PirateCrew: Seton Hall Pirates Football & Basketball Recruiting
The definitive source for all PirateCrew news.
By JP Pelzman
Make no mistake, John Paquette is not complaining. He knows how difficult 2020 has been for everyone. But any job that primarily involves dealing with people, as does his, has been profoundly changed by the coronavirus.
“The pandemic affects everyone,” Paquette, the Big East’s senior associate commissioner for sports media relations, told PirateCrew.com. “To me, it’s hard to be as productive because you have to set up a Zoom meeting for everything you do. You can’t walk a few feet down the office and have a quick conversation with somebody and solve an issue or solve a problem or get advice on something.
“You can do your job,” he said. “I can do this job remotely but I don’t like not having a choice. That to me is the biggest thing , you miss seeing (in person) the people you work with.”
Of course, basketball games cannot be played remotely, at least the ones not contested on Xbox. Thus, beginning today, the Big East and the rest of men’s college basketball will have to figure out how to have a season amidst the specter of COVID-19, which already has caused multiple postponed and canceled games before the first official contest of the 2020-21 season has tipped off.
Consider that Creighton, picked second in the Big East preseason coaches’ poll, was scheduled to open its season today against South Dakota State. However, the Bluejays had to withdraw from a multi-team event in Sioux Falls, S.D. because of numerous positive tests among Tier I personnel within the program.
The Big East Conference knows quite well what it is up against. For now, the league is committed to a traditional home-and-home schedule without so-called bubbles, although Paquette made it clear that policy could change.
“I do think it can work,” he said, “but it’s important to note that we do have alternatives. We're ready to pivot if we need to pivot in terms of moving away from the traditional travel model.”
Unlike the power conferences, which are staying with the traditional model, most mid- and low-major leagues have adopted a conference scheduling system in which teams will play league rivals in back-to-back games at the same site, rather than home and away. With no fans in attendance at most places, the home-court advantage is a moot point anyway.
Take for example, Seton Hall’s first scheduled home opponent, Wagner. (The Pirates and Baylor on Tuesday mutually canceled their game scheduled for Sunday, although The Hall still is slated to visit Louisville on Friday.) The Seahawks, whose coaching staff includes assistant Donald Copeland, the former Pirates’ standout point guard, will visit Northeast Conference rival Mount St. Mary’s on Dec. 15 and 16, and then will host Sacred Heart on Dec. 21 and 22.
The Big East also will be busy with conference games in December. There is a reason for this, Paquette noted.
“At a lot of our schools,” he said, “the student population is leaving for Thanksgiving or has already left, so we’re hopeful that’s going to provide more opportunity for the teams to sequester themselves.
“That’s our plan right now and we’ve added some conference games to that 12-day period in December,” he continued, “a little bit as a hedge to (potentially) losing some games in January and February (to postponements). I think everyone feels there likely will be disruptions at some point, but we do have some contingency plans. And if we have to, you start again and just figure out how to get games in, whether it be regional games or the traditional travel schedule. We have a plan but we’re ready to pivot if we need to.”
As for the potential of a bubble at some point, Paquette said, “Certainly, we’ve looked into it and made contact with people for that kind of situation. Honestly, we can’t do an NBA bubble.”
He indicated the reasons would be that it wouldn’t be fair to the student-athletes and that the cost would be “challenging.”
When asked about the decision to play entire NCAA Tournament in Indianapolis and surrounding areas, Paquette replied, “Everyone wants the NCAA Tournament to be played and I think this is good insurance and kind of the best path to make sure that the tournament gets played.”
Many critics have pointed to the 14-day quarantine in the Big East for positive tests as the biggest obstacle to having a legitimate season. Does Paquette think those guidelines could change as the season goes along?
“I think things can change,” he said, pointing to how the Big Ten altered its stance on having a football season. “Things do evolve in terms of length of quarantine or days after a positive. When do you have to get tested again? Those things still are evolving a little bit.”
Whatever happens this season, the conference is hoping it will be able to hold its tournament at Madison Square Garden, as it has every year since 1983 until the event went unfinished last season because of the coronavirus.
“It's everything to us,” Paquette said of having the tourney at MSG. “It means so much that when the basketball schools kind of walked away from the football schools, they negotiated to keep the name and keep the Garden. That shows you the level of importance the schools hold the Garden.”
It was during that schism in 2013 that Val Ackerman was named the Big East commissioner. Paquette noted her basketball background, which included a distinguished playing career at Virginia and terms on the board of directors of USA Basketball and as WNBA commissioner.
“She's been terrific,” he said. “Val is a basketball person. She fit with the idea of coming back to being a basketball-centric conference, and since then the conference has survived and flourished."
“We've extended our relationship with the Garden, UConn is back, so it’s been a tremendous eight years of success in the Big East and Val is the leader in that.”
Ah, yes, the return of the Huskies, which has the conference excited and some coaches privately dismayed at having to game plan for and recruit against Dan Hurley. But there is no doubting that it is important for the Big East’s brand and footprint.
“Their fans are very excited,” Paquette said, relating an anecdote from the 2019 NCAA Tournament. He was representing the Big East at the first- and second-round pod at the XL Center in Hartford, where Villanova and Marquette were competing.
A security guard saw his credential and said, “So when’s UConn coming back to the Big East?”
Paquette recalled, “I just kind of laughed and said, ‘I don’t know.’”
Marquette lost to Murray State in the first round that year, but Paquette still remembers covering Al McGuire during his undergraduate days at the school.
“He’s still the most unique person in sports I've ever met,” said Paquette. “Basketball did not consume him like it consumes other coaches. He was just totally different. He was an innovator."
“He would let his assistants mostly coach the team in practices,” Paquette added, “but he had a great feel for the game. Even as a student, you could see his grasp of in-game strategy and his feel for momentum.”
There are times nowadays when Paquette will represent the conference at a Marquette-Seton Hall game. Does he ever feel a tug at his heartstrings, for either side?
The answer is no, not really. He said he kind of got that out of his system shortly after taking the Big East job, when he was at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse for the ACC-Big East Challenge, in which The Hall routed Clemson, 78-62.
“I wondered what it was going to be like to watch Seton Hall play,” Paquette recalled, saying the feeling was, “OK, I’m still attached to you guys emotionally a little bit but it was a non-league game so I didn’t feel guilty about it. But after that, I was OK. You always want your friends to succeed.
“But in terms of watching the games individually (now), I just want the officials to do a good job.”
And still, even with all the current challenges, he enjoys what he is doing.
“I love working in college athletics and have loved it,” said Paquette, who grew up in Norristown, Pa. “You do it for the people you work with, whether it’s the people in the office or the coaches and the administrators at the schools, and that’s kind of what stays with you.”
