NEW YORK – (Staff and Wire Service Report) – Seton Hall can see the big picture.
The Pirates are not on the NCAA Tournament bubble, not with a NET of 55 and just one Quad 1 victory. To go dancing, they will need to run the table at the Big East tournament as the fourth seed, starting with Thursday’s quarterfinal game in New York against fifth-seeded Creighton.
Seton Hall (20-11) rode a bumpy finish after racing out to a 14-2 start to the season. It was still impressive for a team picked last in the coaches’ preseason poll, and the Pirates’ Shaheen Holloway was named Big East Coach of the Year on Wednesday.
Two close losses to Big East champion St. John’s and two more to second-place UConn weren’t enough to put some shine on the Pirates’ resume. Seton Hall lost 72-65 at home to St. John’s in the regular-season finale Friday.
“I thought with this team, it’s shown that we can play with anyone, right? We just gotta finish games out or do the little things,” Holloway said. “But yeah, this team is funny because this team don’t like doing things easy. They like doing things the hard way, so now they gotta go to New York and earn it, and take it.”
Seton Hall and Creighton (15-16) played a pair of thrillers in the regular season.
On Jan. 4, Seton Hall stormed back from a 16-point deficit and won 56-54 at home on Najai Hines’ last-second putback. The Bluejays got their revenge Feb. 7 in Omaha, when the Pirates blew a 63-53 lead in the final four minutes and Nik Graves hit a 30-footer with 3 seconds left for a 69-68 win.
“They try to disrupt you with their physicality and their full-court pressure,” Creighton coach Greg McDermott said of Seton Hall, “and we handled all that really well at their place but weren’t able to get the win. We turned it over and gave up some offensive rebounds (at home) and found a way to win that game.
“Both games were really decided in close fashion, so I would expect something very similar.”
Creighton hasn’t played since March 4, a 76-59 win at Butler. The Bluejays, barring a championship run in New York, are destined to miss the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2019. There’s also gossip that McDermott could retire at the end of the season.
Creighton was led this year by Josh Dix (12.7 points per game) and Austin Swartz (10.9 ppg, four 20-point games in conference). Adam “Budd” Clark paced Seton Hall with 12.4 points, 4.7 assists and 2.0 steals per game.
–Field Level Media