Seton Hall Athletics
“I’m a happy guy when I go to bed.”
For Seton Hall men’s basketball head coach Kevin Willard, those words have taken time to come true. The Pirates have gone 66-65 in his four years, but the hype surrounding the program, entering the 2014-15 season has not reached this point in the Willard era ever, which is why the head coach’s pillow is a little softer at night. The program welcomes in a consensus top-15, six-man recruiting class, led by the first McDonald’s All-American for the program since 2000 in guard Isaiah Whitehead, who was the first Pirate to receive Big East Preseason Freshman of the Year since Eddie Griffin in that same year.
Picked to finish sixth in the Big East Preseason Poll, Seton Hall starts with a strong backcourt.
“That’s the best part about this team,” freshman Khadeen Carrington said. “We’ve really felt comfortable playing with each other because we have so many ball-handlers that can start the offense up.”
Whitehead comes in as the highest ranked New York City recruit in five years, and is the #2 shooting guard in the country coming out of high school according to ESPN’s ratings. He did it all in his senior season at Lincoln High School in Brooklyn, scoring 23.6 points along with 6.8 rebounds and 5.4 assists per game. But, the college game has brought a transition for the blossoming talent.
“Learning defense has been a challenge,” Whitehead said. “Guys are going a lot quicker at the college level. I’ve just tried to take in everything I’ve learned from the veterans.”
While the Pirates have several newcomers that bring excitement to the table, it’s those returnees that proved something last March. Sterling Gibbs and Jaren Sina are back for SHU, and those two were the clutch pieces to last year’s 64-63 upset over then-3rd ranked Villanova to give the Pirates their first Big East Tournament Semifinal berth since 2003.
Gibbs was the second-leading scorer for the Pirates last season with 13.2 points per game, averaging over 30 minutes per contest, which is expected to stay similar to that mark entering the 2014-15 campaign. Entering his second season in the blue and white after sitting out a year because of his transfer from Texas, Gibbs has to take on a leadership role with nine players surrounding him that have never stepped on the court officially as a Pirate. One of the biggest elements to his offseason was improving his shot, after a sophomore year that featured a 34-percent mark from three-point land and a 72-percent mark from the free throw line.
“The main difference with this year is trying to take the guys under my wing,” Gibbs said. “Getting used to the pace of Big East basketball is certainly a process. Last year was a learning process for me. I know I struggled. Now, it’s about taking some of those things that I learned and making things positive. I think the nice thing about this team is that every guy has their thing that they can do special. To reach our goals, we need to bring this together, and we’re working for that. The nice thing is I have Jaren (Sina) to work with.”
A local product out of nearby Gil St. Bernard’s, Sina was one of only two players to appear in all 34 games for the Pirates last season, and he did it in his rookie season. Ranking 10th in the conference in three-point shooting at 38 percent, Sina also averaged 2.7 assists per Big East contest, which helped him to an All-Rookie Team selection.
“With this many threats, we’re going to make a defense think twice about how they want to go after us,” Sina said.
“I’m a lucky guy, I’ve got four point guards to work with,” Willard said.
His fourth option is Carrington, who graduated as the all-time leading scorer at Bishop Loughlin High School in New York, with 2,196 career points. Carrington was the star of the night last spring in the Jordan Brand Classic Regional Game at the Barclays Center, scoring 18 points along with seven boards and five assists. He was the 35th-ranked shooting guard according to ESPN, but it’s expected that Carrington gets some back-up time orchestrating the offense. Arguably the most unique trait that this recruiting class embodies is that four of the six recruits come from the New York area, and the other two are out of New Jersey high schools. Carrington believes that’s why the chemistry has grown quickly.
“We’re really familiar with each other,” Carrington said. “Everybody knows everybody in a sense, and I think that’s really special.”
While youth brings excitement, it also carries question marks, and the case is no different for Seton Hall, particularly in the frontcourt. The Pirates return one frontcourt starter from a season ago, Brandon Mobley, who averaged 7.6 points per game.
Outside of him, the frontcourt has only logged a total of 32 Division I minutes heading into this season. This comes as a concern after a veteran corps was only able to get the blue and white to ninth in the Big East in offensive rebounds with 8.5 and seventh in defensive rebounds with 24.0 per contest.
This leaves Mobley having to carry the load down low. The 6-foot-9 big man added 20 pounds during the offseason to get ready for the stage to reach up to 225.
“For us to have success, he’s got to have a big year,” Willard said.
With the losses of Big East All-Tournament Team player Eugene Teague and Patrik Auda, who combined for over 20 points per game last year, the Pirates will be throwing some new options in down low.
Freshman Angel Delgado is who the Pirates expect to deliver at the starting center spot this season. Out of the Patrick School in Elizabeth, N.J., the four-star recruit has been learning under Mobley’s wing. In his 14-point, seven-rebound performance in Sunday’s exhibition match-up versus Caldwell, a 96-68 win for the Pirates, Whitehead called Delgado “a monster.”
“He plays with a lot of emotion,” Willard said. “Sometimes you gotta calm them down, and we’re working toward that as the season goes on.”
One unknown for the Pirates is what they will get out of 6-foot-9 Rashed Anthony, who redshirted last season. “He’s my guy,” Mobley said of Anthony. “I just tell him to play with all the energy he can, and to not worry about fouls.”
The #6 recruit in New Jersey according to ESPN.com, Ismael Sanogo joins the Pirates and will be expected to help the effort on the boards as well at 6-foot-7 in the frontcourt that will go by committee, with senior Stephane Manga also factored in. Last season, Manga appeared in 26 games, starting in three and scoring 78 points.
One of the more overlooked players for SHU that started in 11 of 28 appearances and averaged 13.1 minutes per game last season is senior Haralds Karlis. The Latvia native is not known so much for his scoring (51 points last season), but has the capabilities to provide a defensive boost for the blue and white this year.
It’s that defense that Seton Hall needs collectively.
“I do think our offense is faster along than the defense, but it’s something we’re working on daily,” Willard said. The Pirates are trying to get out of the basement in the Big East after allowing 69.9 points per game last season, which was second-last in the league.
A hyped class will also be playing a hyped schedule. Along with playing four 2013-14 NCAA Tournament teams, the Pirates will partake in Paradise Jam at the Virgin Islands.
The Hall will tip off the season with a Mercer team that is much younger than a season ago, one that saw Bob Hoffman's Bears knocked off Duke in the Round of 64 in the NCAA Tournament. An all-senior starting five is gone that was led by Langston Hall (14.7 points per game). The Bears' experience was shown in their unselfishness, as they were 10th in assists per game with 16.4. Rising junior guard Ike Nwamu looks to raise the bar from scoring just over eight points per game to reaching double-figures. This team will be younger, but it gives the Pirates a taste of a program that has had recent success in a place that SHU wants to get to – the Big Dance.
“If we settled for anything less than that, then I don’t see the point in this season,” Whitehead said. “I truly see this team as an NCAA Tournament group. Seton Hall deserves it.”
John Fanta can be reached at john.fanta@student.shu.edu or on twitter @John_Fanta.
