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As I see it

1. Connecticut 25-3 15-2
One blip on the radar means nothing.

2. Marquette 21-6 12-4
A hair behind Creighton last week. Now a hair in front.

3. Creighton 20-8 11-6
Blow out UConn. Get Blown out by SJU.

4. Seton Hall 18-9 11-5
Hey Palm, are you paying attention?

5. Providence 18-9 9-7
Three in a row moves them up a notch. Tough schedule ahead.

6. St. John's 16-12 8-9
Soft, very soft schedule left.

7. Villanova 15-12 8-8
After cupcake Georgetown at home the schedule gets difficult.

8. Butler 16-12 7-10
Now playing as I expected all year.

9. Xavier 13-14 7-9
4 Ls in a row. Thank God what comes next, DePaul and Georgetown.

10. Georgetown 9-18 2-14
Two positive nail biters in a row against DePaul. Otherwise we're looking at 0-20.

11. DePaul 3-24 0-16
Here, we are actually looking at 0-20.

Love to read this from Sha

From Carino write-up of Butler 2:

“It’s huge," Holloway, who of course is a former Pirate star, said of the alums showing up. "I thought it was good for Fuquan Edwin to get honored today in the Hall of Fame, he deserved it, he had a great career. And for everybody else coming out here supporting us and showing love, it’s always good. I told you guys before, at Seton Hall, when I’m here, they’re here. So we’re all together. It’s big. You see my boy Isaiah (Whitehead) was here, he was here all week with us (on campus), so it was good."

We're not a prestige program, but we've had some good players over the years. Regardless of how/why Whitehead ended up a pirate, everything I see and read paints him as a true blue lifer. A knock on Willard was his coolness to the school; that he regarded it as a stepping stone to what we really wanted. Now having an all-timer alumnus as a coach who unapologetically views SHU as the be all and end all, and literally a part of his family, is pretty cool.

I'd love a culture that embraces players returning to be involved in various ways after their playing days have ended. For those in NJ who are actually connected to that program, is that what we have? What we've had? What we're developing? Recognizing I'm curious about what the program is like in these respects since my only exposure is through the games and old alum's workman like Internet inventorying :)

$12,033 in 6 days - Let's keep it going!

Honor the volunteers who support Seton Hall Athletics with a contribution to Onward Setonia, and your contribution will be matched dollar-for-dollar up to $25,000.

Seton Hall has many alumni who donate hundreds of hours to support our student-athletes, an anonymous supporter has offered to match contributions made in their honor, up to $25K. This is a great opportunity to double your support and thank our dedicated volunteers.

Please consider a contribution today and leave a note of thanks on our Volunteer Tribute even page.

Double your support at:
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Thank you for your consideration and support!

Seton Hall Basketball Predictions Update Feb 25, 2024

After beating Butler 76-64 yesterday, Seton Hall is now projected to finish the regular season 20-11 (13-7 Big East).
The odds that the Pirates make the NCAA tournament are up to 87%, an increase of 15% since yesterday.
We currently rank Seton Hall as the #59 team in the country, and the #8 team in the Big East.
Next game: Wed, Feb 28 at #9 Creighton. Our power ratings give the Pirates a 15% chance to win.

"Double bubble"

Butler at Seton Hall

8:30 p.m. | FS2

The Bulldogs, the first team out of the bracket as of Friday, are now two games below .500 against the top three quadrants and that's a big problem. They need to finish 3-1 to get back to even par entering the Big East Tournament, but this is the toughest of those games.

Butler
The Pirates, who are part of the "next four out" in the latest bracket, have some winnable home games left and it would behoove them to win them. Seton Hall is a .500 team against each of the top three quadrants, but I guess that shows consistency. Its two road games remaining are at Creighton and UConn, so that is why the home games are so important.

Seton Hall


Hats matter!

I still remember when a McDonalds All-American high school kid named Shaheen Holloway put a Seton Hall Pirates hat on much to Mike Krzyzewski's dismay. It was on live TV on a local NY channel called Sports Extra if I remember correctly.

I was thrilled that we had gotten this highly ranked recruit to play for the Pirates beating out Duke. Four years later, he finished his college playing career as one of the all-time great Pirates. Little did I know that many years later, that decision to put on the Pirates hat would again pay dividends by giving us an even better coach than player!

Seton Hall kicks some But-ler, again


By Colin Rajala

Seton Hall’s prospects of securing its first NCAA Tournament berth since 2022 took a big step forward Saturday evening as the Pirates led wire-to-wire for a 76-64 victory over Butler in front of a sold-out
crowd at the Prudential Center.

With their latest Quad 2 win, the Pirates have now won three straight and four of their last five, improving to 8-7 in Quad 1 and Quad 2 games on the season, an ever-important metric as March Madness closes in.

Seton Hall (18-9, 11-5) was, once again, led by its trio of captains as they accounted for 79% of the team’s scoring and propelled the program to its ninth win in its last 10 matchups against Butler (16-12, 7-10), including three straight season sweeps.

Senior forward Dre Davis led all scorers with 21 points on 9/13 shooting from the field to go along with seven rebounds, three assists, two steals and a block, while senior guard Kadary Richmond recorded 20
points, six rebounds, two assists and two steals with graduate guard Al-Amir Dawes contributing 19 points, including three three-pointers, as well as five boards and three steals.

“That’s something they’ve been doing all year. They don’t get enough credit. I don’t think Dre gets a lot of credit, but we’re not worried about that. Things speak for themselves. We’re just trying to take these
games day by day,” Head Coach Shaheen Holloway said, in the post-game press conference.

With six days to prepare, The Hall’s three captains set the tone early, turning Butler over three times for three easy transition buckets to take a 10-3 lead in the first four minutes. Davis would put back a
transition miss from senior guard Dylan Addae-Wusu to extend the Pirates’ lead to 16-3 in the opening eight minutes and prompt a timeout from the visiting Bulldogs.

“I was happy with the way we came out. I thought we had three solid days of practice. This was a good bye-week for us, we kind of needed it, guys were banged up. I’m a little disappointed that we didn’t keep
that same energy, but Butler’s a good team, they can score the basketball,” Holloway offered.

Butler, who finds itself on the outside of the bubble looking in after dropping four straight games, closed the score to 18-13 on a layup by Jahmyl Telfort before Seton Hall reeled off a quick 7-2 run to push the
lead back to double digits, 25-15, with six minutes remaining in the first half. Butler Center Jalen Thomas closed the half on a mini 5-0 run of his own with a three-pointer and layup to close the gap to 37-32.

Seton Hall’s halftime lead was largely attributable to its advantage in points off of turnovers, 13-3, and fast break points, 8-0, but the Bulldogs kept it close behind 8/20 (40%) shooting from long range.

“The first half, I was disappointed because they had eight threes. At halftime, we made some adjustments and they had four [threes], and I thought that was the difference in the game,” according to
Holloway.

The Pirates kept the Bulldogs at arm’s length in the opening nine minutes of the second half before a three from Pierre Brooks off the feed from Telfort cut Seton Hall’s advantage to just two, 53-51, with
10:33 remaining.

From there, Seton Hall ratcheted up its defense again, holding Butler without a field goal for the next eight minutes and extending the lead back up to 68-55 with just over three minutes to go in the game.

“I thought the first half, they spaced us out a little bit. Our pick-and-roll defense was up too much, so I pushed it back out to the college three-point line and once we did that, it kind of closed the court up a
little bit. So, when they had those short rolls, we were scrambling and they were getting threes. The second half, the last, I think, 12 minutes of the game, we did a better job with that,” Holloway said.

With the triumph, Holloway surpassed his predecessor, Kevin Willard, for the most wins by a Seton Hall head coach in their first two seasons with 35.

While Seton Hall’s three leaders were the focal point of the win, they received strong contributions from their other two starters as graduate center Jaden Bediako finished just short of a double-double with
nine points and nine board (four offensive) alongside four blocks, while Addae-Wusu had seven points, four rebounds, four assists and three steals.

“I got on Dylan because Dylan normally gives us a lot of little plays that don’t show up on the stat sheet. I thought the last — from the 8-minute mark down, I thought he got a lot of loose balls, 50-50 balls for
us, that I was on him about getting (that). "

"JB is JB. He’s been doing this for us all year. He’s somebody that, I told you guys in the beginning of the year, ‘don’t worry about him, he’s gonna be fine,’ and he’s kind of
being fine,” Holloway said.

The Hall finished the game shooting 29/59 (49.2%) from the field, outscoring Butler 44-16 in the paint.

With the home victory, Seton Hall moved back into a tie for third place in the Big East standings with 15th ranked Creighton, who will host the Pirates on Wednesday, Feb. 28 at 9 p.m.

##### 2024 BIG EAST Prediction Contest: February 24-25 #####

Nobody went 5-0 this week as most had Connecticut and/or Xavier winning. Six players did manage to go 4-1, including @vegaspaul82. We did see some movement near the top as Paul's 4-1 session was enough to inch him into second place alone and one game closer to @GrMtWoods, who went 3-2. It was only the third time all season that our leader lost two games in a single session. That said, the lead is still a commanding four games with 25 left to play. Five players are tied for third at 68-17.


Saturday, February 24

Georgetown (8-18, 1-14) @ DePaul (3-23, 0-15) - 6:00 PM - CBSSN - Wintrust/Chicago

Villanova (15-11, 8-7) @ #1 Connecticut (24-3, 14-2) - 8:00 PM - FOX - Gampel/Storrs

Butler (15-11, 7-9) @ SETON HALL (17-9, 10-5) - 8:30 PM - FS2 - The Rock/Newark


Sunday, February 25

#15 Creighton (20-7, 11-5) @ St. John's (15-12, 7-9) - 12:00 PM - CBS - MSG/NYC

Xavier (13-13, 7-8) @ #7 Marquette (20-6, 11-4) - 5:00 PM - FS1 - Fiserv/Milwaukee

Appreciation Post

We have an absolute stud head coach whose imposing his grit and love for Seton Hall onto a very likeable group.

We have a team full of grinders. The amount of growth for this group from the non conference to today is incredible.

You know all you need to know about Sha when he ran halfway onto the court last night after a TO to chew out the players for subpar defense resulting in a barrage of Butler 3s.

The best part about where we stand this afternoon is that Sha won't let them even consider that they have accomplished anything. We've got four more games to seal a bid. Can't wait until Wednesday!
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