5 Thoughts, And One: Seton Hall closes 2017 with win over valiant and shorthanded Red Storm

Khadeen Carrington started Seton Hall's scorching three-point shooting display Sunday, making five of Pirates' 13 deep balls to sink St. John's in 2017 finale for both teams. (Photo by Bob Dea/Daly Dose Of Hoops)

NEWARK, NJ -- A long December, and there's reason to believe

Maybe this year will be better than the last

I can't remember all the times I tried to tell myself to hold on to these moments as they pass

- Counting Crows, "A Long December"

The final date of any year affords the chance to leave many a lasting impression, no matter your walk of life, whichever road you travel, whatever sights you see along the way. And in the case of Seton Hall and St. John's, each team did just that on December 31, 2017, when the Hudson River rivals locked horns inside the Prudential Center for the first of two meetings with one another this season, and the second Big East contest for both sides after Thursday night's opening encounters.

For the host Pirates, it was a dazzling display of three-point shooting, which began in the opening minutes when Khadeen Carrington fired the first salvo shortly after St. John's had built a 4-0 lead on the strenght of Tariq Owens (19 points, 14 rebounds) exploiting the Seton Hall interior, no easy task considering the All-America potential of Angel Delgado and unrelenting hustle of Michael Nzei alongside the 6-foot-10 Dominican.

From there, Seton Hall (13-2, 2-0 Big East) was off to the races, not stopping until they had made 10 of their 18 attempts from beyond the arc in the opening stanza, taking a 43-33 lead with them into the locker room against the Red Storm, who were searching for a better fate than that which had befallen them Thursday night against Providence in a Carnesecca Arena showdown that started out close before Kyron Cartwright turned the corner of Union and Utopia into his personal playground in a 21-point, 15-assist eruption that was dampened; at least from the red-and-white perspective, by the loss of Shamorie Ponds midway through the second half.

With Ponds unavailable Sunday afternoon, and Marcus LoVett continuing to convalesce from the apparent knee injury that has kept him out all month, the lack of depth forced Chris Mullin to think somewhat outside the box. And in the face of what looked to be a Seton Hall runaway, the Hall of Famer did just that with only seven men available, fighting the Pirates tooth and nail down the stretch before coming up just a hair short in a 75-70 thriller.

By all accounts and given the circumstances, tonight may have been the best game St. John's (10-4, 0-2 Big East) played all year, even if the Red Storm alumnus turned head coach refuses to let moral victories come in the way of his fiery competitive nature.

"I don't feel good about losing, but I think I'm transparent," he said after decompressing for a few minutes from his team's scrappy effort 72 hours removed from the second-half meltdown against Providence. "We played well. We've played bad and lost, and I don't feel good about that either. I think you've gotta be honest on the effort. It still hurts. It sucks, but you've gotta be honest about the effort."

St. John's heads into a hostile road environment Wednesday night against Creighton, while Seton Hall gets the rest of the week to recuperate before flying to Indianapolis to take on an upstart Butler team fresh off their stunning takedown of top-ranked Villanova. Until then, we offer one last set of thoughts for 2017, but instead of the token five, we'll have six from this meeting across the river, broken down into three for the Pirates and three for the Johnnies:

SETON HALL THOUGHTS
1) A clash in styles, but a similar result.

Coming off an up-and-down game against Creighton Thursday night, the marked difference in defense and grit was evident from the opening tip when St. John's matched up against the Pirates. And unlike the Creighton game, where hot shooting gave way to a veteran-forged will, the Pirates were not able to put their opponent away as easily, with St. John's having an answer for almost every Seton Hall shot until Desi Rodriguez's tough jumper in the lane splashed through the net with 18 seconds left, providing the final margin on the scoreboard.

"It was really different, because St. John's is the type of team that plays hard the whole game," Angel Delgado said after fighting his way to 12 points and 12 rebounds for his 61st career double-double. "That was crazy, because every time I looked back, it was like, seven people. They weren't letting me have fun in the game, so it was kind of tough."

Delgado also added six assists in one of his finer passing displays on the year, weaving his way out of double and triple-teams by finding the open man over the course of the night as Seton Hall attempted to bury St. John's from long range, which leads into our next segue:

2) Bombs away!

The Pirates eventually cooled off from beyond the arc, but the hot hands of Carrington, Rodriguez and Myles Powell ultimately proved to be too much for St. John's to overcome, even if they did threaten to reach the summit on several occasions in the game's latter stages. Head coach Kevin Willard expressed concern for whether or not the torrid beginning would carry over, but with the Red Storm's length and athleticism in the paint making it almost impossible to drive the lane in the early going, Seton Hall was induced into alternative options to score against Chris Mullin's zone defense, which the St. John's coach was not disappointed in.

"Sometimes you just have to give credit to good shooting," he conceded. "When all you're giving up is deep threes, that's not really bad defense. I wasn't all that concerned, and I thought our defense was okay. They were really just hitting a lot of deep shots."

3) The closers picked up another save.

Coincidentally, AC/DC's "Hells Bells," the walkout song that accompanied legendary San Diego Padres fireman Trevor Hoffman to the mound during his career, is the music of choice to blare through the Prudential Center as Seton Hall makes its way through the tunnel and onto the floor, where the guitar riff of Malcolm Young is replaced by the opening notes of the Pirates' fight song, "Onward Setonia." And much like Hoffman did on 601 occasions, the Seton Hall veterans were able to salt away another close duel with valuable possessions after St. John's pulled within one point entering the final 4:43 of regulation.

"I really thought Angel made two huge offensive rebounds, two huge plays," said Willard of Delgado and his being in the right place at the right time. "He's done that his whole career, really gotten timely rebounds, good offensive rebounds. I thought he grabbed some good ones, and Desi made a really good play down the stretch."

ST. JOHN'S THOUGHTS
1) Going the distance with a ranked team, despite playing shorthanded.

That was the primary takeaway for the Red Storm after it was announced shortly before the game that Ponds would be unavailable, joining LoVett in street clothes on the bench as seven players, six of whom played major minutes, took the 23rd-ranked Pirates to the wire in a game where the mentality was no different than it would have been had the Johnnies had a full complement of players dressed.

"I told our guys that I just wanted them to compete," said Mullin when asked to assess the effort put forth. "That's all I told them. With a different lineup, we were going to have to figure out our offensive and defensive lineups along the way, but I wasn't worried about that. We came out and played hard, didn't get discouraged, and I think that lineup we had is going to pay dividends and confidence in our players once we get a full lineup. I think that's gonna win us games down the line."

"It's the same mentality we always have," Owens echoed. "We're missing two of our better players, and coming out without them was definitely an adjustment. We had to have that next-man-up mentality. Everybody just had to bite down and step up."

2) Simon says, make an impact.

With Ponds and LoVett grabbing most of the headlines in Queens, it gets easy for Justin Simon to be lost in the shuffle despite the game-changing potential he has exhibited in nearly every contest this year. Once again, the Arizona transfer flirted with a triple-double, finishing his night with 15 points, 10 assists, eight rebounds and five steals in what essentially amounted to just another night at the office, but one that was magnified given his being thrust into the limelight.

"That's what he's been doing," Mullin said when asked about Simon's all-around play and how he bounced back after an uncharacteristically flat effort against Providence. "We watched the whole game on film the other day. We flushed it out, took accountability, and moved on."

"I thought Simon was phenomenal," Kevin Willard gushed. "I thought he got everybody involved."

3) An update on Ponds and LoVett:

Mullin admitted he had no idea how much more time his starting backcourt would miss, but came to their defense with the following quote:

"I'm no doctor," he said, "but I've been injured a lot." "As soon as they're healthy and can play, they'll play, but until then, they won't. They're young and they've got great careers ahead of them, so we're not going to jeopardize their health for anything."