By JP Pelzman
Quincy McKnight was leaving South Orange for perhaps the last time recently when he saw his close friend, Myles Powell.
Instead of the one shining moment the two the two had hoped to share with their teammates in their senior seasons, it was one final moment.
“I saw him the other day when I was packing up,” McKnight recalled in an exclusive phone interview. “It was kind of crazy, it was our last goodbye.”
McKnight’s voice trailed off slightly. “It was tough,” he said, echoing a sentiment felt by so many seniors and so many players on so many teams across the country in this cruelest of college basketball seasons. The coronavirus pandemic that precipitated the unprecedented cancellation of the NCAA tournament has left McKnight and others with nothing but what-ifs and might-have-beens.
“Oh, man, it was really tough,” said McKnight, the gritty senior point guard who had transitioned his game from a scorer at Sacred Heart to an accomplished floor leader and distributor at Seton Hall.
He described the frustrating timeline during which he and his Pirate teammates’ dreams of both a Big East tournament title and national championship crumbled in a matter of a few hours, through circumstances far beyond their control.
The coronavirus shutdown dominoes began falling in earnest on Wednesday night, March 11, when it was reported that Rudy Gobert of the Utah Jazz had tested positive, which led to the suspension of the NBA season.
Shortly before noon that Thursday, college conference tournaments began being canceled, beginning with the Big Ten.
“When the Big East tournament got canceled,” McKnight recalled, “it was kind of a shock to everybody. We all felt the tournament was going to be with no fans and when (tournaments) started to get canceled back-to-back-to-back it was kind of crazy. It was really hard.
“We didn’t know what to do. It was really tough for everybody. The team we had was a once-in-a-lifetime team. We felt like we could have gone down in Seton Hall history.”
The Pirates had tied for the Big East regular-season title and had been seeded third in the annual championship event at Madison Square Garden. Most bracketologists had them penciled into the NCAAs as a No. 3 seed, and they were a virtual lock to be placed in Albany, N.Y., for the first weekend. And if they captured the Big East crown, a No. 2 seed wasn’t off the table. Seton Hall hasn’t been seeded that high in the Big Dance since 1993.
Still, McKnight is trying to take the positives from the season.
“It was a great season,” he said. “We were ranked in the top 15 almost all year. We had a lot of big wins. We learned a lot. Everybody grew, we grew as a team. It ended on a bad note, but it wasn’t just a bad note for us, it was a bad note for the whole country.”
McKnight was named first-team All-Metropolitan area. “It's definitely another accolade to add to the resume,” he said.
He averaged 11.4 points as a freshman and 18.9 points as a sophomore at Sacred Heart before transferring to The Hall. He successfully made the transition from scorer to distributor, increasing his assist average from 3.0 as a sophomore to 3.9 as a junior and 5.4 as a senior with only 2.3 turnovers per game. He also scored 11.9 points per game this season.
McKnight's average of 6.3 assists in conference play was the best in the Big East by a wide margin, far ahead of DePaul's Charlie Moore (5.6).
“I worked on my game my (sit-out) year with Coach Sha (Shaheen Holloway) and Coach (Kevin) Willard,” he explained. “Having good players around me allowed me to focus on my passing. I didn’t have to focus on scoring the ball every time. Coach Willard was coaching me a lot, showing me what to do in different situations, watching a lot of film, and Coach (Tony) Skinn, he played professionally (overseas), he did a great job with me. He developed my game a lot, and allowed me to become the distributor I am.”
McKnight never doubted he could make the transition.
“All my life I've played with a lot of high-profile guys,” he said. “I wasn’t worried about it. I was confident.”
McKnight made a huge improvement in his foul shooting as a senior, going from 64.1 percent in his first season with the Pirates to 85 percent. Because the ball usually was in his hands at the end of games, that often helped the Pirates seal close decisions.
McKnight said that Willard, prior to the season, helped him make a small adjustment to the positioning of his feet at the foul line, and that made all the difference. And besides those technical hints, ‘Q’ says Willard is “a guy that motivates you to be the best player that you can be. … He helped me transition from a scoring point guard to an all-around point guard.”
Seton Hall was 7-2 on the road in the Big East, but only 6-3 at home. McKnight suggested that was a carryover from last season, when several huge road wins helped propel The Hall to its fourth straight NCAA tournament berth.
“It was us against the odds,” he said. “Our backs were against the wall the whole season and we just proved everybody wrong. You just want to silence the crowd.”
McKnight was impressed by 6-5, 205-pound Canisius transfer Takal Molson, who sat out this season.
McKnight called him an “All-around good player. He plays strong defense. He’s going to be good in that system for sure.”
He added that Molson has “a football player’s body. He gets in the lane, he’s tough with the ball, he finishes strong around the basket.”
Almost as soon as he arrived at Seton Hall, McKnight established a Reputation as a defensive stopper and a lock down on-ball defender. When asked he said that Marquette's Markus Howard and Butler's Kamar Baldwin were the toughest players he had to guard.
The Bridgeport, Conn. native said he has hired representation and hopes to play overseas. Would he like to be a coach someday?
“I've definitely thought about that,” McKnight said. “I love the game of basketball. When I'm done playing myself, I'd definitely consider it.”
As for the forever unfinished season, he said, there isn’t one particular memory he will take with him.
“Just spending time with the guys,” he said, “that’s the thing I'll miss.”
And especially spending time with Powell.
“He's going to be my guy for life,” McKnight said. “We talk three, four times a week. He motivated me, I motivated him. We pushed each other to get better.”
Good enough, perhaps, to take the Pirates all the way to the Final Four? McKnight, Powell and the rest of Pirate Nation forever will be denied the answer to that question.
https://setonhall.rivals.com/
Quincy McKnight was leaving South Orange for perhaps the last time recently when he saw his close friend, Myles Powell.
Instead of the one shining moment the two the two had hoped to share with their teammates in their senior seasons, it was one final moment.
“I saw him the other day when I was packing up,” McKnight recalled in an exclusive phone interview. “It was kind of crazy, it was our last goodbye.”
McKnight’s voice trailed off slightly. “It was tough,” he said, echoing a sentiment felt by so many seniors and so many players on so many teams across the country in this cruelest of college basketball seasons. The coronavirus pandemic that precipitated the unprecedented cancellation of the NCAA tournament has left McKnight and others with nothing but what-ifs and might-have-beens.
“Oh, man, it was really tough,” said McKnight, the gritty senior point guard who had transitioned his game from a scorer at Sacred Heart to an accomplished floor leader and distributor at Seton Hall.
He described the frustrating timeline during which he and his Pirate teammates’ dreams of both a Big East tournament title and national championship crumbled in a matter of a few hours, through circumstances far beyond their control.
The coronavirus shutdown dominoes began falling in earnest on Wednesday night, March 11, when it was reported that Rudy Gobert of the Utah Jazz had tested positive, which led to the suspension of the NBA season.
Shortly before noon that Thursday, college conference tournaments began being canceled, beginning with the Big Ten.
“When the Big East tournament got canceled,” McKnight recalled, “it was kind of a shock to everybody. We all felt the tournament was going to be with no fans and when (tournaments) started to get canceled back-to-back-to-back it was kind of crazy. It was really hard.
“We didn’t know what to do. It was really tough for everybody. The team we had was a once-in-a-lifetime team. We felt like we could have gone down in Seton Hall history.”
The Pirates had tied for the Big East regular-season title and had been seeded third in the annual championship event at Madison Square Garden. Most bracketologists had them penciled into the NCAAs as a No. 3 seed, and they were a virtual lock to be placed in Albany, N.Y., for the first weekend. And if they captured the Big East crown, a No. 2 seed wasn’t off the table. Seton Hall hasn’t been seeded that high in the Big Dance since 1993.
Still, McKnight is trying to take the positives from the season.
“It was a great season,” he said. “We were ranked in the top 15 almost all year. We had a lot of big wins. We learned a lot. Everybody grew, we grew as a team. It ended on a bad note, but it wasn’t just a bad note for us, it was a bad note for the whole country.”
McKnight was named first-team All-Metropolitan area. “It's definitely another accolade to add to the resume,” he said.
He averaged 11.4 points as a freshman and 18.9 points as a sophomore at Sacred Heart before transferring to The Hall. He successfully made the transition from scorer to distributor, increasing his assist average from 3.0 as a sophomore to 3.9 as a junior and 5.4 as a senior with only 2.3 turnovers per game. He also scored 11.9 points per game this season.
McKnight's average of 6.3 assists in conference play was the best in the Big East by a wide margin, far ahead of DePaul's Charlie Moore (5.6).
“I worked on my game my (sit-out) year with Coach Sha (Shaheen Holloway) and Coach (Kevin) Willard,” he explained. “Having good players around me allowed me to focus on my passing. I didn’t have to focus on scoring the ball every time. Coach Willard was coaching me a lot, showing me what to do in different situations, watching a lot of film, and Coach (Tony) Skinn, he played professionally (overseas), he did a great job with me. He developed my game a lot, and allowed me to become the distributor I am.”
McKnight never doubted he could make the transition.
“All my life I've played with a lot of high-profile guys,” he said. “I wasn’t worried about it. I was confident.”
McKnight made a huge improvement in his foul shooting as a senior, going from 64.1 percent in his first season with the Pirates to 85 percent. Because the ball usually was in his hands at the end of games, that often helped the Pirates seal close decisions.
McKnight said that Willard, prior to the season, helped him make a small adjustment to the positioning of his feet at the foul line, and that made all the difference. And besides those technical hints, ‘Q’ says Willard is “a guy that motivates you to be the best player that you can be. … He helped me transition from a scoring point guard to an all-around point guard.”
Seton Hall was 7-2 on the road in the Big East, but only 6-3 at home. McKnight suggested that was a carryover from last season, when several huge road wins helped propel The Hall to its fourth straight NCAA tournament berth.
“It was us against the odds,” he said. “Our backs were against the wall the whole season and we just proved everybody wrong. You just want to silence the crowd.”
McKnight was impressed by 6-5, 205-pound Canisius transfer Takal Molson, who sat out this season.
McKnight called him an “All-around good player. He plays strong defense. He’s going to be good in that system for sure.”
He added that Molson has “a football player’s body. He gets in the lane, he’s tough with the ball, he finishes strong around the basket.”
Almost as soon as he arrived at Seton Hall, McKnight established a Reputation as a defensive stopper and a lock down on-ball defender. When asked he said that Marquette's Markus Howard and Butler's Kamar Baldwin were the toughest players he had to guard.
The Bridgeport, Conn. native said he has hired representation and hopes to play overseas. Would he like to be a coach someday?
“I've definitely thought about that,” McKnight said. “I love the game of basketball. When I'm done playing myself, I'd definitely consider it.”
As for the forever unfinished season, he said, there isn’t one particular memory he will take with him.
“Just spending time with the guys,” he said, “that’s the thing I'll miss.”
And especially spending time with Powell.
“He's going to be my guy for life,” McKnight said. “We talk three, four times a week. He motivated me, I motivated him. We pushed each other to get better.”
Good enough, perhaps, to take the Pirates all the way to the Final Four? McKnight, Powell and the rest of Pirate Nation forever will be denied the answer to that question.
https://setonhall.rivals.com/
