Seton Hall The Way
When the final buzzer sounded in the NIT Championship game on Wednesday night, the Seton Hall players and coaches threw their fists up in the air and hugged one another. The Pirates had just defeated Indiana State 79-77 to capture the school’s first national title in 71 years. For this group of underdogs and overachievers, it was time to celebrate their unlikely achievement that no one saw coming when the season began, except themselves.
"I feel like we did something special here," said senior Dre Davis, who hit the game-winning layup with 16 seconds left. "Obviously we wanted to win a championship, and at the end of the day that's what we did. "
9th in the Preseason Big East Poll
Picked 9th in the Big East Preseason Coaches’ Poll, the Pirates used that as fuel throughout the regular season to propel them into the upper half of the Big East Conference. Not even an underwhelming 7-4 non-conference record could discourage this unit. It only galvanized the group, and made them grittier and hungrier to prove the naysayers wrong.
Following a 20-point loss to Xavier on December 23, head coach Shaheen Holloway took advantage of a 10-day break in the team’s schedule to get his players reenergized and better prepared for the rigors of conference play.
“We had 10 days off,” said Holloway. “We had a mini-boot camp, and I think after that, guys were really focused on understanding what the Big East is all about, especially some of the new guys.”
The result was a Big East regular season that ranks with some of the best-ever in Seton Hall’s history. The Pirates showed their grittiness by out toughing and outworking many of their opponents. They upset ranked teams like No. 5 UConn and No. 7 Marquette. They won road games in tough-to-win environments at Providence, Butler and St. John’s.
By the end of their 20-game, Big East slate, Seton Hall finished with a record of 13 wins and 7 losses, good enough for a 4th place finish in the 2nd toughest conference in the country. It was just the 3rd time in 45 Big East seasons, Seton Hall won as many as 13 conference games.
My name is Bryan DeNovellis. You’ve landed on my blog.
I grew up in the heart of UConn Country in Hartford Country, CT. I went to college at Seton Hall University, just 30 miles outside of Madison Square Garden, the mecca of basketball. I now reside in Middlesex County, NJ in the shadows of Rutgers University. Basketball has always been a huge part of my life. I’ve played it. I’ve coached it. I’ve officiated it. Now I blog about it.
Good But Not Good Enough
But none of those numbers mattered to the NCAA Tournament selection committee, which surprisingly left Seton Hall out of the 68-team NCAA Tournament. Instead of packing it in and feeling sorry for themselves, the Pirates once again rallied together to produce a postseason run that will be cheered and revered for years to come.
It was the five seniors who met and unanimously voted to play in the National Invitation Tournament (NIT). They didn’t want their season to end following their disappointing loss to St. John’s in the Big East Tournament. They still had a fire and desire to prove they were disrespected by the selection committee, and they were indeed, one of the 68-best teams in the country.
Champs to Chumps
What transpired was a two-week post-season run that hadn’t been seen in South Orange since 1989, when Seton Hall came within a phantom foul of winning the NCAA National Championship.
Just like they did during the Big East regular season, Seton Hall led by their three senior captains, Kadary Richmond, Al-Amir Dawes and Dre Davis, played an inspired, gritty and cohesive brand of basketball which produced one win after another.
Five straight wins in all, culminated by the victory over Indiana State in the NIT Championship, in which the Pirates rallied from 7 points down in the final three minutes. It was one final rallying cry, from a team that had been playing from behind and counted out all season long.
Maybe the outsiders doubted this Seton Hall team that finished with 25 wins and a national championship, but the players never lost faith in one another, or lost sight of their preseason goals.
"The naysayers, we left them with something to remember," Kadary Richmond said. "And the people at Seton Hall, I feel like we left our mark there, too."
Banner Season
In the end, Seton Hall accomplished what it set out to do - win a championship. While it wasn’t the kind of (NCAA) championship all college players aspire to win, it’s still a championship nonetheless.
“Yeah, we proved our point,” senior center Jaden Bediako said. “There’s going to be a banner hanging regardless.”
Indeed. The 2024 Seton Hall Pirates will forever be a championship-winning team that will be celebrated and remembered for years to come. It’s time to move over 1989 and 1953. You’ve got company now.
