of two free throws, Prince Aligbe fouled a 3-point shooter (and Fordham made all three shots) and Dylan Addae-Wusu fumbled an open-court pass from Aligbe after the Pirates had beaten Fordham’s press.
“I lost the ball,” said the postgrad, who committed four turnovers on the afternoon.
On the final sequence, Johnson was well guarded but hit a tough shot on the move.
“He hit a tough shot but that was bad defense,” junior forward Prince Aligbe said. “We knew what he wanted to do, we knew he wanted to go left.”
It’s worth noting that Johnson was part of the UNLV team the Hall pummeled in last year’s NIT quarterfinal in Walsh.
“We made a bunch of boneheaded plays down the stretch,” Holloway said. “Even on that last play, we knew exactly what they were going to do. We said to keep him to his right, and we didn’t do it.”
Fordham (1-1), which opened the season with a 92-60 loss at St. John’s, last defeated a Big East opponent in 2015. The Rams started Bergen Catholic alums Matt Zona and Will Richardson and brought Old Bridge native Joshua Rivera off the bench.
Richardson finished with 11 points, 4 rebounds and 4 assists.
“It means a lot, having my family and friends come in and watching me play,” the Teaneck native said.
“Give Fordham credit: They came in and played hard,” Holloway said. “Two games in a row teams outscrapped us, which is not good. That’s kind of what we do. But we’ll get better, we’ll learn from this. And when we put it together it’ll be really good.”
FIVE TAKEAWAYS
1. Offensive woes continue
It was always going to be a project, putting together 10 new players with no apparent stars and just two returnees of note. But the struggle of Providence transfer Garwey Dual to take the reins at point guard has exacerbated the issue. Against Fordham he scored two points on 1-of-4 shooting and tallied one assist in 24 minutes.
Having to play Evansville transfer Yacine Toumi, a natural stretch four, at center for stretches caused the 6-foot-10 postgrad to foul out with a team-high 12 points. He managed to stay on the floor for just 18 minutes. The presumed starter at center, Manny Okorofor, continues to be sidelined while he makes his way back from a serious dehydration episode suffered last month.
Postgrad guard Chaunce Jenkins (6 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists) bore the brunt of Fordham’s defensive attention after he scored 19 in Monday’s season-opening win over Saint Peter’s. His teammates did a poor job of getting him the ball in spots where he could rise and fire.
Ohio State transfer Scotty Middleton, whose preseason was marred by a hamstring strain, can’t seem to find a rhythm on the offensive end. ‘
Shooting 8-of-16 from the free-throw line was the cherry on top of the offensive meltdown.
Clearly, Holloway hasn’t found the best player combinations yet, but it’s fair to wonder how much he can do if a roster full of guys can shoot and there’s no reliable inside presence.
“I hate that we’re going through it,” he said, “but sometimes you have to lose to win.”
2. Isaiah Coleman returns
After missing the opener with a muscle strain, sophomore wing Isaiah Coleman subbed in early and sank a driving layup right away, played solid defense and gradually shook off some rust on the offensive end. He finished with 7 points and 3 rebounds in 27 minutes but missed a couple of open looks down the stretch that could have put the dagger in Fordham.
Coleman was the Pirates’ sixth man last year, averaging 5.4 points and 2.6 rebounds and earning Big East All-Freshmen honors. Holloway prioritized retaining him during the offseason but he missed a fair amount of practice time in the summer and fall due to a few different ailments.
He’s an important player, and the Walsh crowd acknowledged as much by giving him a huge cheer when he checked in for the first time.
As for Holloway, he coached wearing a heavy black brace around his left wrist after injuring it at halftime of the opener. He was plenty emphatic throughout the game but did not clap.
3. A damaging loss
There’s no way around how much damage this loss will do to Seton Hall’s resume and to that of the Big East, which already had suffered two other black eyes in guarantee games: Villanova at the hands of Columbia and Butler by Austin Peay. The league’s metrics will be hammered as a result.
It’s also a sledgehammer on fan morale, which Holloway attempted to address afterward.
“I would tell the fans: It’s a long season,” he said. “You watch college basketball this time of year, it happens. A lot of big teams are going down. We’re a team that’s got a lot of new guys trying to play together. It’s not an excuse. It’s real and we’re going to get better. You can guarantee that – I guarantee that.”
Seton Hall (1-1) will play Hofstra on Long Island Wednesday. The Pride feature former Hall guard Jaquan Sanders, who scored 24 points in Friday’s 14-point win over Iona.
“I’m curious to see us, next two days, I’m curious to see how we bounce back from this,” Holloway said. “We’ve got to get better, I’ve got to get better, and we’re going to get better.”
Aligbe said that was the message in the locker room, too.
“As captains we have to take heed of how execution went down the line,” he said. “We have to understand this is home and we have to protect home. Obviously it hurts, it hurts really bad, but you’ve got to come back and just work.”
4. Gus Yalden contributes
Expectations were modest for the redshirt freshman’s contributions this season after he transferred in from Wisconsin and dealt with injuries that limited him in offseason workouts. But the fan favorite chipped in six points, five rebounds and a block in just 10 minutes off the bench. He shot 3-of-6 from the field and revved up the crowd at every opportunity.
In one telling moment, after freshman center Godswill Erheriene finished a fast-break layup, Yalden gave him an emphatic chest bump – a nice gesture of camaraderie for a guy who’s his competition for minutes.
5. ‘Nothing better’
College basketball was meant to be played in places like Walsh, which turns 85 this year. No one knows that better than former Saint Joseph coach Phil Martelli, who was making his debut as a TV analyst for Fox Sports and paired with rising-star play-by-play man John Fanta (a Hall alum).
Though Martelli never coached in Walsh, he was there a few years back for a scrimmage. It certainly has echoes of 3,200 seat Alumni Memorial Fieldhouse, where his Hawks were the nation’s top-ranked team for a spell in 2003-04.
Saturday, on a yellow legal notepad in front of him at the press table, Martelli spelled out his thoughts in big, underlined letters: “First game’s in a gym. Nothing better.”
Jerry Carino has covered the New Jersey sports scene since 1996 and the college basketball beat since 2003. Contact him at jcarino@gannettnj.com.
