PirateCrew: Seton Hall Pirates Football & Basketball Recruiting
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By JP Pelzman
Most Seton Hall fans know about FOX/FS1 play-by-play announcer Brian Custer and “The Streak.”
The last 26 times Custer has broadcast a Seton Hall basketball game, the Pirates have won, dating back to December 2016.
But when exactly did The Streak become A Thing?
“Maybe two years ago,” Custer told PirateCrew.com in an exclusive interview recently. That was when a school representative mentioned to him that research by Seton Hall’s sports information department had revealed the Pirates’ lengthy winning streak when Custer was on the mic for their games.
“And then I would come to the games,” Custer said, “and you would hear people in the crowd saying, ‘Oh we got this one, this one’s in the bag. We got this one, Brian’s here.’”
Sometimes his analyst partner would be former Seton Hall coach, the legendary Bill Raftery, who always is welcome in Newark or South Orange.
Custer recalled, “And Raf would say, ‘I thought they would be happy to see me, but I guess you’re the guy.’”
That’s really when Custer knew The Streak was beginning to take on a life of its own.
“Then it was like, “Oh, Ok, I guess maybe these people know about this little thing that’s going on. Definitely over the last year and a half it’s just exploded.
“At the beginning it was really cute,” he said with a laugh, “but I think now, I've started to feel the pressure. I'm not even playing the game and I'm starting to feel the pressure. We've got to keep this up because they expect wins.”
In particular, Custer remembers a game from late in the 2018-19 season that proved to be pivotal in Seton Hall’s run to an NCAA at-large berth.
“They came from way back to beat Marquette,” he said, “and Myles Powell went crazy down the stretch.”
Yes, Powell scored 34 points, including 10 straight during an 18-0 run that closed out a pivotal 73-64 victory for the Pirates over the 16th-ranked Golden Eagles at the Prudential Center.
Custer, who also is the lead voice of Showtime’s boxing coverage, said, “I thought, maybe there is something to this.”
Not to mention another dramatic Pirates’ win at The Rock earlier that season, when a blown call on a ball that St. John’s had saved from going out of bounds resulted in the game being extended. Had the call been made properly, time would have expired.
Instead, there was enough time for Shavar Reynolds’ game-ending three-pointer, which gave the Pirates a dramatic victory.
“When they beat St. John’s and St. John’s had the game” won, Custer said, “I felt horrible for Chris Mullin, for his squad. I think that was the night I walked out of there like, there is something to this streak thing. Seton Hall shouldn’t have won this game.
“Fans were saying ‘Thank you.’ I was like, ‘What did I do?’ I did nothing.”
Custer also said there was a Seton Hall game--he could not remember exactly which one--that he originally was assigned to do. However, “I got reassigned (to another Big East) game and they ended up losing.
“It was more of a logistics thing, and my boss was like, see, I helped you, your lore gets even bigger because I took you off the game.”
Of course, that’s not how Pirates’ fans saw it the next time Custer went to the Prudential Center.
“When I went back to the Rock,” he said, “they were like, ‘Where were you, you were supposed to be here,’ that type of thing.”
The Streak became even more closely identified with Custer last season when he even noticed coaches of other Big East teams talking about it, including the dean of Big East coaches, Villanova’s Jay Wright.
“Jay's the best,” Custer says. “I could sit in his office and talk to him for hours.”
Custer was working the DePaul-Villanova contest prior to Villanova’s Saturday matinee against Seton Hall last February.
Suddenly, at one point during their conversation, Wright asked Custer, “Are you going to be here this Saturday? I don’t want you anywhere around this arena. I know about The Streak.”
Custer’s broadcast partner for the DePaul game, Len Elmore, was with him at the time.
“He just died laughing,” Custer recalled.
And Wright continued, saying, “It's true. They don’t lose with this guy. Your (rear end) better not be here. If I have to make a call, I'll do what I have to make sure you’re not in the building this Saturday.”
“We just laughed,” Custer says. “It turned out I didn’t have that game and (Villanova) lost anyway.”
That was the game in which The Hall finally beat the Wildcats on the road for the first time since 1994.
Custer recalled a similar incident with himself and analyst Sarah Kustok during a shootaround before a game between Seton Hall and visiting Providence last season when they spoke with veteran Providence coach Ed Cooley.
“Oh, I know we’re going to lose now,” Cooley said upon seeing Custer. “I know about The Streak. Who doesn’t? I don’t know why you’re coming in here to talk to me? I know we’re going to lose now.”
Custer said that last season “was the first year that the coaches knew about it.”
Of course, like any professional, Custer isn’t rooting for a side. He's rooting for a great game to call.
“For me,” he said, “like with any broadcaster, I just want a good game. At the end of the night, I want to be able to say, ‘Wow, both of those teams played their guts out and the best team won. That’s really what we hope for at FOX Sports."
