Desperate Hall sneaks by DePaul
The bleeding has stopped — for now. It’s premature, however, to say the wounds have healed. Issues remain. Questions need to be answered in a difficult final stretch that will determine this disappointing senior-laden team’s March fate.
Sunday’s sluggish 82-77 victory over DePaul at Prudential Center snapped Seton Hall’s four-game losing streak and can at least bring its fans off the proverbial ledge. Still, this wasn’t the performance some had hoped for. It didn’t cure the ills for the slumping Pirates. It was a win, a muchneeded one at that, but not the kind of effort that will inspire confidence that a big run is forthcoming.
“We’re not falling apart,” coach Kevin Willard insisted, but his team certainly isn’t playing anywhere close to its best, either.
DePaul, now tied in the Big East basement with St. John’s, was a 10-point underdog and trailed by eight with 1:07 left. Yet, the visitors still had a chance to tie in the f inal seconds down three. But Blue Demons point guard Eli Cain opted to drive and missed, sealing the defeat.
With the win, Seton Hall (18-9, 7-7) moved within one game in the loss column of Providence and Creighton for third in the Big East. But there are no easy landing spots the rest of the way — road games against Providence and red-hot St. John’s and home contests with No. 3 Villanova and Butler.
“I’m happy that we got the win, but I’m still not satisfied of where we’re at [playing-wise],” senior Desi Rodriguez said. “Defensively we’ve got to be better.”
There were some strong stretches — the highlight was a 17-3 first-half run ignited by seniors Angel Delgado and Khadeen Carrington diving for loose balls — but also concerning moments against an inferior opponent that was allowed to hang around. Rodriguez scored a career-high 33 points, 24 in the second half after a poor first-half effort in which he failed to hustle back on defense on a few occasions. Willard stuck with him rather than pulling The Bronx native, as he has in the past, and it paid off.
“Sometimes you’ve got to trust your kids, and I have great trust in Desi, and I know he’s going to snap back out of it,” said Willard in an over-the-top positive postgame press conference. “He did within two minutes. Sometimes when he gets like that and you take him out, he doesn’t snap out of it.”
Delgado, who isn’t practicing these days to rest his ailing left knee, was the most consistent of the four senior starters, notching his 18th doubledouble of the season, hauling in 19 rebounds to go with 16 points and four assists.
He also awoke his teammates from the doldrums, treating his body like a crash dummy and absorbing court burns for a few loose balls in the first half. It ignited the big run, turning a two-point deficit into a 12-point lead.
“He is our emotional leader, by far,” Willard said.
But as has happened in this poor stretch, the Pirates couldn’t sustain it. They lost focus and allowed DePaul (10-16, 3-11) to rip off the final 10 points of the stanza.
The second half followed a similar pattern. Seton Hall couldn’t pull away but wouldn’t break either.
The result was a desperately needed victory and the hope one win can lead to better performances.
“It was our Super Bowl today,” Delgado said. “We needed to win this game.”