Pirates Drop Heartbreaker To DePaul At BIG EAST Tournament - Seton Hall University Athletics
New York, N.Y. - Despite holding a four-point lead late and a double-double performance from senior Tyrese Samuel (Montreal, Quebec) who finished with 16 points
shupirates.com
66
DePaul 10-22,3-17 Big East
65
Seton Hall 17-15,10-10 Big East
Score By Periods
| Team | 1 | 2 | F |
|---|---|---|---|
| DePaul | 32 | 34 | 66 |
| Seton Hall | 28 | 37 | 65 |
New York, N.Y. - Despite holding a four-point lead late and a double-double performance from senior Tyrese Samuel (Montreal, Quebec) who finished with 16 points and 12 rebounds, the Seton Hall men's basketball team fell in dramatic fashion to DePaul as the Blue Demons came away with a 66-65 win in the first round of the BIG EAST Tournament inside Madison Square Garden on Wednesday evening.
Graduate student KC Ndefo (Elmont, N.Y.) finished with 14 points, pulled down eight rebounds and tallied two blocks for the Pirates (17-15). Senior Al-Amir Dawes (Newark, N.J.) added 12 points and graduate student Jamir Harris (North Brunswick, N.J.) chipped in with 10 points and three assists.
How It Happened
In a back and forth first half, the Blue Demons' third made three of the game gave them a 13-10 lead with 12:02 left in the first half. The Pirates answered with a 5-0 spurt starting with a three-point basket by Harris and a layup by junior Dre Davis (Indianapolis, Ind.) that put them up by two, 15-13. With The Hall trailing by two with under nine minutes to go before the half, Ndefo hit back-to-back threes to put the Pirates in front, 24-20.
DePaul scored the first bucket of the second half to go ahead 34-28 but the Pirates were helped back into the game by Dawes, who scored six straight points to help The Hall cut its deficit to one, 35-34. Consecutive layups by Odukale and Ndefo gave Seton Hall its first lead since the 3:55 mark in the first half. An 8-0 run capped off by a wide open Davis layup under the basket led to the Pirates' largest lead the game at nine, 46-37, with 10:41 to play.
With under two minutes left, DePaul cut the Seton Hall lead to one before Dawes responded with a pull-up jumper that made it 61-58. With 17 seconds left, two key free throws made by Harris made it 65-61 but DePaul would climb all the way back as it converted a layup, stole the inbounds and drew a foul behind the three-point line. DePaul's Umoja Gibson sunk all three free throws to go up one, 66-65, with three seconds to go and Odukale had a chance at the rim to win the game after going baseline-to-baseline. However, the shot was blocked at the rim, halting a game-winning basket and advancing the Blue Demons to the next round.
Inside The Numbers
- Seton Hall shot 50 percent from the field (25-of-50), 26 percent from three (4-of-15) and 61 percent from the charity stripe (11-of-18).
- The Pirates allowed DePaul to shoot 45 percent from the field and 50 percent from three (10-of-20).
- Seton Hall finished plus-eight on the glass, 34-26, and own the paint, scoring 40 of its 65 points in the key.
- Both teams finished with 14 turnovers but DePaul scored 17 points off of Seton Hall's miscues compared to the Pirates' nine points.
- The Pirates led for 22:54 of fame time compared to the Blue Demons' 13:10.
- Seton Hall drops to 33-39 all-time at the BIG EAST Tournament and 19-11 in its history as the higher seed.
- The loss marks the first opening round game defeat in a conference tournament in the young coaching career of Shaheen Holloway.
- Seton Hall is now 2-2 in one-point games at the BIG EAST Tournament since reconfiguration and it owns the most one-point games of any team in the conference in that time span.
- Seton Hall falls to 6-3 in opening round games and 10-8 overall at the BIG EAST Tournament since reconfiguration.
- The game was the first ever meeting between DePaul and Seton Hall at the BIG EAST Tournament.
- Samuel posted his fifth double-double of the season in the loss, the first since Sandro Mamukelashvili and Jared Rhoden had double-double games vs. St. John's at the 2021 BIG EAST Tournament.
- Ndefo now has 62 blocks this season, moving him into sole possession of ninth places on Seton Hall's single season blocks list.
- Harris posted his third double-digit scoring game of the season and the 45th of his career.
