PirateCrew: Seton Hall Pirates Football & Basketball Recruiting
The definitive source for all PirateCrew news.
By JP Pelzman
Looking back at Seton Hall’s 73-67 loss to Villanova and looking ahead to the Pirates’ very important game at Butler on Tuesday night at 8:
Basketball in the COVID era.
The effects of the lack of players aren’t felt merely on game day, as Seton Hall coach Kevin Willard explained after the loss.
“We’re not practicing right now,” he said. “I have eight guys. We dummy offense, we lift, we watch film and we just walk through it the best we can. You can’t play these guys this many minutes and expect them to practice. It’s not what we’re doing.”
Of course, the problem is the Pirates can’t work on special end-game situations and many other particular things a team must fine-tune to get better.
Still, Willard does not have a problem with the effort. Seton Hall had nine steals, including three by Jared Rhoden, and limited the Wildcats to 6-for-20 (30%) from three-point range.
"I think that’s just the type of kids these guys are," Willard said. "They have a lot of pride in their games. They play extremely hard. Under difficult circumstances, I think they’re showing their true colors.”
Harris breaks though.
Three-point specialist Jamir Harris had his best game against a Power 6 team all season, making his first three attempts from beyond the arc and finishing 4-for-6 from long distance. He scored 12 points.
Harris had been 4-foor-24 (16.7%) from long distance against power-conference teams before this.
Harris, a grad transfer who had starred at American University the past two seasons, said, "I feel like I have the utmost confidence in my ability to shoot the ball. I try to get a lot of reps and stay disciplined in my shot."
When he makes his first one, he said, “It gives me more of a push to keep shooting, keep knocking them down.”
“I think the one he made at Providence in the second half kind of relaxed him a little bit,” Willard said, referring to the previous game. “I thought he came out and was aggressive. The issue I’m having right now is with our lack of size, trying to play Jamir and Bryce (Aiken) at the same time.
“It’s really difficult because, as you see what happens when they’re both out there...we can’t rebound very well. Not that they’re not trying, not that they’re not boxing out, it’s just the amount of switching we do just led to offensive rebounds.”
When is the cavalry coming?
Willard indicated that neither Ike Obiagu nor Tyrese Samuel would be back for the Butler game because of COVID protocols. However, that could change if the Big East revises its policy on the quarantine period for asymptomatic positives from 10 to five. six or seven days to conform with the change in recent CDC recommendations. A source said that could happen Monday. The Pac-12 already has done so. Stay tuned.
Charity begins at home.
Villanova shot 25-for-30 (83.3%) from the foul line, above its usual 77.7 percentage. Seton Hall was 16-for-21 (76.2%), but only 2-for-6 before halftime, including missing the front ends of two one and ones. Bryce Aiken was 10-for-12 from the line.
Scouting Butler.
The Bulldogs (8-4, 1-0) will have played only one game in a span of 15 days by the time this one tips off. They have had games at St. John’s and Connecticut postponed because of COVID issues within the other programs.
“It was good to play a game,” Butler coach LaVall Jordan said after a 63-59 victory over visiting DePaul on Dec. 29, the Bulldogs’ only game in that span. “Our guys were excited to get back out there and compete, especially at home. We haven’t played here in a while.”
Butler nearly squandered a 10-point lead but held on. The Bulldogs’ balanced attack is led by Chuck Harris (11.7) points and their key player is point guard Aaron Thompson, who averages exactly five assists per game.
