PirateCrew: Seton Hall Pirates Football & Basketball Recruiting
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By JP Pelzman
After the buzzer sounded, the two men exchanged a fist-bump and then a brief but affectionate hug before going their separate ways, at least for now.
Kevin Willard was off to what is a challenging but promising season for his Seton Hall Pirates. Rick Pitino, one of the two pivotal mentors in Willard’s life, was off to the latest chapter in a storied basketball career that he keeps rewriting.
For 20 minutes Monday night at the Prudential Center, it appeared as if the teacher was schooling the pupil, and might be emphatically penning some memorable new pages.
But The Hall had the last word, on both offense and defense. The Pirates shot (1-1) 55.2% for the game and limited the short-handed Gaels (0-1) to 29% from the field in the second half on their way to an 86-64 blowout in Newark. It's the first of four games in a span of six days for the Pirates without grad transfer Bryce Aiken, who suffered a sprained ankle in the season-opening heartbreaking loss at Louisville.
“It came together so quick. I really didn’t have a whole lot of time to think about it,” Seton Hall coach Willard said of the runup to the game. The Pirates had spoken with Saint Joseph’s about playing Monday at Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Ct. en route to The Hall’s game at Rhode Island on Wednesday before scheduling the game against Pitino and company. As it turned out, the Hawks have been sidelined by the coronavirus this week anyway.
“The emotions hit me,” Willard said, “when I walked on the floor and I saw (Pitino) and more than anything, I was ecstatic to see a Hall of Fame basketball coach back where he belongs on the sideline. It's amazing--just hearing him--I felt like I was back on the sideline (with him) again. He just taught me so many things.
“The emotion was more as just someone who loves him and cares about him,” Willard continued, “knowing what he’s gone through these last four years, to see him back on the sidelines, back at a place I love (Iona), it was joyful.”
Pitino came to Iona in March after longtime coach Tim Cluess resigned because of health issues. Pitino had been coaching in Greece after being fired for cause by Louisville for his alleged role in the FBI wiretapping investigation that revealed numerous programs, including Louisville, had been paying for recruits. Pitino had been coaching in Greece most recently.
The short-handed Gaels only suited up 10 scholarship players, yet certainly looked like a Pitino-coached team in the first half, running, pressing and shooting three-pointers. Iona was 7-for-10 from long distance in the first half en route to a 37-35 halftime lead, although the Pirates made the score more respectable by closing the half with a 7-0 run.
Because of injuries, Iona was without point guard Asante Gist, a former St. Anthony standout, and 7-1 juco transfer Osborn Shema, a Pitino recruit. The Gaels totaled 22 turnovers without Gist, and the Pirates capitalized with 34 points off those miscues.
“We want to average anywhere from 10 to 12 turnovers maximum a game,” Pitino said. “So that’s why we didn’t score in the second half, and then we gave them layups."
Other differences in the second half for Seton Hall were better ball movement on offense, better perimeter rotation and closeouts on defense and the star power of Jared Rhoden (26 points, 10 rebounds, four blocked shots) and Sandro Mamukelashvili (18 points). Shavar Reynolds ran the offense well, with eight points, eight assists, five steals. He committed three turnovers and posted career-highs in assists, steals and minutes (29).
“That’s a little bit more what I was expecting (from him) against Louisville to be perfectly honest with you,” Willard said of Rhoden’s performance. “Jared went back to being what makes him special. He didn’t just try to score. He rebounded. He got out on the break. That’s what makes Jared really tough to scout. He’s not just a shooter. He's not just a guy that does one thing. He rebounded great. His energy and emotion were phenomenal.
“We really fed off that.”
On a night when there was a lot of emotion, even in a mostly empty arena.
“I’m not totally (ticked) off that I lost because I love Kevin,” Pitino said, a smile peeking out from behind his mask in his Zoom postgame. “If Kevin wasn’t the coach, I’d want to go out and drink a quart of scotch. Now I'm not totally upset. I’m disappointed with our turnovers, but I love Kevin like a son, so I’m happy for him.”
