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The bible of college BB magazines. You can also get it online at
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SETON HALL
LAST SEASON
16-15 (.516)
CONFERENCE RECORD
6-12 (t-7th)
STARTERS RETURNING/LOST
2/3
HOMECOURT
Prudential Center (10,862)
COACH
Kevin Willard (Pittsburgh ’97)
RECORD AT SCHOOL
82-81 (5 years)
CAREER RECORD
127-130 (8 years)
ASSISTANTS
Shaheen Holloway (Seton Hall ’00)
Fred Hill (Montclair State ’81)
Grant Billmeier (Seton Hall ’07)
WINS (LAST 5 YRS.)
13-21-15-17-16
RPI (LAST 5 YRS.)
104-70-133-136-103
2014-15 FINISH
Lost in Big East first round.
Even though it was raining in downtown Newark, N.J., the world looked bright and beautiful for Seton Hall in early January. On that particular Saturday afternoon, there seemed to be no limits to how far the Pirates’ basketball program could rise in the Big East.
It didn’t matter that their second-leading scorer was sidelined with an injury and their top big man was limited to 15 minutes because of foul trouble. The Pirates upset sixth-ranked and previously unbeaten Villanova, 66-61, sending the Prudential Center crowd into a state of delirium. Two days later, with a 12-2 record, Seton Hall moved into the AP rankings at No. 19 and was ready to continue its upward climb.
No one knew it then, but that was to be the last highlight of the Pirates’ season. They were 4-13 after that, losing nine of their last 10 games. Various reports and observations told of a locker room divided between veterans and newcomers with the leading scorer of each group—junior Sterling Gibbs and freshman Isaiah Whitehead —at odds, as evidenced by an argument the two players had on the sideline during a timeout in a game against Georgetown.
The problem reached crisis proportions on Feb. 11, when starting guard Jaren Sina left the program, telling the Asbury Park Press , “It’s not a good situation for me right now.” And shortly after the season ended with a 22-point loss to Marquette in the opening game of the Big East tournament, Gibbs (16.3 ppg) also departed, the last member of a backcourt with Sina that started 31 games over two seasons.
Coach Kevin Willard thought a combination of Whitehead missing nine games—eight in the Big East—with a stress fracture, and a tough stretch of the schedule caused things to start to spiral downhill.
“It was hard putting him back in and trying to play at the level that he tried to play at, but he couldn’t because he’d never missed so much time and tried to come back again,” Willard said. “Then I thought the schedule kind of wasn’t in our favor, and we lost some games. Being young, we lost confidence. We still tried to play hard, but we just never could get momentum back on our side.”
Willard conceded that “some guys maybe were unhappy with their roles” but didn’t think a rift existed between veterans and underclassmen. Losing, Willard said, caused “a lot of frustration, but we had a pretty good locker room for most of the year.”
The locker room this season is dominated by sophomores—eight in fact, five of whom played significant minutes last season. Willard thinks the class learned last year “just what it takes to sustain at a very high level.”
“The first time you go through the Big East, you get eight games through, you look up and you’ve still got 10 games to go,” he said. “So it’s crazy. I think just the fact of maintaining, of playing at a very hard and high level, which these kids were doing up until the dog days of February ... they couldn’t do it mentally more than anything.”
The 6-4, 210-pound Whitehead (12.0 ppg, 3.9 rpg, 3.5 apg, 1.4 spg), the Hall’s first McDonald’s All-American since Andre Barrett and Eddie Griffin in 2000, led Big East freshmen in scoring but averaged more than three turnovers per game and shot just 36.7 percent from the floor. Willard is encouraged by Whitehead’s work ethic during the summer, which he called “the first summer where he’s been healthy and has been able to work on his game.”
Whitehead is competitive in practice and games and will lead by example. But Willard brought in a pair of graduate transfers— Derrick Gordon (Massachusetts) and Braeden Anderson (Fresno State)—“to help some of the younger guys understand what leadership is all about. “Isaiah is not an overly vocal guy, but what he does, he comes to practice and he works extremely hard every day, and he plays extremely hard every day. So that’s where we expect big things from him.”
Another valued member of the sophomore class is 6-9, 230-pound forward Angel Delgado (9.3 ppg, 9.8 rpg, 1.3 bpg), last year’s Big East Rookie of the Year and the only other player in program history—Griffin was the first in 2001—to win that award. He averaged a Big East-high 10.7 rebounds in league play and played the beast role on the offensive boards.
Delgado, who is from the Dominican Republic but played his senior year at the Patrick School in Elizabeth, N.J., impressed coaches throughout the Big East with his relentless play. He grabbed a career-high 19 boards in a game against DePaul and posted 10 double-doubles.
Being a little undersized against the likes of Georgetown’s Josh Smith and Xavier’s Matt Stainbrook—both have since graduated—tended to get him “a little worn down as the season went on because of the size he had to battle, but he played as good as we could have possibly expected,” Willard said.
Willard chuckled when asked if Delgado could play more of a role on offense and boost his scoring. “If he had shot his free throws better, he would have averaged almost 12 points a game,” Willard said, referring to Delgado’s 41.4 percent success rate from the line. “If he can get his free-throw shooting up to the mid-60s, then he’s averaging 12 points a game and a double-double.”
The bible of college BB magazines. You can also get it online at
http://www.blueribbonyearbookonline.com/
SETON HALL
LAST SEASON
16-15 (.516)
CONFERENCE RECORD
6-12 (t-7th)
STARTERS RETURNING/LOST
2/3
HOMECOURT
Prudential Center (10,862)
COACH
Kevin Willard (Pittsburgh ’97)
RECORD AT SCHOOL
82-81 (5 years)
CAREER RECORD
127-130 (8 years)
ASSISTANTS
Shaheen Holloway (Seton Hall ’00)
Fred Hill (Montclair State ’81)
Grant Billmeier (Seton Hall ’07)
WINS (LAST 5 YRS.)
13-21-15-17-16
RPI (LAST 5 YRS.)
104-70-133-136-103
2014-15 FINISH
Lost in Big East first round.
Even though it was raining in downtown Newark, N.J., the world looked bright and beautiful for Seton Hall in early January. On that particular Saturday afternoon, there seemed to be no limits to how far the Pirates’ basketball program could rise in the Big East.
It didn’t matter that their second-leading scorer was sidelined with an injury and their top big man was limited to 15 minutes because of foul trouble. The Pirates upset sixth-ranked and previously unbeaten Villanova, 66-61, sending the Prudential Center crowd into a state of delirium. Two days later, with a 12-2 record, Seton Hall moved into the AP rankings at No. 19 and was ready to continue its upward climb.
No one knew it then, but that was to be the last highlight of the Pirates’ season. They were 4-13 after that, losing nine of their last 10 games. Various reports and observations told of a locker room divided between veterans and newcomers with the leading scorer of each group—junior Sterling Gibbs and freshman Isaiah Whitehead —at odds, as evidenced by an argument the two players had on the sideline during a timeout in a game against Georgetown.
The problem reached crisis proportions on Feb. 11, when starting guard Jaren Sina left the program, telling the Asbury Park Press , “It’s not a good situation for me right now.” And shortly after the season ended with a 22-point loss to Marquette in the opening game of the Big East tournament, Gibbs (16.3 ppg) also departed, the last member of a backcourt with Sina that started 31 games over two seasons.
Coach Kevin Willard thought a combination of Whitehead missing nine games—eight in the Big East—with a stress fracture, and a tough stretch of the schedule caused things to start to spiral downhill.
“It was hard putting him back in and trying to play at the level that he tried to play at, but he couldn’t because he’d never missed so much time and tried to come back again,” Willard said. “Then I thought the schedule kind of wasn’t in our favor, and we lost some games. Being young, we lost confidence. We still tried to play hard, but we just never could get momentum back on our side.”
Willard conceded that “some guys maybe were unhappy with their roles” but didn’t think a rift existed between veterans and underclassmen. Losing, Willard said, caused “a lot of frustration, but we had a pretty good locker room for most of the year.”
The locker room this season is dominated by sophomores—eight in fact, five of whom played significant minutes last season. Willard thinks the class learned last year “just what it takes to sustain at a very high level.”
“The first time you go through the Big East, you get eight games through, you look up and you’ve still got 10 games to go,” he said. “So it’s crazy. I think just the fact of maintaining, of playing at a very hard and high level, which these kids were doing up until the dog days of February ... they couldn’t do it mentally more than anything.”
The 6-4, 210-pound Whitehead (12.0 ppg, 3.9 rpg, 3.5 apg, 1.4 spg), the Hall’s first McDonald’s All-American since Andre Barrett and Eddie Griffin in 2000, led Big East freshmen in scoring but averaged more than three turnovers per game and shot just 36.7 percent from the floor. Willard is encouraged by Whitehead’s work ethic during the summer, which he called “the first summer where he’s been healthy and has been able to work on his game.”
Whitehead is competitive in practice and games and will lead by example. But Willard brought in a pair of graduate transfers— Derrick Gordon (Massachusetts) and Braeden Anderson (Fresno State)—“to help some of the younger guys understand what leadership is all about. “Isaiah is not an overly vocal guy, but what he does, he comes to practice and he works extremely hard every day, and he plays extremely hard every day. So that’s where we expect big things from him.”
Another valued member of the sophomore class is 6-9, 230-pound forward Angel Delgado (9.3 ppg, 9.8 rpg, 1.3 bpg), last year’s Big East Rookie of the Year and the only other player in program history—Griffin was the first in 2001—to win that award. He averaged a Big East-high 10.7 rebounds in league play and played the beast role on the offensive boards.
Delgado, who is from the Dominican Republic but played his senior year at the Patrick School in Elizabeth, N.J., impressed coaches throughout the Big East with his relentless play. He grabbed a career-high 19 boards in a game against DePaul and posted 10 double-doubles.
Being a little undersized against the likes of Georgetown’s Josh Smith and Xavier’s Matt Stainbrook—both have since graduated—tended to get him “a little worn down as the season went on because of the size he had to battle, but he played as good as we could have possibly expected,” Willard said.
Willard chuckled when asked if Delgado could play more of a role on offense and boost his scoring. “If he had shot his free throws better, he would have averaged almost 12 points a game,” Willard said, referring to Delgado’s 41.4 percent success rate from the line. “If he can get his free-throw shooting up to the mid-60s, then he’s averaging 12 points a game and a double-double.”
