Tony Bozzella, the first three years.
By Trove sports corespondent Zack Cziryak
Tony Bozzella has just completed his third year as the Seton Hall Pirates' head coach, a season in which his squad reached the postseason for the third consecutive time and notched its second-straight berth in the NCAA Tournament.
“I think for us as a program we had a very good year. That said we were a little disappointed with the last two losses. It wasn’t so much the losses as the way we lost, but I think we learned a lot.” Bozzella notes, referencing the Pirates’ disappointing finishes in both the Big East Tournament and NCAA Tournament.
Tony Bozzella
The 2015-2016 version of the Pirates raced out to a 13-1 record before enduring a couple of rough stretches during the Big East conference schedule, stretches which included a pair of three-game losing streaks. Yet despite the uncharacteristic poor play at times the team finished with a 12-6 conference record, good enough to tie for second place with Villanova two games behind regular season champion DePaul.
“We started off well but we're very inconsistent,” Bozzella said of the season as a whole. “A part of that was the upperclassmen and it hurt us. Tiffany's (Jones) play was inconsistent and that was a problem and Shakena (Richardson) injured her hip and was never the same after that. Plus we didn’t defend the way we could have and that became a big issue for us.”
Bozzella also admits that chemistry issues plagued the Pirates toward the end of this year’s campaign, a criticism he acknowledges and takes responsibility for at the end of the day.
The lack of cohesion and consistency from this year’s team came to a head in March as the Pirates were upset in the Big East Tournament semifinals by Creighton by the score of 77-56. The Hall followed that up with a 97-76 loss to Duquesne in the 8 versus 9 match-up in the NCAA tournament ending the season. However, those early tournament exits do little to dampen the success of the Hall’s women’s basketball program over the last three years, from both a team perspective and an individual one. That sustained success began in Bozzella’s first season with a berth in the National Invitation Tournament.
“We were fortunate to get to the NIT that first year,” Bozzella pointed out of the 2013-2014 team that went on to reach the Sweet Sixteen, noting that first taste of success set the wheels in motion for the Hall’s most recent achievements. “That success spurred us to get some high quality transfers.”
According to Bozzella, the success of his first Pirate team gave Ka-Deidre “DiDi” Simmons the incentive to remain in South Orange and redshirt that year. The NIT run plus the return of Simmons from injury set the stage for the transfer of Daisha Simmons for her graduate season, giving the Pirates arguably their most talented and dynamic backcourt in school history.
A program-record 28 wins followed paving the way to the Hall’s first ever Big East regular season championship as well as its third-ever NCAA Tournament appearance.
That sucess eventually resulted in the transfer of point guard Shakena Richardson from Florida State for her graduate season. Richardson joined another transfer Aleesha Powell who played for Bozzella at Iona. Those two combined with Tabatha Richardson-Smith in what would end in another NCAA Tournament berth for the program this past year.
The talented players who donned Pirate Blue in recent years have done well to draw attention to their play and in turn, the program, as Bozzella said three different WNBA teams attended practices during the 2015/16 campaign. The program also had former New York Liberty guard Theresa Weatherspoon address the team during the season.
“With DiDi and Daisha playing well and then Kena and Tab playing well....we had an WNBA team at almost every game in the second half of last year… We’ve been blessed and it really started because of DiDi and Daisha,” Bozzella noted.
The attention from the WNBA provides an edge in the never-ending recruiting wars as playing at the next level becomes an increasingly prevalent aspiration among incoming women’s college basketball players.
“It’s starting to make a bigger difference,” Bozzella said. “A lot of these kids want to play at that next level. It’s tough but it’s a dream and it’s gotten more common.”
And with the recent drafting of Richardson by the Dallas Wings in April’s WNBA draft and the subsequent free agent contract and tryout for Richardson-Smith with the San Antonio Stars, as well as Simmons signing a pro contract overseas recruits can see that Seton Hall can provide a stepping stone to their future basketball ambitions.
While Bozzella has relied on impact transfers in his early years at the Hall to quicken the pace of the Pirate rebuild, the success of those teams and players has allowed for the staff to bring in progressively more talented recruiting classes. That trend has culminated in the addition of eight newcomers for the 2016-17 campaign, including seven highly-regarded freshmen. Louisiana Tech transfer JaQuan Jackson, who sat out last season but practiced with the team will also be incorporated into the rotation.
Those new additions will be critical as Bozzella moves into his 4th year at the Hall. The Pirates lose a wealth of talent from last season's squad. Gone to graduation are Richardson, Richardson-Smith, Powell, Jones and reserve shooting guard Jordan Mosley.
The Pirates will also lose Taylor Byrne, who will transfer to George Mason following an injury-plagued freshman year that included two concussions and microfracture surgery on her knee, and Kathleen Egan, who will remain on scholarship for her final year of eligibility after a second ACL tear last season, but will effectively be “retiring” from active play according to Bozzella.
Still, this won't be Bozzella's first challenge at the Hall. When hired the former Iona coach inherited a team that had finished 27-65 the previous three years. He immediately turned that record around to the tune of 71-29. Beating the league's marquee team DePaul three times in the process.
Bozzella's squad also showed the same degree of sucess off the court as their GPA in the three year period since his hire is slightly over 3.2.
Both on and off the court Tony Bozzella has been a raging sucess for the Pirates and the future is as bright if not more so than the past.
The second part of our interview will focus on the Hall's future profiling the new players committed to the program with comments on each from the school's head coach. Bozzella will also touch on the schedule and speak about expectations both short and long term.
Look for the second part of the interview early next week.
By Trove sports corespondent Zack Cziryak
Tony Bozzella has just completed his third year as the Seton Hall Pirates' head coach, a season in which his squad reached the postseason for the third consecutive time and notched its second-straight berth in the NCAA Tournament.
“I think for us as a program we had a very good year. That said we were a little disappointed with the last two losses. It wasn’t so much the losses as the way we lost, but I think we learned a lot.” Bozzella notes, referencing the Pirates’ disappointing finishes in both the Big East Tournament and NCAA Tournament.
Tony Bozzella
The 2015-2016 version of the Pirates raced out to a 13-1 record before enduring a couple of rough stretches during the Big East conference schedule, stretches which included a pair of three-game losing streaks. Yet despite the uncharacteristic poor play at times the team finished with a 12-6 conference record, good enough to tie for second place with Villanova two games behind regular season champion DePaul.
“We started off well but we're very inconsistent,” Bozzella said of the season as a whole. “A part of that was the upperclassmen and it hurt us. Tiffany's (Jones) play was inconsistent and that was a problem and Shakena (Richardson) injured her hip and was never the same after that. Plus we didn’t defend the way we could have and that became a big issue for us.”
Bozzella also admits that chemistry issues plagued the Pirates toward the end of this year’s campaign, a criticism he acknowledges and takes responsibility for at the end of the day.
The lack of cohesion and consistency from this year’s team came to a head in March as the Pirates were upset in the Big East Tournament semifinals by Creighton by the score of 77-56. The Hall followed that up with a 97-76 loss to Duquesne in the 8 versus 9 match-up in the NCAA tournament ending the season. However, those early tournament exits do little to dampen the success of the Hall’s women’s basketball program over the last three years, from both a team perspective and an individual one. That sustained success began in Bozzella’s first season with a berth in the National Invitation Tournament.
“We were fortunate to get to the NIT that first year,” Bozzella pointed out of the 2013-2014 team that went on to reach the Sweet Sixteen, noting that first taste of success set the wheels in motion for the Hall’s most recent achievements. “That success spurred us to get some high quality transfers.”
According to Bozzella, the success of his first Pirate team gave Ka-Deidre “DiDi” Simmons the incentive to remain in South Orange and redshirt that year. The NIT run plus the return of Simmons from injury set the stage for the transfer of Daisha Simmons for her graduate season, giving the Pirates arguably their most talented and dynamic backcourt in school history.
A program-record 28 wins followed paving the way to the Hall’s first ever Big East regular season championship as well as its third-ever NCAA Tournament appearance.
That sucess eventually resulted in the transfer of point guard Shakena Richardson from Florida State for her graduate season. Richardson joined another transfer Aleesha Powell who played for Bozzella at Iona. Those two combined with Tabatha Richardson-Smith in what would end in another NCAA Tournament berth for the program this past year.
The talented players who donned Pirate Blue in recent years have done well to draw attention to their play and in turn, the program, as Bozzella said three different WNBA teams attended practices during the 2015/16 campaign. The program also had former New York Liberty guard Theresa Weatherspoon address the team during the season.
“With DiDi and Daisha playing well and then Kena and Tab playing well....we had an WNBA team at almost every game in the second half of last year… We’ve been blessed and it really started because of DiDi and Daisha,” Bozzella noted.
The attention from the WNBA provides an edge in the never-ending recruiting wars as playing at the next level becomes an increasingly prevalent aspiration among incoming women’s college basketball players.
“It’s starting to make a bigger difference,” Bozzella said. “A lot of these kids want to play at that next level. It’s tough but it’s a dream and it’s gotten more common.”
And with the recent drafting of Richardson by the Dallas Wings in April’s WNBA draft and the subsequent free agent contract and tryout for Richardson-Smith with the San Antonio Stars, as well as Simmons signing a pro contract overseas recruits can see that Seton Hall can provide a stepping stone to their future basketball ambitions.
While Bozzella has relied on impact transfers in his early years at the Hall to quicken the pace of the Pirate rebuild, the success of those teams and players has allowed for the staff to bring in progressively more talented recruiting classes. That trend has culminated in the addition of eight newcomers for the 2016-17 campaign, including seven highly-regarded freshmen. Louisiana Tech transfer JaQuan Jackson, who sat out last season but practiced with the team will also be incorporated into the rotation.
Those new additions will be critical as Bozzella moves into his 4th year at the Hall. The Pirates lose a wealth of talent from last season's squad. Gone to graduation are Richardson, Richardson-Smith, Powell, Jones and reserve shooting guard Jordan Mosley.
The Pirates will also lose Taylor Byrne, who will transfer to George Mason following an injury-plagued freshman year that included two concussions and microfracture surgery on her knee, and Kathleen Egan, who will remain on scholarship for her final year of eligibility after a second ACL tear last season, but will effectively be “retiring” from active play according to Bozzella.
Still, this won't be Bozzella's first challenge at the Hall. When hired the former Iona coach inherited a team that had finished 27-65 the previous three years. He immediately turned that record around to the tune of 71-29. Beating the league's marquee team DePaul three times in the process.
Bozzella's squad also showed the same degree of sucess off the court as their GPA in the three year period since his hire is slightly over 3.2.
Both on and off the court Tony Bozzella has been a raging sucess for the Pirates and the future is as bright if not more so than the past.
The second part of our interview will focus on the Hall's future profiling the new players committed to the program with comments on each from the school's head coach. Bozzella will also touch on the schedule and speak about expectations both short and long term.
Look for the second part of the interview early next week.
