It’s been a wild start for Pirates
For two weeks, Seton Hall couldn’t practice. It was quarantined, the result of several positive COVID-19 tests, which included one for coach Kevin Willard.
A week after getting out of quarantine, the Pirates began a stretch of five games in eight days in four locations against programs from five different conferences.
They have gone from one extreme to the other, inactivity to nonstop action. Welcome to the college basketball season, a year so unlike any other.
“It’s kind of a microcosm of what I expect this entire season to be like,” athletic director Bryan Felt told The Post. “It’s going to be a challenge, and we’ve already seen that.”
On Monday, Seton Hall hosted Iona College, a game that was scheduled just 48 hours earlier by the two head coaches, Willard and Rick Pitino. Two days later the Pirates were in Kingston, R.I., to face Rhode Island. On Friday, they will face Oregon in Omaha, Neb., and they were scheduled to visit Penn State on Sunday night before finishing this dizzying stretch at home against Wagner on Tuesday. All of this after the program was shut down on Nov. 9 for two weeks due to COVID-19.
“A lot of us have aspirations to play on the pro level,” junior Jared Rhoden said over Zoom this week. “I say this is our pro week. It’s a good test to see how strong our bodies are and where we are mentally and physically.”
To stay safe while traveling, Seton Hall will be using extra caution. It won’t eat team meals together. Social distancing and mask-wearing will be practiced. The program researched hotels it will stay in to make sure proper protocols are followed. Rhoden, Shavar Reynolds and Sandro Mamukelashvili all said they weren’t nervous about traveling during the pandemic. And the fact is a significant portion of the program already had the virus, and the team is testing every other day.
“We’re in a position where we can do this in a very safe manner,” Felt said.
Perhaps it shouldn’t come as such a surprise that Seton Hall has started slowly, losing at Louisville and Rhode Island, and trailing Iona for large stretches of the first half before pulling away. This was a team, picked to finish fifth in the Big East, with question marks anyway, after graduating senior stars Myles Powell, Quincy McKnight and Romaro Gill, and then it had to deal with the 14-day pause. In the opener against Louisville, key addition Bryce Aiken, a Harvard transfer, suffered an ankle injury and will be out for at least a few weeks, a significant blow.
During the layoff, Willard and his staff made sure to have team-wide Zoom sessions every other day. The Pirates did yoga together over video. Reynolds used the time to watch extra film, up to three games a day, and run on a local football field. The player most affected seems to be freshman point guard Jahari Long, who the staff was very high on coming into the year, but has struggled thus far.
“I can’t imagine sitting in a room for 14 days,” Willard said after the loss to Rhode Island. “Not an apartment; he was in a room.”
The players talked about the mental challenges upon getting out of quarantine. It wasn’t easy just to jump back in like nothing happened. Two weeks away took a toll.
That’s one of the reasons Willard has been so vigilant and aggressive with his schedule. Playing so frequently is the only way he thinks his team will be ready for Big East play when it begins on Dec. 11. After being idle for two weeks, his players sound thrilled about their busy schedule.
“We love playing the game. We’ve been waiting,” Reynolds said. “Just let us know who we’re playing, give us the scout and we’re [ready]. This is what we want to do. This is our dream.”