PirateCrew: Seton Hall Pirates Football & Basketball Recruiting
The definitive source for all PirateCrew news.
By Zack Cziryak
..........That decision has “worked out for the best” for Rodriguez, who has played his way into France’s LNB Pro A in the years since. Despite the steady trajectory, he admits the seemingly year-to-year nature of European basketball contracts can be scary, but that working hard and buying in has been getting him where he wants to go.
“In Europe you have to build your way up. You start from the bottom, from a low budget team and then you just make a name for yourself. It does depend on your success individually as a player every year, but when you play well and you’re a good person you always know you’re going to get a job … It’s kind of scary in a way, but at the same time you know how to approach the game and you know what to do as a player. You just try to win as much as you can, work on your game individually and you’re always being looked at. That’s something you should always know,” he said.
While the NBA may not call his name, Rodriguez got a chance to play against the league’s future three times this past season when he squared off against Victor Wembenyama.
"It was something that I'll cherish because he's going to be a star,” Rodriguez said. “It was fun. He's a great person, great kid and definitely a great player. And I can't wait to see him develop and be the face of the NBA."
The European leagues, which play less frequently and fewer games overall but over a longer period than the NBA, only allow for offseasons of only a couple months, according to Rodriguez, who has spent a lot of time this summer in the States on campus at his alma mater. Seeing his former assistant coach in Shaheen Holloway as the head honcho in South Orange has been interesting.
“As a head coach it’s different than him coaching us as an assistant coach. He brings fuel, he’s very into it, he’s energized. He’s been learning a lot, getting better, had success at Saint Peter’s. This year what I’m seeing is he’s dedicated. He wants to win … I’m so excited for him and I’m very confident in him,” he said.
Rodriguez is impressed by the level of talent he’s seen practicing on campus this summer, highlighting Pirate point guard Kadary Richmond as a player ready to take a jump as well as noting that he likes what he’s seen out of several players, specifically Al-Amir Dawes, Dylan Addae-Wusu and Jaden Bediako.
In his own time at the Hall, Rodriguez was a part of three NCAA tournament teams and helped bring home the 2016 Big East Tournament with a 25-9 record. That team took down the Big East Tournament’s one and two seeds on consecutive nights while starting five sophomores, with Saturday night’s championship victory coming over the eventual national champion Villanova Wildcats.
“We approached that game the same way we played every other game. They beat us twice in the season, [but] it's hard to beat a team three times in a row. We went into that game ‘damned if we do, damned if we don't.’ It didn't matter if we beat them or not [because] we're having a great season; we were already going to the NCAA Tournament. And it was a championship game so, you know, there was no backing down, there was nothing to be scared of. Our fans were loud our fans were there. The atmosphere was crazy. So, it was a stage where we were going to put on and we just played, honestly, we just played our basketball and it turned out well for us ... We wanted it more, I felt like, and we showed that. We wanted that championship, we wanted to bring it back to South Orange, and that's what we did.”
Rodriguez attributes a lot of what made that championship special to the Seton Hall fans, who wanted it as much as the players and had supported the team and that sophomore class through highs and lows.
“The support we had all year, the support they had for us coming in as freshmen, it was something you can't really explain. They supported us Day 1 ... Most of the reason why we won is because of them believing in us and believing in what we can do. We definitely owed them that and we wanted to give them something to remember us about,” he said.
On his way to an All-Big East season as a senior, Rodriguez’s career hit one of its roughest patches when he was injured on a floor wet from condensation at the then-Dunkin’ Donuts Center in Providence, R.I. The court conditions and his injury led to the game eventually being postponed and finished in a different location the next day, something that Rodriguez finds difficult to look back on to this day.
"It was tough for me, especially coming out of my senior year, that time of the year, because I was playing so well and for something like that to happen and not knowing, how long was the injury and how bad it was, was kind of tough for me,” he said. “For that to happen, it was unfortunate. And I feel like rushed myself back because I didn't have that much time left for my senior year and I didn't want to sit out the whole rest of the year. So, I kind rushed myself back playing still hurt and I feel like that year, my senior year, that year we would have done something very, very special."
Rodriguez did return by the end of that season, helping the Pirates in the NCAA tournament, scoring 20 points in helping to notch the Pirates’ first NCAA Tournament win since 2004 before ultimately coming up just short against the No. 1 seed Kansas Jayhawks in Wichita, Kan. by a score of 83-79. For Rodriguez and classmates Carrington, Angel Delgado and Ismael Sanogo, it marked the end to one of Seton Hall’s most successful classes.
“It was emotional. I’ve been through so much with those guys, we’d been at war together. We’re personal friends ... It was more emotional than anything… ending that way was tough,” he said. “We wanted more that year, but it went the way it went. We played a great game against Kansas and we couldn’t be mad about it. I feel like we accomplished so much.”
And like the team those words best describe Desi Rodriquez' career at Seton Hall.
