PirateCrew: Seton Hall Pirates Football & Basketball Recruiting
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By JP Pelzman
The most spectacular basket Thursday at Wintrust Arena in Chicago occurred in the second half when Brandon Johnson, at full speed, saved an errant pass from going out of bounds. He flung the ball behind his head to David Jones, who laid it in for a 17-point DePaul lead with 14:37 to go.
Johnson's effort was the type of hustle play Seton Hall didn’t come close to making until late in the second half, when the No. 20 Pirates finally turned on the afterburners.
That is, after being burned by a hungry bunch of Blue Demons for almost 40 minutes.
Jalen Terry scored 28 points and Jones added 24 as DePaul never trailed and held off a furious comeback by Seton Hall for a 96-92 upset victory over the Pirates in a Big East game on Thursday.
Javon Freeman-Liberty, who entered Thursday leading DePaul (10-6, 1-5) with 21.7 points per game, had 12 and played only 23 minutes because of an apparent leg injury suffered during the second half after he crashed into a media table chasing a loose ball.
Yet that didn’t matter for the Pirates (11-4, 2-3), who trailed by 18 in the first half and by 17 with 8:46 left in the game. In fact, DePaul scored six consecutive points, including Jones’ basket off Johnson’s incredible save, immediately after Freeman-Liberty exited the contest.
Coach Kevin Willard told broadcaster Dave Popkin on the postgame radio show on WMCA 570 AM, “This is a good group, and they have a lot of heart, but I just don’t know that we had the level of respect we should have had for a very good DePaul team that has had some very tough losses.”
That seemed to be the case early.
DePaul made six of its first 10 shots from the field to open an 18-6 lead on Nick Ongenda’s three-point play with 14:27 to go in the first half. The Blue Demons cooled off, but began aggressively going to the rim, getting 7-2 Ike Obiagu to commit two fouls. The Blue Demons sank 14 of 15 foul shots in the first half, which helped them take a 52-35 lead at intermission.
“We’re just not very connected right now defensively,” Willard said. “We made errors in our pick-and-roll defense.”
The 12th-year Seton Hall coach didn’t like the offense much better, saying, “We reverted back to taking too many pull-up jumpers. It’s mind-boggling, some of the shots we take. We reverted back to playing way too much one-on-one basketball.”
Seton Hall finally closed the deficit to 83-76, and after the Blue Demons increased their lead to 87-76, The Hall went on a 14-5 run in the span of 28 seconds to cut the deficit to 92-90 on two foul shots by Bryce Aiken (22 points) with 15 seconds left after a DePaul turnover. But the Blue Demons made their last six foul shots to hang on and snap a five-game skid and also end The Hall's modest two-game winning streak.
Although Willard appreciated the fact his team kept coming back, he also said when asked if the Pirates found something with the late comeback, “We just gave up 96 points. I don’t think we found anything.”
