https://setonhall.rivals.com/
By Zack Cziryak
Zack: How has recruiting changed given the effects of the pandemic?
Lauren: We’re in a dead period that’s going to go through July so this will be the first July since 2008 that I haven’t left the day after the 4th of July holiday to begin recruiting. Further, this is going to be the first July in 25 years or so that Coach Bozzella hasn’t gone recruiting either, so that’s crazy. We missed April, which is a big recruiting period for us, and then we missed May, which is another big recruiting period for us as well, and obviously July is our biggest recruiting period, I believe it to be 16 days. Those are huge. For us very huge.
We did get a commitment from a player Tuesday but of course I can't comment on specifics, but again it would have been optimum to see her play in April, see her play in May but you play the cards you're dealt with.
Transfer wise the pandemic was helpful for us. I think we got two great transfers that would have been more difficult to get if they were able to take their visits. They have next level talent and maybe getting their commitments if they had more options would have again been more difficult. That said we're happy they chose us and in the long run this will benefit them as well as us.
For the 2021 class I think it’s a little difficult because schools can’t really evaluate players and I don’t think a lot of the young women are going to wait until July to commit because they probably think they won't have a July. I think the 2021s will probably have something in September-October, but who’s going to wait until September-October? They’re panicking and I can’t blame them because they have been put in a very difficult situation.
Q: How did the season end for you and the program? What was that like?
A: We were in Chicago for the Big East tournament, which was crazy because that was a hotbed at the time. We were sitting there, we had beaten Butler pretty good, it was a great game for our girls we had just played excellent. John Fanta’s doing a lot of our games and he told us Val [Ackerman]’s saying she’s going to have to cancel the Big East men’s tournament.’ And Coach B and me are thinking ‘what’re you talking about?’
Really, our first thought was that’s crazy. but we have another game against DePaul.... we play great but lose right at the end. We fly home Monday and obviously we’re going to give the girls off a couple of days so we had practice scheduled Thursday and Friday.... give them off the weekend again and then Monday find out what we’re doing.
Come Thursday we practice but we heard that games were being canceled on Wednesday, and that many if not all the games are going to be canceled on Thursday. Not sure what is going to happen so we canceled practice on Friday and told the girls we’ll just meet back on Monday. but that day the Big East games were canceled and that was it.
We didn’t even get to see our seniors, didn’t have the end of year or anything with them. So that was hard. And it was hard too because we were on the NCAA bubble in some mock brackets.
Did I personally think we were going to get in? No, but we were on the bubble which meant we were going to have a great seed in the NIT. We were going to host probably the first three rounds and everyone knows how well we play at home. That was potentially three wins, that was another 21-22 win season, which is huge. That was something that was really disappointing. Our first 3 years we won 20+ games and that’s the standard our former players had built, and we hadn’t lived up to that recently. This year, our players got back to that standard and we would have potentially reached the 20+ win mark and that was taken away from them and all their hard work they put in. So that was really difficult. And especially for the seniors, for the kids who came in here and those like Shadeen (Samuels) who’s been here. It was hard not to end it the proper way. But everybody else is going through it too so we were just lucky to get our tournament in, the men didn’t even get that opportunity.
Q: How much has this affected the schedule to this point and could anything change moving forward?
A: We only have nine non-league games now because of UConn coming back. We did everything local, everything is a bus trip. We play Fordham at Villanova [in a multi-school event]. Then we’re at Princeton and our other seven games are at home. So we did everything local for this coming season.
We like to play higher rated D1 teams. We were looking to go out to Dayton, which is a really good team on the women’s side and were looking at some other bigger games as well, but we feared we might have those games canceled. We don’t want to loses games and play less than the maximum. We were supposed to have Boston College in for a preseason scrimmage but instead we'll play Columbia this year because if BC can't travel here we don’t want our scrimmage to get canceled.
In short we had to schedule a little bit more locally. Not as high a level team-wise as usual because of the pandemic. It will be interesting to see at the end of the year how teams are seeded with the whole NET and the RPI. Are you going to punish teams for not being able to fly across the country and play some of the schools that we at Seton Hall are used to playing?
Q: What has the delay in construction on Walsh meant overall and specifically for recruiting?
A: It was definitely being used in the recruiting process, but we will just have to adjust and continue to sell that it will be built and also sell all the new renovations that have happened in the athletic department since our arrival.
Still, there’s a few things we have to overcome on a continuous basis and so is having a new gym going to get us that next level recruit? I don’t know. I don’t think it’s going to make a player come here or not come here. I think maybe if the locker room area is improved that would help. That’s something that we need refurbished more than anything, our locker room. I think that would play more than the gym itself. Because the gym already shows well. I know it’s old and I know it’s not up to high D1 standards, but it does show well when we play. Obviously, the new scoreboards will be great, the other renovations too, but really anyone that would commit to us now....the gym should still be done in time if they come. Outside of transfers of course.
Really I don’t think it’s going to hurt us that badly either way, I just think it would have been great to finally have it to show all of those upgrades to the recruits. But like I said I don’t think it’s going to put us over the top with anyone, I just think a big part of it is the locker room. Improving that would be massive.
By Zack Cziryak
Zack: How has recruiting changed given the effects of the pandemic?
Lauren: We’re in a dead period that’s going to go through July so this will be the first July since 2008 that I haven’t left the day after the 4th of July holiday to begin recruiting. Further, this is going to be the first July in 25 years or so that Coach Bozzella hasn’t gone recruiting either, so that’s crazy. We missed April, which is a big recruiting period for us, and then we missed May, which is another big recruiting period for us as well, and obviously July is our biggest recruiting period, I believe it to be 16 days. Those are huge. For us very huge.
We did get a commitment from a player Tuesday but of course I can't comment on specifics, but again it would have been optimum to see her play in April, see her play in May but you play the cards you're dealt with.
Transfer wise the pandemic was helpful for us. I think we got two great transfers that would have been more difficult to get if they were able to take their visits. They have next level talent and maybe getting their commitments if they had more options would have again been more difficult. That said we're happy they chose us and in the long run this will benefit them as well as us.
For the 2021 class I think it’s a little difficult because schools can’t really evaluate players and I don’t think a lot of the young women are going to wait until July to commit because they probably think they won't have a July. I think the 2021s will probably have something in September-October, but who’s going to wait until September-October? They’re panicking and I can’t blame them because they have been put in a very difficult situation.
Q: How did the season end for you and the program? What was that like?
A: We were in Chicago for the Big East tournament, which was crazy because that was a hotbed at the time. We were sitting there, we had beaten Butler pretty good, it was a great game for our girls we had just played excellent. John Fanta’s doing a lot of our games and he told us Val [Ackerman]’s saying she’s going to have to cancel the Big East men’s tournament.’ And Coach B and me are thinking ‘what’re you talking about?’
Really, our first thought was that’s crazy. but we have another game against DePaul.... we play great but lose right at the end. We fly home Monday and obviously we’re going to give the girls off a couple of days so we had practice scheduled Thursday and Friday.... give them off the weekend again and then Monday find out what we’re doing.
Come Thursday we practice but we heard that games were being canceled on Wednesday, and that many if not all the games are going to be canceled on Thursday. Not sure what is going to happen so we canceled practice on Friday and told the girls we’ll just meet back on Monday. but that day the Big East games were canceled and that was it.
We didn’t even get to see our seniors, didn’t have the end of year or anything with them. So that was hard. And it was hard too because we were on the NCAA bubble in some mock brackets.
Did I personally think we were going to get in? No, but we were on the bubble which meant we were going to have a great seed in the NIT. We were going to host probably the first three rounds and everyone knows how well we play at home. That was potentially three wins, that was another 21-22 win season, which is huge. That was something that was really disappointing. Our first 3 years we won 20+ games and that’s the standard our former players had built, and we hadn’t lived up to that recently. This year, our players got back to that standard and we would have potentially reached the 20+ win mark and that was taken away from them and all their hard work they put in. So that was really difficult. And especially for the seniors, for the kids who came in here and those like Shadeen (Samuels) who’s been here. It was hard not to end it the proper way. But everybody else is going through it too so we were just lucky to get our tournament in, the men didn’t even get that opportunity.
Q: How much has this affected the schedule to this point and could anything change moving forward?
A: We only have nine non-league games now because of UConn coming back. We did everything local, everything is a bus trip. We play Fordham at Villanova [in a multi-school event]. Then we’re at Princeton and our other seven games are at home. So we did everything local for this coming season.
We like to play higher rated D1 teams. We were looking to go out to Dayton, which is a really good team on the women’s side and were looking at some other bigger games as well, but we feared we might have those games canceled. We don’t want to loses games and play less than the maximum. We were supposed to have Boston College in for a preseason scrimmage but instead we'll play Columbia this year because if BC can't travel here we don’t want our scrimmage to get canceled.
In short we had to schedule a little bit more locally. Not as high a level team-wise as usual because of the pandemic. It will be interesting to see at the end of the year how teams are seeded with the whole NET and the RPI. Are you going to punish teams for not being able to fly across the country and play some of the schools that we at Seton Hall are used to playing?
Q: What has the delay in construction on Walsh meant overall and specifically for recruiting?
A: It was definitely being used in the recruiting process, but we will just have to adjust and continue to sell that it will be built and also sell all the new renovations that have happened in the athletic department since our arrival.
Still, there’s a few things we have to overcome on a continuous basis and so is having a new gym going to get us that next level recruit? I don’t know. I don’t think it’s going to make a player come here or not come here. I think maybe if the locker room area is improved that would help. That’s something that we need refurbished more than anything, our locker room. I think that would play more than the gym itself. Because the gym already shows well. I know it’s old and I know it’s not up to high D1 standards, but it does show well when we play. Obviously, the new scoreboards will be great, the other renovations too, but really anyone that would commit to us now....the gym should still be done in time if they come. Outside of transfers of course.
Really I don’t think it’s going to hurt us that badly either way, I just think it would have been great to finally have it to show all of those upgrades to the recruits. But like I said I don’t think it’s going to put us over the top with anyone, I just think a big part of it is the locker room. Improving that would be massive.
