Most of the attention this weekend is rightfully on the spectacle of March Madness, the NCAA Tournament. There’s a few others gawking at the insane early flurry of the transfer portal bidding wars, but there’s some that just want to keep playing ball even away from the brightest lights. There’s also 1,200 die-hards who will come out in a torrential downpour to enjoy a throwback experience in a tiny historic gym tucked in the corner of a landlocked urban campus with no room to build a modern venue within its limited borders. The Seton Hall Pirates were spurned from the NCAA Tournament after a record number of bid stealers squeezed them off the bubble amid dubious reasoning and circular logic offered by members of the selection committee when they were questioned why some teams were left out in favor of others who promptly proved they had no business being there. Big East brethren St. John’s and Providence were left out as well, but Rick Pitino took his ball and went home while blowing off steam to anybody who would listen on a media rampage bemoaning the betrayal of his Red Storm by the committee. The Friars went out with a whimper running out of gas against Boston College in their first NIT game while their best player sat out with an injury. The Pirates on the other hand went toe to toe with St. Joseph’s of Philadelphia and fought the whole way before prevailing in overtime in their first round game.
The Mean Green of the University of North Texas (Denton, TX) have had a quality run of their own the past few years. They won the CBI tournament in 2018 for the first of several 20 win seasons. In 2021 they became the first of several double digit seeds to upset Purdue in the first round of NCAA’s as a 13 seed before falling to Villanova in the second round. Last year they won the NIT to cap off a 31-7 season where they finished 16-4 in Conference USA before losing in the conference tournament. Coach Grant McCasland was hired this season at Texas Tech after six years building the Mean Green machine. Former top assistant Ross Hodge slid over a seat and took over the program as they moved from Conference USA up to the American Athletic Conference this season where they finished in 7th place and fell in the quarterfinals of the conference tournament. North Texas received a third consecutive NIT berth and beat LSU on the road in the first round, bringing them to historic Walsh Gymnasium in South Orange, New Jersey on a Saturday morning to take on the Seton Hall Pirates still playing with a big chip on their shoulder. The Pirates briefly stumbled out of the gate but roared back and kept going to a 72-58 victory to advance to the quarterfinals next week. Dre Davis led four Pirates in double figures with 18 points and Kadary Richmond put up a double-double of 11 points and 15 rebounds. Jason Edwards led the Mean Green with 23 points.
The game started with North Texas making a few quick big shots to catch the Pirates off guard and take an early 14-8 lead over the first 8 minutes. Fresh legs off the bench Elijah Hutchins-Everett and Isaiah Coleman keyed Seton Hall on a 10-0 run to take an 18-14 lead with 6:30 remaining in the first half. A Rubin Jones three pointer ended a six minute scoring drought for the Mean Green and brought them back in the game for a few more minutes. However, the Pirates held firm and took control with another 10-0 run over the last three minutes of the half capped off by a Coleman three pointer at the halftime buzzer to give Seton Hall a 33-24 halftime lead.
The Pirates picked up right where they left off at the start of the second half. Dre Davis got an old fashioned three point play to start things off, but the Mean Green hung in there with a few more clutch shots from Jason Edwards to close the North Texas deficit to 41-34 with about 14 minutes left. Al-Amir Dawes and Dylan Addae-Wusu hit back to back threes to kick off a 12-4 Pirates run punctuated by a Davis steal setting up a beautiful transition play with Wusu and Dawes to give Seton Hall a 53-38 lead with 10:30 left to play.
With Edwards going cold by this point the Mean Green got a few more points back from CJ Noland and Rubin Jones but the Pirates kept rolling with Davis and Coleman going back to work and a Dawes steal and layup bringing the Pirates lead up to 24 points with 4:46 left to pretty much wrap things up for the Pirates and keep the charming little old gym from 1941 rocking for one more game in the NIT Quarterfinals.
In the postgame press conference, the players were loose and relaxed and appeared to be doing something not always seen in the intensity of March: just having fun. When asked about his rebounding prowess in this game, Kadary Richmond answered simply “I missed a lot of layups so I just decided to grab the ball back.” Dre Davis and Isaiah Coleman struggled to maintain composure among the goofiness of the panel. Coleman said of the team feeding off the energy of the crowd, “Whenever I see a big crowd like that, energy just pours down on me.” later adding, “Whenever they’re in it, we’re in it”. Coach Shaheen Holloway also praised the crowd at multiple points in his chat.
News and Notes:
- This victory marks Seton Hall’s first trip to the NIT quarterfinals since 1956. Prior to the early 1960s, the NIT was a better established tournament of equal stature and arguably more prestigious than the NCAA Tournament at that time.
- The NIT was only 12 teams back then, so this victory also marks the first time the Pirates have won multiple games in this tournament since their 1953 NIT National Championship season.
- The Pirates will now face the winner of Sunday night’s Boston College-UNLV second round game at Walsh Gym in the Quarterfinals on Wednesday March 27 at 7pm. The game will be featured nationally on ESPN2 and streaming on ESPN+.
JD Walker is one of the co-founders of Stream Punk Entertainment and has covered the Philadelphia Union, Big East Basketball, and New Jersey high school basketball since 2022. He has a wide-spanning career with experience in a variety of roles inside and outside the world of sports including basketball operations, gameday entertainment, promotions, broadcasting, and finance. He’s a Jersey Shore native sprung from a cage on Highway 9, and loves to geek out on the business and legal side of the games we all love.