Delgado primed to make senior season his best season

Angel Delgado passed on turning pro for one more year at Seton Hall, and now stands on cusp of what could be an emphatic coda to his four-year career in South Orange. (Photo by NJ Advance Media)

NEW YORK -- Six months ago, the promising future Seton Hall now enjoys -- the second-place ranking in the Big East preseason coaches' poll, the No. 23 ranking in the nation, the three 1,000-point scorers in its senior class -- hung precariously, held in the hands of a 6-foot, 10-inch power forward who debated whether or not to take his talents to the next level.

Then, on a Monday afternoon in the middle of May, Angel Delgado put the speculation and the hand-wringing to rest with a social media post signifying that he decided to return.

Within minutes after Twitter was lit up with the news of the all-Big East big man and Haggerty Award winner sticking around for one more year in Pirate blue, fans were galvanized, hope sprung eternal, and the expectation for a banner year grew to be commonplace among those in the stands and those in the media. But in true Delgado fashion, while the plaudits are appreciated, they pale in comparison to the lofty goals the soft-spoken Dominican has set for himself and his team.

"I don't think like that," he intimated to a throng of reporters at Big East media day last Wednesday, addressing a crowd just steps off the Madison Square Garden baseline where he and his teammates celebrated a conference championship in his sophomore season, revealing the preseason predictions to be narrow-focused. "I feel like this team has something to prove, with a lot of expectations. We've just got to come to the gym every day -- I tell these guys -- come to the gym and play hard. Every time we step on the court, we've just got to prepare for the season the best we can. It's only a month away."

"I think differently," he reiterated. "I just think that I came back just trying to get better. We're trying to be a better team than last year."

And while the allure of a professional career was enough to convince Delgado to test the waters in the offseason, he and his coach ultimately determined that the pros of one more year in college; both on and off the hardwood, outweighed the cons.

"We were pretty close," head coach Kevin Willard conceded when detailing the process he entered alongside Delgado at the conclusion of his junior season. "If he could have got drafted in the low 40s, we would have went, because you're pretty much guaranteed a two-year first-round contract when you look at those guys signing, but that's not where he was projected. It was an educated decision. It wasn't just 'well, I want to do it," it was more important that we got the right information."

"If you're a junior in college coming to be a senior and you're a borderline guy, you can't pass up an education and getting your college degree," said Willard, a fact of life that helped sway Delgado toward returning. "You're playing Russian roulette with your career. So the big thing with Angel is he's going to graduate and he's going to have a chance to improve his draft status, so it was a family decision. I consider myself part of his family, and it was a family decision that we made."

Since that fateful spring, Delgado remains a popular figure around campus, and now suits up emboldened by the challenge of attempting to follow a 15-point, 13-rebound-per-game average; the latter number having led the nation, with an encore that will entrench his legacy in the annals of Seton Hall lore for generations to come, as well as the experience of having received professional feedback that can only serve him well.

"A lot of people showed me a lot of love," he proclaimed, symbolic of both the adulation from the Pirate fan base, as well as the evaluation from NBA scouts in the offseason. "Stuff like that helped me a lot, off the court and on the court. I was really excited to test the waters, and I'm really excited to come back and be the best player again."

"Everybody was like, 'please come back, please come back, it's only one more year,'" he elaborated, describing the pleas from the Seton Hall community. "Seven months passed quick. I don't even believe I'm a senior, and look how it is right now."

At the end of the day, Delgado's progression from enigmatic freshman to dominating senior has opened many eyes at both the local and national levels, but there is one thing remaining on his checklist, that being to have a final season that mirrors his overall career trajectory. When asked to expound on that point and whether winning just one NCAA Tournament game would be enough to satisfy his and his team's desires, he doubled down on the bar that had been set inside the locker room.

"Winning one game is not enough," he shot back. "Winning the whole thing is enough. That's what I think. We've gotta win the whole thing and prove to ourselves that we can win a national championship, so I really don't want to say I want to get out of the first round. I think we've got a real opportunity to go to the Final Four."

"God knows why He does these things," he wisely stated. "I always believe that God knows why He does everything. This is a new year, it's a new season, and we're ready for it."