Why has Seton Hall outperformed St. John’s?

In the 2023 offseason, St. John’s made all the college basketball news in the New York metropolitan area.

Hired Hall of Famer Rick Pitino. Turned over the roster almost completely, bringing in coveted transfers from Harvard, Penn, UMass, UConn and Iona. Got picked to finish fifth in the Big East’s preseason poll by the league’s coaches.

Seton Hall seemed like an afterthought. The Pirates picked up one St. John’s castoff – role player Dylan Addae-Wusu – signed one well-regarded high school player, and added a couple more transfers no one had heard of. The Big East coaches picked them to finish ninth.

As full-fledged free agency took hold of the sport, Hall coach Shaheen Holloway placed a big bet on continuity, building around the core trio of returning upperclassmen Kadary Richmond, Al-Amir Dawes and Dre Davis.

Here is what Holloway said about it in September, at the start of practice: “The guys who were here last year, you see a difference among those guys, the way they are with each other, and that’s what time brings.”

Sure enough, time brought it. The Pirates are tied for third in the Big East at 9-5 (they’re 16-9 overall) and firmly in the hunt for an NCAA Tournament berth as they head to St. John’s (14-11, 6-8) for a rematch Sunday (5 p.m., Fox Sports 1), after handling the Johnnies by 15 points in Newark last month.

‘You feel it when you watch them’

It’s time to rethink what “winning the offseason” means.

“He (Holloway) is in his second year, so he’s really able to emphasize and communicate not only basketball principals but also mentality and disposition,” said Fox Sports television analyst Sarah Kustok, who has the call Sunday. “There’s a ton of experience that comes with players who know exactly what to do together at key moments of a game. The appreciation for that in preseason rankings and things of that nature, it takes time to realize how much that impacts winning and success on the court. With this Pirates team, you see that. You feel it when you watch them.”

Kustok knows a thing or two about it. As a player at DePaul, she helped the Blue Demons’ perennially successful women’s basketball program reach the NCAA Tournament in 2003 and 2004.

“There are stretches within games when they’ll grab it,” she said of Seton Hall’s veterans, “and they know how to find that connectivity with one another and understand what’s needed. They’ve got moxie not just as individuals, but collectively too.”

Continuity is not splashy, especially after a 17-win NIT campaign. It doesn’t make for viral social-media fodder, energize fans who want to play fantasy GM, or feed into the metastasizing recruiting industrial complex that lavishes coverage on transfers (top transfers list! biggest portal winners and losers!).

But Holloway is basing his regime on it. There’s a great intangible in knowing how to play together, understanding role allocation, having a real, bones-deep feel for your teammates.

It’s how Seton Hall won when Holloway was Kevin Willard’s right-hand man, it’s how Holloway marshaled Saint Peter’s to the greatest Cinderella run in Big Dance history, and it’s how he’s proving the Big East coaches wrong this season.

This is how Holloway wants it, but he wasn’t flush with alternatives. The New York Post reported the size of St. John’s NIL war chest at $2.7 million this past offseason. While concrete figures are elusive, Seton Hall’s was a fraction of that (steps have since been taken to close the gap). Holloway was not going on any offseason shopping sprees. It’s on him to develop guys and foster fit. There is no “blow it up and start over” off ramp.

Finding the chemistry

It should be noted, of course, that Holloway has a one-year head start on Pitino. That’s huge. If Pitino keeps the Johnnies’ core together next season, they’ll be much better for it.

“It’s hard because you have one or two players that were retained, you have a new group of players and you’re trying to piece everything together,” Kustok said. “That’s hard, and you’re seeing that.”

Pitino is not just a Hall of Fame coach; he’s the foremost player-development guru in the sport’s modern history. But development is a process, not a button you can push.

“They’ve had leads in games but haven’t been able to close things out,” Kustok said. “To me, having that ability to close out games, some of that comes from finding that chemistry and finding continuity. It doesn’t happen overnight – it takes time.”

That was true before free agency and it’s still true now.

“At the end of the day, basketball is basketball,” Kustok said.

Players don’t win. A team does.

Jerry Carino has covered the New Jersey sports scene since 1996 and the college basketball beat since 2003. He is an Associated Press Top 25 voter. Contact him at jcarino@gannettnj.com.