PirateCrew: Seton Hall Pirates Football & Basketball Recruiting
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BY JP Pelzman
Other than a wire-to-wire rout of Creighton on Feb. 4, not much has come easily for Seton Hall this month.
Yet the Pirates are 5-2 in February, with one game left before the calendar flips to March. And that certainly is a trademark of a Kevin Willard-coached team, despite the hardships the Pirates have overcome to get here.
Seton Hall (17-9, 8-8 Big East) outlasted Butler, 66-60 on Wednesday night at the Prudential Center despite current starting point guard Kadary Richmond being limited to 16 minutes as he battles an ongoing non-COVID illness that has left him mostly bedridden in between games.
Richmond, of course, had become the primary ballhandler in the continuing absence of Bryce Aiken. And with the injured Jahari Long out for the year, three-point specialist Jamir Harris suddenly was thrust into the role of point guard.
He handled it well, with 10 points, four assists and three turnovers in 29 minutes.
“He was phenomenal,” Seton Hall coach Kevin Willard said of Harris. “And again, Kadary gave us everything he has and I’m proud of his effort, but we worked two days (in practice) with Jamir running the show, and I thought he did a great job getting us to that 16-point lead. And the next (step in the) evolution for him is going to be how to manage that 16-point lead a little bit better, but I was proud of not only the way he played offensively, but the way he played defensively.”
“It's a next-man up mentality,” Harris said. “We believe in everyone on this team.
“It definitely felt great,” Harris added. “I just wanted to stay ready, be ready for whatever role Coach Willard wants me to play. Tonight, I had to step in and play a lot of minutes at the point guard. I just wanted to be myself and still be aggressive to score and find my teammates as well and still bring that same energy on the defensive end.”
The game turned on a 20-2 second-half run that transformed a 38-36 lead for Butler (13-16, 6-12) into a 56-40 advantage for The Hall.
Alexis Yetna, who had 10 points and 10 rebounds for his seventh double-double of the season, opened the run with six straight points. Harris, calling his own number, closed it with back-to-back treys.
Willard said the key to the spurt was that “We had a good defensive unit out there--Jamir at the point, obviously Jared (Rhoden) and Myles (Cale)--but I thought Lex and Tyrese (Samuel) did a really good job. … I thought we did a really good job of staying at home and we had a really good defensive lineup out there that just made everything difficult for them, and we were able to capitalize on the break.”
“I would say it was just us sticking with it,” explained Rhoden, who had 17 points in 39:18 and has played all but 42 seconds of the past two games.
Still, there were some nervous moments late. Although the Bulldogs twice cut the deficit to two points, they never had the ball with a chance to tie or take the lead. Harris and Samuel (15 points) each sank a pair of free throws in the final six seconds to ice it and make Seton Hall 32-19 in February since, and including, Isaiah Whitehead’s incredible sophomore season of 2015-16.
Up next is Xavier in Cincinnati on Saturday at 3:30 p.m.
“I think we’re finally coming back to (being) ourselves and being that team everyone saw earlier in the year,” Rhoden said.
Just like clockwork. Look at the calendar. But it’s more than that. It's hard work and perseverance and overcoming adversity, of which this team has had plenty.
“It’s a great group to be around, and I think they’ve overcome some really tough obstacles,” Willard said.
And there are more to come.
