PirateCrew: Seton Hall Pirates Football & Basketball Recruiting
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By Colin Rajala
Seton Hall’s prospects of securing its first NCAA Tournament berth since 2022 took a big step forward Saturday evening as the Pirates led wire-to-wire for a 76-64 victory over Butler in front of a sold-out
crowd at the Prudential Center.
With their latest Quad 2 win, the Pirates have now won three straight and four of their last five, improving to 8-7 in Quad 1 and Quad 2 games on the season, an ever-important metric as March Madness closes in.
Seton Hall (18-9, 11-5) was, once again, led by its trio of captains as they accounted for 79% of the team’s scoring and propelled the program to its ninth win in its last 10 matchups against Butler (16-12, 7-10), including three straight season sweeps.
Senior forward Dre Davis led all scorers with 21 points on 9/13 shooting from the field to go along with seven rebounds, three assists, two steals and a block, while senior guard Kadary Richmond recorded 20
points, six rebounds, two assists and two steals with graduate guard Al-Amir Dawes contributing 19 points, including three three-pointers, as well as five boards and three steals.
“That’s something they’ve been doing all year. They don’t get enough credit. I don’t think Dre gets a lot of credit, but we’re not worried about that. Things speak for themselves. We’re just trying to take these
games day by day,” Head Coach Shaheen Holloway said, in the post-game press conference.
With six days to prepare, The Hall’s three captains set the tone early, turning Butler over three times for three easy transition buckets to take a 10-3 lead in the first four minutes. Davis would put back a
transition miss from senior guard Dylan Addae-Wusu to extend the Pirates’ lead to 16-3 in the opening eight minutes and prompt a timeout from the visiting Bulldogs.
“I was happy with the way we came out. I thought we had three solid days of practice. This was a good bye-week for us, we kind of needed it, guys were banged up. I’m a little disappointed that we didn’t keep
that same energy, but Butler’s a good team, they can score the basketball,” Holloway offered.
Butler, who finds itself on the outside of the bubble looking in after dropping four straight games, closed the score to 18-13 on a layup by Jahmyl Telfort before Seton Hall reeled off a quick 7-2 run to push the
lead back to double digits, 25-15, with six minutes remaining in the first half. Butler Center Jalen Thomas closed the half on a mini 5-0 run of his own with a three-pointer and layup to close the gap to 37-32.
Seton Hall’s halftime lead was largely attributable to its advantage in points off of turnovers, 13-3, and fast break points, 8-0, but the Bulldogs kept it close behind 8/20 (40%) shooting from long range.
“The first half, I was disappointed because they had eight threes. At halftime, we made some adjustments and they had four [threes], and I thought that was the difference in the game,” according to
Holloway.
The Pirates kept the Bulldogs at arm’s length in the opening nine minutes of the second half before a three from Pierre Brooks off the feed from Telfort cut Seton Hall’s advantage to just two, 53-51, with
10:33 remaining.
From there, Seton Hall ratcheted up its defense again, holding Butler without a field goal for the next eight minutes and extending the lead back up to 68-55 with just over three minutes to go in the game.
“I thought the first half, they spaced us out a little bit. Our pick-and-roll defense was up too much, so I pushed it back out to the college three-point line and once we did that, it kind of closed the court up a
little bit. So, when they had those short rolls, we were scrambling and they were getting threes. The second half, the last, I think, 12 minutes of the game, we did a better job with that,” Holloway said.
With the triumph, Holloway surpassed his predecessor, Kevin Willard, for the most wins by a Seton Hall head coach in their first two seasons with 35.
While Seton Hall’s three leaders were the focal point of the win, they received strong contributions from their other two starters as graduate center Jaden Bediako finished just short of a double-double with
nine points and nine board (four offensive) alongside four blocks, while Addae-Wusu had seven points, four rebounds, four assists and three steals.
“I got on Dylan because Dylan normally gives us a lot of little plays that don’t show up on the stat sheet. I thought the last — from the 8-minute mark down, I thought he got a lot of loose balls, 50-50 balls for
us, that I was on him about getting (that). "
"JB is JB. He’s been doing this for us all year. He’s somebody that, I told you guys in the beginning of the year, ‘don’t worry about him, he’s gonna be fine,’ and he’s kind of
being fine,” Holloway said.
The Hall finished the game shooting 29/59 (49.2%) from the field, outscoring Butler 44-16 in the paint.
With the home victory, Seton Hall moved back into a tie for third place in the Big East standings with 15th ranked Creighton, who will host the Pirates on Wednesday, Feb. 28 at 9 p.m.
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