PirateCrew: Seton Hall Pirates Football & Basketball Recruiting
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Massive thanks to our fabulous writer Colin Rajala who had a lengthy chat with Asbury Park Press writer Jerry Carino this week. Here is Part 1 of a multi part series on a range of topics with the team.
Trove: Without the roster being finalized, what are your expectations for this team as presently constructed? The backcourt appears to be stronger and dare I say deeper than last year’s squad, so one would hope expectations are a little higher than 2-18 in conference play.
Carino: It’s impossible to say because it’s essentially a whole new team. It’s also impossible to predict what the team is going to look like because the roster isn’t finalized and we don’t know how many players they are going to have next year.
The only thing I can say for sure is that I'm confident in saying that that Seton Hall has a point guard that can hold his own in the Big East in Adam ‘Budd’ Clark. I saw him play numerous times over the last couple years. He absolutely tore Dylan Harper to shreds in Merrimack’s game against Rutgers, which was a pretty close game. He completely outplayed Dylan Harper, who is projected to be a top two or three pick in the upcoming NBA draft. Budd Clark can play and I’m confident in projecting that he will be a major upgrade at point guard on the offensive end from Garwey Dual and whoever else Seton Hall had last year.
He's a lot shorter obviously, so how he plays defensively, we'll see. I can say he plays hard and he's smart, so I think he'll be a major upgrade overall. When your point guard is good and can do the job, that solves a lot of issues. A lot of issues that Seton Hall had last year stemmed from the fact that they had no real play making point guard. They're going to be notably better at point guard this year.
Beyond that, I really don't know what else I can say because it feels impossible to predict. It looks like they have very little in terms of a true front court. There’s still space for one or two spots in the front court, but I don't know how much better the team's going to be. They're going to be picked at or near the bottom of the league. There's a lot of unproven players, a lot of unknowns beyond the point guard. It seems like another year where they are experimenting trying to figure out how to get things right and I would keep the expectations low sight unseen.
Trove: Expectations will be low, but I don’t know how much the fans can handle another year like last season.
My family has ties back to former Central Connecticut State University Head Coach and UConn Assistant Howie Dickenman, so I’m very familiar with the NEC. I’m a real glutton for punishment and continue to watch and follow a lot of NEC hoops, so I’ve had a chance to watch a good amount of Budd Clark. Suffice to say, I think he's a real gamer and was excited when he committed to the Pirates, but it seems like some are concerned with his size/stature and the impact that may have over the course of a full Big East season.
Carino: I would not worry about Budd Clark. That’s the last thing you have to worry about as a fan. He can create his own shot, hits shots from the mid-range shot well. He’s so good at getting to the basket and scoring in transition. Of course, that becomes harder when you go up in leagues, particularly when you upgrade to a league with bigger athletes compared to the MAAC like the Big East. The guy can play. You know there’s an old adage, actually, when Quincy McKnight came over from Sacred Heart one of the coaches told me, ‘If you can score, you can score at any level’ and the guy can score. Not only that, but he is obviously a playmaker. Think about this, he averaged six assists on a pretty poor shooting team, which is pretty impressive.
Is he going to be an all-Big East Point guard? I can't really predict that, but I'm comfortable saying he will hold his own, he will score, he will distribute, he'll put his teammates in a position to succeed. He knows how to play the game and I believe he's a good fit for what Seton Hall and what Shaheen wants out of his point guard. He’s a carry the mail type of a point guard and they're not going to split it up among several different guys. He’s not Kadary Richmond, not many guys are and while he doesn’t have the size or strength of Richmond, he has a lot of talent and skills on top of the toughness and smarts that you need to succeed as a playmaker in the Big East. You know, Seton Hall has had some success over the years with shorter point guards.
Trove: Can’t argue with you there. Kadary was the first point guard to break that mold. Before him the last real point guard was my classmate, Jordan Theodore.
Carino: Jordan Theodore wasn’t very tall, Andre Barrett wasn’t very tall, Sha wasn’t very tall. Some of those guys wound up shooting the ball well, but they weren't good shooters when they came in. They got better as shooters in their time in their program. So, I really think Budd Clark is the one thing that is going to be working next year.
It seems like Sha originally constructed this roster with the first several players being proven college players, proven producers. Last year Sha took a lot of flyers on guys at the end of the bench of high major rosters who were well regarded coming out of high school, but didn't do much in college. Here, it seems like at least at the start of the roster building they went the opposite of that and went for mid-major guys who had proven production. It's probably better. Look, there's not a huge gap between some of these mid-majors and some of the high majors anymore, so I that's a smarter move for building a team. Now, toward the end they started to take some flyers on bench guys from low majors in an attempt to fill out the roster again. That really backfired spectacularly last year. They really whiffed on all those guys in the transfer portal last year with the exception of Chaunce Jenkins, who was a mid-major proven producer.
I do think Godswill Erheriene will improve at center this season, but beyond him and Budd it's just a team of question marks because without seeing the team play or knowing how they will play, it’s not clear how the pieces will all fit.
Trove: You had mentioned a couple minutes ago that Seton Hall would be considered for another last place finish in conference play. What will it take for Seton Hall to take over DePaul’s reign as the team projected to finish last in conference play by basketball prognosticators?
Carino: At this point, I can't see how anyone can look beyond year to year. The rosters turn over completely every year, so I just don't see how you can look beyond this season for what's going to be in the future. Despite returning some starters, DePaul’s team is going to be bad again, maybe they’ll be horrendous, but I don’t know that Seton Hall will be worse than them and take their place in the basement. It’s become harder to predict these things, but Seton Hall definitely projects to be a bottom of the league team. Again, they didn't really bring in any high impact players beyond Clark. They lost a major impact player in Isaiah Coleman, who I think they should have kept. They should’ve done whatever it took to keep him.
I just don’t see how you can predict them any higher than the bottom of the league - are they 11th? Are they 10th? I don't know the answer, no one knows the answer, but I’m not going to say they are taking DePaul’s place. It took DePaul at least 15 to 20 years to carve out their reputation. The Hall’s had one bad year, potentially two, but I would not swap them with DePaul as permanent doormat. I just think it's possible they can finish last again this year.
