PirateCrew: Seton Hall Pirates Football & Basketball Recruiting
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By Zack Cziryak
The Seton Hall Pirates moved to 3-0 this season after scoring the most points in Shaheen Holloway’s short tenure as head coach as they dispatched the Albany Great Danes 96-71 Wednesday night at the Prudential Center.
Graduate Student Al-Amir Dawes paced the Pirates with 15, but it was a balanced attack in a game in hand early for the Hall that saw each rotation player to play notch at least one point, including six players in double figures and another two with nine points apiece. The victory marked the second straight blowout for Seton Hall after a rock fight against Saint Peter’s to kick off the 2023-24 campaign.
A sluggish start for the Hall staked Albany to a short-lived 7-2 lead in Newark, N.J. before an 8-0 run that included back-to-back-to-back baskets from co-captains Kadary Richmond, Dawes and Dre Davis would give the Pirates a lead they would never relinquish.
The Pirates shot 61% from the field and 35.4% from beyond the arc while tallying 76% of its free throws on 19-25 shooting and assisting on 17 of their 36 made field goals. On defense, the Hall held the Great Danes to only 42.4% from the floor and 29.6% from long distance.
A game after dominating the boards against Fairleigh Dickinson on campus in South Orange, the Hall held only a slight rebounding advantage against Albany at 30 to 28 but owned the paint to the tune of 58 points to 26.
The game marked a breakout for freshman Isaiah Coleman, who notched 13 points to go along with eight rebounds, two steals and a block. Freshman teammate, Malachi Brown, recorded a career-high 10 points on perfect shooting from the floor, including 2-2 from three-point land.
The Pirates return to the Rock on Saturday for a noon tip-off against Wagner, which is led by former Seton Hall Pirates and assistant coach Donald Copeland, before flying to San Diego next Thursday to kick off the Rady Children’s Invitational, the first game of which will come against the University of Southern California.
STRAY THOUGHTS:
-All three Pirate freshmen played significant minutes, with Brown acquitting himself well in running the point and shooting perfectly from the field for 10 points. However, it was Coleman who really found his footing, scoring in transition, grabbing rebounds, deflecting and stealing the ball. He was active throughout the game, making the correct rotations and regularly drawing the toughest defensive assignment. Coleman’s transition basket and-1 in the open court even earned a double fist pump from Holloway. It’s been a few seasons since the Pirates have had a player/talent capable of making an all-freshman squad, but Coleman certainly appears to have that potential.
-Al-Amir Dawes played a generally efficient game. He led the Pirates with 15 points and got there by shooting 6-10 from the field, missing only his four three-point attempts. He ran the offense frequently and made mostly good decisions, including a kick out in the first half to Sanders for a corner three. He’s obviously a roller coaster of a player as we saw last year and to start this season, but I remain somewhat hopeful that he can string together more consistent performances like this as his final season progresses.
-With better (fingers crossed) three-point shooting this year I’m not sure how often the Pirates will match up with zone defenses, but what a luxury it is to be able to place Richmond in the middle/at the elbow. In consecutive possessions against a 2-3 zone late in the first half Richmond received a pass and kicked it to an open Dylan Addae-Wusu for a three (he missed) and squared up and attacked for a lay-up, forcing Great Danes coach Dwayne Killings to switch back to man-to-man.
-Obviously not everyone on the roster can excel in the same game, but I was hoping for more out of Sada NgaNga after his play against FDU and with additional minutes available in a blowout win in which Elijah Hutchins-Everett also didn’t play. He scored one point and had two rebounds in 16 minutes of play and was often lost or late on defense, with Holloway noting in a late huddle “I don’t know what you’re doing on defense.”
