PirateCrew: Seton Hall Pirates Football & Basketball Recruiting
The definitive source for all PirateCrew news.
By Colin Rajala
Just three days removed from its biggest win of the season, Seton Hall was served a big helping of humble pie Saturday afternoon as the visiting Marquette Golden Eagles drubbed the Pirates 74-53.
With the victory Marquette moved to 8-2 in Big East play, just 0.5 games behind Xavier for first place, while Seton Hall fell to 5-5 and maintained fifth place in conference play with a 0.5 game lead over rivals
Villanova and UConn.
The difference in the second matchup of the season series was simply turnovers – Marquette forced Seton Hall into committing 26 turnovers, 13 in each half, including 13 steals, which led to 34 points for the Golden Eagles. In contrast, the Pirates forced 17 turnovers, including 11 steals, but were only able to record six points off of the Marquette miscues.
Marquette also controlled the paint despite being outrebounded 26-23 as they scored 36 points inside to Seton Hall’s 20.
Leading the away team was sophomore guard Kam Jones, who tallied 22 points on 8-14 shooting from the field and 5-9 from long distance as well as three rebounds and three steals, while sophomore forward Oso Ighodaro recorded 18 points on a perfect 7-7 shooting from the field with four dunks to go along with six rebounds three steals, two blocks and two assists.
The Hall was paced by junior guard Kadary Richmond, who was the lone Pirate in double figures, scoring 10 points and registering five assists before leaving in the second half with a head injury. Freshman
forward Tae Davis had a productive fifteen minutes of action in the loss, scoring eight points, 2-3 from the field and 4-4 from the free throw line, while securing four rebounds and notching two steals.
Seton Hall got out of the gates strong, taking an 8-3 advantage in the first three minutes and change of the contest on a two-handed slam from junior guard Femi Odukale off the dish from Richmond, but
Marquette responded over the ensuing two minutes to take a 9-8 advantage after layups from Jones and sophomore forward David Joplin and a jumper from Ighodaro.
Marquette expanded their lead over the next seven minutes to 24-17 on two free throws from junior forward Olivier-Maxence Prosper. Seton Hall knotted the game up at 24-24 with just under six minutes
to play in the half after freshman forward Tae Davis received a pass from Richmond and converted a layup over Ighodaro.
The Pirates tied the game up at 27-all on a three-pointer from junior forward Dre Davis that was assisted by Richmond with just over five minutes left in the half, but The Hall would fail to score another field
goal for the remainder of the half. Seton Hall committed four turnovers, missed two two-point shots, including one layup, and two three-point attempts in the final five minutes of the half, while the Golden
Eagles went on a 10-2 run to end the half with a 37-29 lead.
Richmond converted two free throws to draw the score to 32-29 with three minutes remaining in the half, but that was all that was written for the Pirates as they would not get any closer over the remainder of the matchup.
“I’m gonna keep it very simple for you guys today, very simple. Give Marquette a lot of credit. We got our ass kicked, period. They say that when you win, it’s on the players and when you lose, it’s on the coach, so this is on me,” Head Coach Shaheen Holloway said, in the post-game press conference. “I allowed us to practice like shit the last two days, and that’s how we played. And that’s what happens
when you don’t prepare well, you don’t play well. Period. It’s not rocket science, I’ve been saying it the whole time: When we prepare well, we play well. When we don’t, this is what happens. We kind of got
back down to earth. The guys got big-headed, we got humbled quick. That’s what happens when you get big-headed. You get humbled quick.”
