by JP Pelzman
Seton Hall’s quest to win a Thanksgiving week tournament for a second straight year begins Wednesday night at 9:30 p.m. with a first-round game against 11th-ranked Oregon (5-0). The No. 13 Pirates (4-1) will have plenty of work to do to match their championship performance of a year ago, when they beat Grand Canyon, Utah and Miami to win the Wooden Legacy tourney.
Here is a look at the tournament and what Seton Hall must do to bring another championship trophy back to South Orange:
This is a tough field. The Ducks can clamp down on teams defensively. Oregon is allowing opponents to shoot only 20.5 percent from three-point range through five games. Granted, none of the teams the Ducks have played (Fresno State, Boise State, Memphis, Texas-Arlington, Houston) have a shooter the caliber of AP preseason All-American Myles Powell, but it still is an impressive stat. Powell is hitting at 41.9 percent from beyond the arc thus far in 2019-20 and coach Kevin Willard and the Pirates must run crisp plays to try to get him some open looks, because it will be tough to make a living on contested threes versus this team. And Powell must finish better when he goes inside the three-point line. He is shooting only 42.1 percent inside the arc.
Oh, and if the Pirates get past Oregon, another unbeaten and ranked team likely will be waiting for them. No. 8 Gonzaga (6-0) also is on this side of the bracket and the Bulldogs open with Southern Miss, which certainly isn’t a toss-up game. Add to that Gonzaga's star forward Tillian Killie just returned from an injury.
Gonzaga will have preparation and rest advantages. (Or Southern Miss will, it if it somehow pulls the upset). That semifinal is scheduled for 4 p.m. Thanksgiving Day, for TV purposes, of course, which will be a monumentally difficult turnaround for the team that wins the late game.
Gonzaga plays at 7 p.m. Wednesday, so the winner of that game gets bit more of a breather. Willard called the timing of the semifinal “idiotic,” and he absolutely is right. And by the way, the tournament final is Friday and the top team in the opposite bracket is North Carolina, so it seems likely that to win this event, The Hall will have to defeat three teams ranked 11 or better. That’s a lot to ask for a team still finding its identity in the early going.
Note how Michigan State was upset by Virginia Tech in the first round of the Maui Invitational. Even potentially great teams still are trying to figure things out in late November.
Oregon is experienced. Senior point guard Payton Pritchard (19.4 points) recently became the second player in school history to collect at least 1,000 points, 500 assists and 400 rebounds. Grad transfer Anthony Mathis (15.0) set a New Mexico record by making 106 treys last season, and seems to have fit in quickly with the Ducks. The fact he and Pritchard were high school teammates probably has helped his transition. And then there is senior forward Shakur Juiston, a Newark native and another graduate transfer (from UNLV). The 6-7 Juiston averages 9.8 points and 5.6 rebounds.
It’s personal for Powell. The Seton Hall superstar talked after the win over Florida A&M on Saturday about how close he is with Juiston, saying, I have nothing but good things to say about Shakur. I’m happy for him...he’s my brother. I love him, but when we step on the court Wednesday, he knows what time it is.” Powell added that he recruited Juiston “hard” to come to Seton Hall, but he respected his decision to go to Oregon as opposed to coming home, noting that he comes from a “rough area” in Newark.
Take it one game at a time. Cliched as it is, it’s the truth. Senior guard Quincy McKnight compared it to playing two or three games in one day in AAU tournaments. “The three games in three days,” he said, “we always compare that to Big East (tournament) time. At the end of the day, no matter what, you’ve get to get three wins, and that’s what hopefully we’re going out there to do."
https://setonhall.rivals.com/
Seton Hall’s quest to win a Thanksgiving week tournament for a second straight year begins Wednesday night at 9:30 p.m. with a first-round game against 11th-ranked Oregon (5-0). The No. 13 Pirates (4-1) will have plenty of work to do to match their championship performance of a year ago, when they beat Grand Canyon, Utah and Miami to win the Wooden Legacy tourney.
Here is a look at the tournament and what Seton Hall must do to bring another championship trophy back to South Orange:
This is a tough field. The Ducks can clamp down on teams defensively. Oregon is allowing opponents to shoot only 20.5 percent from three-point range through five games. Granted, none of the teams the Ducks have played (Fresno State, Boise State, Memphis, Texas-Arlington, Houston) have a shooter the caliber of AP preseason All-American Myles Powell, but it still is an impressive stat. Powell is hitting at 41.9 percent from beyond the arc thus far in 2019-20 and coach Kevin Willard and the Pirates must run crisp plays to try to get him some open looks, because it will be tough to make a living on contested threes versus this team. And Powell must finish better when he goes inside the three-point line. He is shooting only 42.1 percent inside the arc.
Oh, and if the Pirates get past Oregon, another unbeaten and ranked team likely will be waiting for them. No. 8 Gonzaga (6-0) also is on this side of the bracket and the Bulldogs open with Southern Miss, which certainly isn’t a toss-up game. Add to that Gonzaga's star forward Tillian Killie just returned from an injury.
Gonzaga will have preparation and rest advantages. (Or Southern Miss will, it if it somehow pulls the upset). That semifinal is scheduled for 4 p.m. Thanksgiving Day, for TV purposes, of course, which will be a monumentally difficult turnaround for the team that wins the late game.
Gonzaga plays at 7 p.m. Wednesday, so the winner of that game gets bit more of a breather. Willard called the timing of the semifinal “idiotic,” and he absolutely is right. And by the way, the tournament final is Friday and the top team in the opposite bracket is North Carolina, so it seems likely that to win this event, The Hall will have to defeat three teams ranked 11 or better. That’s a lot to ask for a team still finding its identity in the early going.
Note how Michigan State was upset by Virginia Tech in the first round of the Maui Invitational. Even potentially great teams still are trying to figure things out in late November.
Oregon is experienced. Senior point guard Payton Pritchard (19.4 points) recently became the second player in school history to collect at least 1,000 points, 500 assists and 400 rebounds. Grad transfer Anthony Mathis (15.0) set a New Mexico record by making 106 treys last season, and seems to have fit in quickly with the Ducks. The fact he and Pritchard were high school teammates probably has helped his transition. And then there is senior forward Shakur Juiston, a Newark native and another graduate transfer (from UNLV). The 6-7 Juiston averages 9.8 points and 5.6 rebounds.
It’s personal for Powell. The Seton Hall superstar talked after the win over Florida A&M on Saturday about how close he is with Juiston, saying, I have nothing but good things to say about Shakur. I’m happy for him...he’s my brother. I love him, but when we step on the court Wednesday, he knows what time it is.” Powell added that he recruited Juiston “hard” to come to Seton Hall, but he respected his decision to go to Oregon as opposed to coming home, noting that he comes from a “rough area” in Newark.
Take it one game at a time. Cliched as it is, it’s the truth. Senior guard Quincy McKnight compared it to playing two or three games in one day in AAU tournaments. “The three games in three days,” he said, “we always compare that to Big East (tournament) time. At the end of the day, no matter what, you’ve get to get three wins, and that’s what hopefully we’re going out there to do."
https://setonhall.rivals.com/
