By JOHN ROWE
STAFF WRITER |
The Record
NEW YORK — The late Al McGuire was fond of saying the best thing about college freshmen was that they became sophomores.
Kevin Willard can only hope.
Seton Hall’s basketball coach begins his sixth season in South Orange picking up the shattered pieces of last season, when his freshmen-dominated team started faster than a wire-to-wire winning thoroughbred before fading like an overmatched claimer. The Pirates lost 11 of their last 14 games to finish 16-15.
"We were real immature," Isaiah Whitehead, the No. 1-ranked player in the five-star recruiting class, said Wednesday during Big East Media Day at Madison Square Garden. "We really didn’t know the college game. This year we have a greater understanding."
Whether that translates into enough wins to satisfy the fan base remains to be seen. Willard has a strong ally in athletic director Patrick Lyons, whom he worked for at Iona, but he needs better results. He’s 30-60 in conference play, and his team’s only postseason appearance came in the NIT in 2011-12. While St. John’s and new coach Chris Mullin, the Hall of Famer, are this season’s flavor of the year, Seton Hall was last season’s.
Rival Big East coaches picked Seton Hall to finish seventh in the 10-team conference. The Pirates, who host Dartmouth in their season opener Nov. 13, are convinced they’ll be better, in part because they’re all a year older.
Willard calls last season "a learning experience," not his most aggravating year. He insists the work ethic of his players never wavered, but their focus did, especially after they upset Villanova early in the season and had a brief stay in the AP Top 25 — the No. 19 ranking being the program’s highest since 2001.
Then came the unwinding.
First, Whitehead suffered a stress fracture in his right foot. He missed nine games, including the first eight in conference ("I had never been hurt that long, and I came back when I wasn’t really 100 percent"). That was followed by guard Jaren Sina leaving the program and eventually enrolling at George Washington, and at season’s end, point guard Sterling Gibbs left. He’s now at Connecticut playing in his graduate season.
Willard has moved Whitehead, a 6-foot-4 swingman, to the point and feels other players, like rebounding machine Angel Delgado, will benefit from having a season, however rocky, under their belts.
"Isaiah has to understand that he doesn’t have to hit a home run every time," said Willard.
The coach has been delivering a lot of messages to his players. The kid gloves he wore last season have been discarded.
"I wouldn’t yell at them [last season] because they were so young. They were puppies, baby deers," Willard said. "Now I’m yelling more — and enjoying it."
http://www.northjersey.com/sports/b...ball-looking-to-grow-up-this-season-1.1433092
STAFF WRITER |
The Record
NEW YORK — The late Al McGuire was fond of saying the best thing about college freshmen was that they became sophomores.
Kevin Willard can only hope.
Seton Hall’s basketball coach begins his sixth season in South Orange picking up the shattered pieces of last season, when his freshmen-dominated team started faster than a wire-to-wire winning thoroughbred before fading like an overmatched claimer. The Pirates lost 11 of their last 14 games to finish 16-15.
"We were real immature," Isaiah Whitehead, the No. 1-ranked player in the five-star recruiting class, said Wednesday during Big East Media Day at Madison Square Garden. "We really didn’t know the college game. This year we have a greater understanding."
Whether that translates into enough wins to satisfy the fan base remains to be seen. Willard has a strong ally in athletic director Patrick Lyons, whom he worked for at Iona, but he needs better results. He’s 30-60 in conference play, and his team’s only postseason appearance came in the NIT in 2011-12. While St. John’s and new coach Chris Mullin, the Hall of Famer, are this season’s flavor of the year, Seton Hall was last season’s.
Rival Big East coaches picked Seton Hall to finish seventh in the 10-team conference. The Pirates, who host Dartmouth in their season opener Nov. 13, are convinced they’ll be better, in part because they’re all a year older.
Willard calls last season "a learning experience," not his most aggravating year. He insists the work ethic of his players never wavered, but their focus did, especially after they upset Villanova early in the season and had a brief stay in the AP Top 25 — the No. 19 ranking being the program’s highest since 2001.
Then came the unwinding.
First, Whitehead suffered a stress fracture in his right foot. He missed nine games, including the first eight in conference ("I had never been hurt that long, and I came back when I wasn’t really 100 percent"). That was followed by guard Jaren Sina leaving the program and eventually enrolling at George Washington, and at season’s end, point guard Sterling Gibbs left. He’s now at Connecticut playing in his graduate season.
Willard has moved Whitehead, a 6-foot-4 swingman, to the point and feels other players, like rebounding machine Angel Delgado, will benefit from having a season, however rocky, under their belts.
"Isaiah has to understand that he doesn’t have to hit a home run every time," said Willard.
The coach has been delivering a lot of messages to his players. The kid gloves he wore last season have been discarded.
"I wouldn’t yell at them [last season] because they were so young. They were puppies, baby deers," Willard said. "Now I’m yelling more — and enjoying it."
http://www.northjersey.com/sports/b...ball-looking-to-grow-up-this-season-1.1433092
