PirateCrew: Seton Hall Pirates Football & Basketball Recruiting
The definitive source for all PirateCrew news.
The Kansas moderator, Shay, sent a few questions to Zack.
Here's his responses.
1) With the addition of Shaheen Holloway as head coach, what’s the excitement been like surrounding the Seton Hall program?
- Shaheen Holloway has long been seen by many of the Pirate faithful as a favorite son. He was a local 5-star recruit who won the McDonald’s All American Game MVP in the same year that Kobe Bryant participated, stayed close to home and helped lead the Pirates to a Sweet 16 berth in his senior year. I think a lot of Hall fans knew Kevin Willard was not a Seton Hall lifer, and as a former fan favorite player and longtime assistant before taking the head coaching job at Saint Peter’s, he was seen as a definite successor candidate in the event of Willard’s (inevitable) departure.
While a segment of the fanbase, and maybe some in the administration, may have thought Holloway lacked enough experience as a potential high major head coach, most (myself included) would have been excited for him to lead the team even before the historic run to the Elite Eight last year based on the Saint Peter’s program’s improvement and competitiveness over his four-year tenure and his familiarity with Seton Hall and its hurdles to success. While certainly in different tiers programmatically, both the Hall and Saint Peter’s are lacking relative to their piers from a resource standpoint, something Holloway was obviously able to navigate with success at his previous stop. Each Peacock win in the tournament, I feel, was just gravy as it became clear by the day Willard was taking the Maryland job and Seton Hall would be looking for a new head coach, one who seemed ready made down the road in Jersey City NJ.
2) What’s the start of the season been like? And what were the expectations?
-I think the season has been a bit strange, which perhaps should have been more expected given the number of new faces. Holloway was able to retain a solid nucleus off an NCAA Tournament team from a year ago, but the last two seasons’ worth of recruits (5 in total) have all transferred out in the last two years, all but one of which (Jahari Long, a reserve guard who followed Willard to Maryland) opted for schools in lower conferences and none of which have yet made an impact at their new destinations. To supplement the five holdovers, Holloway hit the transfer portal hard, picking up a trio of contributors from high major squads (albeit lower half of their respective conference teams) in Al-Amir Dawes from Clemson, Dre Davis from Louisville and Femi Odukale from Pittsburgh in addition to grabbing multiple MAAC Defensive Player of the Year KC Ndefo to join from Saint Peter’s.
I think most expectations from Pirate fans were that it would take some gelling, but that the pieces were talented enough to return to the NCAA Tournament if Holloway could mold the team together. That has not quite seemed to be the case this year as the new head coach attempts to work out rotations and lineup combinations in the early going. Holloway is a demanding coach who expects maximum effort from his players on the defensive end and wants to run a deep bench to offset that energy exertion — Shaka Smart HAVOC-esque. The Pirates have been able to dispatch their buy-game opponents handily but have looked disjointed in every contest against higher competition they’ve played this year. When a new coach comes on everyone always talks about what the program will look like once he has a full complement of “his” players – it seems Holloway may be closer to that than most and this year will be more of a rebuilding year than a retooling that Pirate fans were hoping for/expecting.
3) What’s the mood of the team heading into the Kansas game? I believe Seton Hall had lost two straight games heading into tomorrow night.
-The mood has certainly hit a somber point after a loss to Siena in the third-place game of the ESPN Events Invitational on Sunday. That loss followed a game against Oklahoma that was close halfway through second half before the Sooners pulled away convincingly. The Hall jumped out to a 13-5 start against the Saints but gave up a 14-1 run from that point on and looked flat throughout the contest, being beaten to loose balls and giving up offensive rebounds – the former especially something Holloway hates more than the average coach. While the Pirates very briefly took the lead in the second half and had it to a one-possession game from then almost until the final buzzer, the endgame execution was abysmal and left an even worse taste than the loss alone. Holloway also lobbed some postgame comments about players essentially not wanting to play basketball. The vibes are not ideal heading into Allen Fieldhouse to play a top 10 team.
4) How do you see the game playing out? Is there a big key or two for Seton Hall tomorrow night?
-There’s a lot going against the Pirates heading into the Phog, the true road test of the season for Seton Hall. They have not been playing well and they don’t seem to have an identity at this point in time. As mentioned, Holloway wants to play fast with guards and wings, but those players are not defending well enough and are turning the ball over at an alarming rate (15.6 per game). The guards have not been able to check above average guards for high major opponents, which have feasted on them overall. Kadary Richmond, arguably the most talented player on the roster, naturally plays at a slower pace than what his head coach expects and seems to be in Holloway’s doghouse (he played only 2 second half minutes against Siena with only one foul to his name in a close game).
The Hall is also painfully thin up front as rugged big man Alexis Yetna has not played a minute after an offseason knee surgery. Tyrese Samuel is more a stretch four who, while improved defensively on the inside, is more of a faceup player and physically thin as the Pirates’ only true available inside power player – I assume Jalen Wilson will run wild, to say nothing about potential foul trouble diminishing Samuel’s minutes. While I’ve seen little of the Jayhawks this season, I think for a team struggling for cohesiveness with so many new faces, the prospect of a top-10 opponent in a first true road test at a venue as formidable as the Phog will keep this from being close beyond the opening minutes, unfortunately. A 15-point KU victory seems likely to me.
