This year’s Seton Hall team was never supposed to sniff Big East Championship Saturday at Madison Square Garden. After losing four seniors and three 1,000-point scorers, the Pirates were better suited as a bottom-third team in the conference with designs on an NIT appearance. At best, this team could maybe avoid the dreaded first day of the Big East Tournament and maybe scrap for a win against another middle of the pack team.
At least that’s what the doubters had to say.
Picked to finish eighth in the Big East five months ago, Seton Hall made all the naysayers look silly with its run through the Big East Tournament. Beginning with a 16-point win over Georgetown and a narrow two-point loss to Villanova in the title game, the Pirates proved that they belong among the ranks of the Big East elite. Even in defeat, Seton Hall displayed its resiliency and made a statement. No matter who comes and goes, no matter the inexperience of the roster, the Pirates will be a force to reckon for the foreseeable future.
“You guys had us going to the NIT, right?” Myles Powell asked reporters in the Madison Square Garden locker room following Saturday evening’s action. “We did a lot of things people didn’t expect us to do. This was supposed to be a rebuilding year and we was supposed to be [eighth] in the Big East. We wound up being one of the top two, one of the last two standing. Everything we did, we believed every step.”
In the beginning, it looked like the preseason predictions were accurate. After a pair of tune-up games to begin the season, Seton Hall hit the road and got demolished by a Nebraska team that, at the time, was a lock to appear in this year’s NCAA Tournament. The Pirates followed that up by coming home and turning in a no-show performance in the first-half against St. Louis. It was a single-digit game by the end and Seton Hall had a chance to win it at the buzzer, but it was not to be.
The thought of previous Seton Hall teams from recent years losing to a mid-major opponent in the Prudential Center was unfathomable. It was clear that Kevin Willard would have a lot of work to do to get his young and inexperienced squad back on track before the season went off the rails before it could even get started.
The first sign of Seton Hall’s determination to prove the doubters wrong came at the Wooden Legacy over Thanksgiving break. A trip out west got the Pirates away from all of the talk about this team stacking up to a group that nearly knocked off No. 1 seed Kansas in the NCAA Tournament the previous year and back on their game. Seton Hall walked a slippery slope against Grand Canyon and Hawai’i in its first two games, but put together a complete performance to edge Miami in the championship game. It wasn’t pretty, but it was a step in the right direction for a team that desperately needed some positivity before returning to South Orange.
Back in the friendly confines of its home arena, Seton Hall was handed its first real chance at a resume-boosting win. Instead, the Pirates put their youth on full display and let a winnable game against Louisville slip away down the stretch. Once again, Seton Hall would have to go back to the drawing board and figure out how to avoid mediocrity.
Then, Seton Hall’s showdown with Kentucky happened. On a December afternoon at Madison Square Garden, the Pirates made a name for themselves and showed America that this team might be more than one trying to find its way. On that fateful day, Powell had his national coming out party, as the junior guard took over at the end of regulation and willed Seton Hall in front. A halfcourt heave by Kentucky sent the game to overtime, but the heroics of Myles Cale put the Pirates in front for good. At last, Seton Hall had its identity – a gritty team with a never-say-die attitude.
The win over Kentucky proved that no moment was too big for a Seton Hall team still learning how to play with each other. The Pirates followed up their top-10 upset with five consecutive wins, including triumphs over Rutgers in the Garden State Hardwood Classic, Maryland on the road, and St. John’s at the buzzer. In a month’s time, Seton Hall had gone from rebuilding to on the cusp of a spot in the AP Top 25.
Just as quickly as the Pirates rose to the top, they came crashing back down to earth. The ups and downs of Big East play caught up with Seton Hall and what ensued was a rollercoaster ride of a conference schedule. Some nights, the Pirates came out and flashed the team effort that it took to knock off Kentucky. Others, they came out and gave the preseason doubters validity. Hot and cold stretches during conference play are not uncommon, but the way Seton Hall was losing games made it hard not to question which direction it was heading.
Until Seton Hall’s most recent surge in which it defeated both Marquette and Villanova in the same week to come back from the dead and lock up an NCAA Tournament bid for the fourth straight year, the NIT predictions from earlier in the season seemed like they would come to fruition. The Pirates were spiraling out of control, but caught themselves and reminded people in the final week of the regular season and throughout the Big East Tournament what Seton Hall basketball is all about.
“We beat a one seed in Kentucky,” Powell said. “We played Maryland, they’re top 25, they’ve been there all year. St. John’s, we beat St. John’s and gave them their first loss of the year, they were ranked when we beat them. Then, at the end of the year when our back was against the wall and we had to play the two best teams, we beat them too. We definitely achieved way more than a lot of people thought we was.”
Seton Hall’s magical run through the Big East Tournament ended on a sour note, but that should not detract from what the Pirates accomplished in a three-day span. In a short period of time, the Pirates reestablished themselves as a top team in the conference and one that should not be taken lightly, no matter the circumstances.
“I can’t talk enough about how proud I am of them,” Willard said. “This team has been – I told them this team has been so much fun to coach and so much fun to be around, so much fun to battle with. This one hurts because I think both teams just laid it out on the line, and we had a big, big shot to win it. But I think it shows more about the heart and the character of these kids. We've gotten down, down, and these guys keep fighting, they keep believing, no matter what's going on within the flow of the game, they seem to fight everything and stay together and just keep making great plays. It's been an absolute pleasure to kind of be along for the ride with them.”
If the Big East Tournament was any indication of what has yet to come, Seton Hall could be in a position to make some noise once the NCAA Tournament kicks off next week. Not too shabby of an outlook for a team that was written off before they ever took the floor.
“We made it here. Everybody didn't expect us to be here. We believed in ourselves, our coaching staff believed in us. We can play with anybody in the country,” Powell said. “We know we can play with anybody in the country when we're playing our basketball.”
Tyler Calvaruso can be reached at tyler.calvaruso@student.shu.edu or on Twitter @tyler_calvaruso.
