The air was sucked out of the building with a hot start by St. John’s on Saturday, but tonight it felt like there was never any air or life in the Rock at all. Free Chick-fil-A sandwiches were not enough to entice the students to board the buses to brave single digit temperatures during a week night game, in which the Pirates came no where close to making more than single digit field goals in the first half.
A 6/20 effort from the floor buried the Hall in another double digit halftime deficit and a quick start by Marquette to start second stanza, kept the Hall at bay by 20 plus for much of the remaining action.
Not sure if the presence of a healthy Wusu or Jenkins would have changed the outcome, but one can only hope. Because right now hope is fleeting as the Pirates reach the midpoint of the BE season.
BLUE TINTED GLASSES
- Coleman goes off for a career high 27 points and added 9 rebounds on 9/14 from the floor and a perfect 8/8 from the line.
- Aligbe has another respectable 12 points (6/8 FG) and 6 rebounds. But outside of the first bucket of the game, it felt like most of that production came in garbage time.
- 16/20 from the line for 80%. Seems like this area of performance has improved greatly in BE play.
SOUR GRAPES AND GRIPES
- 23 turnovers. Just ugly basketball. Lazy passes, poor ball handling, and way too much one on one basketball. It didn’t feel like Marquette was creating that kind of ball pressure. What it did feel like was a lot of indifference to what was going on and players going through the motions. Not a very good sign with 12 more Big East games to go.
- Our situation in the middle gets bleaker by the moment. Or maybe tonight it was just more confusing. Marquette doesn’t play a traditional five man as Ben Gold is going to stretch the floor (3-5 from distance), so Sha decides to go with a heavy dose of Godswill and Toumi. Neither were effective and only collected a combined 5 rebounds in 38 minutes of play. More importantly, on a night when the Pirates needed a shot of energy, Gus Yalden did not see the floor. Okoforo was also a DNP. Interesting to hear Sha’s comments if asked about the PT in the postgame.
- Not looking to pick on Felton, because the night was an overall disaster. However, he got some extended run tonight (23 minutes) against a very athletic MU backcourt. 1-6 from the floor to go along with 4 turnovers. My point is, besides Isiah Coleman, every young player on this roster is a major developmental project and is not going to immediately help Sha get into the win column.
- The final margin of 17 was no where close to a representation of how lopsided this was. Marquette led 63-36 with 9 minutes to play. They essentially called off the dogs and coasted to the finish line.
The bigger question at this point is how much worse can it get. Reports from those in the stands tonight said that the majority of the fans headed for the exits not too long after halftime. At a time when Seton Hall needs a high level of engagement to figure out the direction it needs to go, their fans might be responding with the most apathy this program has seen in quite some time.
