5 questions for Seton Hall

Kevin Willard brings his deepest and most talented team back to Seton Hall in a season where Pirates are trendy pick to reach second weekend of NCAA Tournament behind senior Myles Powell. (Photo by Bob Dea/Daly Dose Of Hoops)

The chatter has been seemingly endless since the moment the final buzzer went off on a mid-March night in Jacksonville.

Seton Hall, fresh off its fourth consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance, would be a force to be reckoned with in the Big East Conference during the 2019-20 season, and that was before Myles Powell announced his intent to finish what he started four years ago in South Orange.

Now, everyone minus graduated fifth-year senior Michael Nzei is back for an encore in the Garden State, resulting in Kevin Willard's Pirates not only being picked as the consensus Big East favorite, but also as the 12th-ranked team in the nation in advance of a campaign that looks to be -- on paper at least -- potentially the most promising since Terry Dehere's 1992-93 swan song.

Seton Hall raises the curtain on its season Tuesday night at Walsh Gymnasium, when Wagner makes the journey across the Hudson River, and before the ball is tipped, there remains a handful of questions the Pirates need to answer in order to fulfill the sky-high expectations placed before the program:

1) How does this team handle the hype?

Such lofty prognostications are uncharted territory for Seton Hall, a team picked eighth of ten in the Big East preseason poll one year ago, a slight that Powell and Co. turned into a near-improbable postseason berth and No. 7 seed in the NCAA Tournament. But just as this group has thrived off silencing the naysayers, so too does it embrace pressure, with this past month being no exception.

"You know how Coach Willard is," Powell reiterated at Big East media day last month. "He expects nothing less than championships and hard work, but for us, we were picked eighth last year and we wound up finishing second. Honestly, the preseason polls don't mean anything, because when it starts, we're all going to be 0-0. The conference is so close and the players are so good, anything can happen on any given night and we've just got to be ready. We're No. 1, so that means we've got the biggest target on our back."

2) What was the reasoning behind the non-conference schedule?

Over the past several years, no one has scheduled as ambitiously or as meticulously as Willard, who has eschewed favorable matchups designed to rack up easy wins in favor of a more hardened test for his teams, one that features the likes of Michigan State, Oregon, Iowa State and Maryland this season, with perhaps appearances from Gonzaga and North Carolina as well, contingent upon how the bracket in the Battle 4 Atlantis plays out.

"We have a brutal non-conference schedule, and I think it's going to give us opportunities to really see and be more prepared than we have been in the past," Willard assessed. "You have a schedule where you have Maryland, who's Top 10, coming in (December 19), you have Michigan State, who's No. 1, coming in, (November 14) the Battle 4 Atlantis, where you have Oregon and maybe Gonzaga. The schedule really kind of adds to that flavor."

3) Who steps up alongside Powell?

The supporting cast has become more of a concern the past two seasons, especially with the youth around Powell last year in the wake of Angel Delgado, Khadeen Carrington, Desi Rodriguez and Ismael Sanogo having graduated 18 months ago. Sandro Mamukelashvili and Myles Cale took great strides last season in being the Robin to Powell's Batman, as did Quincy McKnight, but the Pirates still need to find the consistent second and third options behind No. 13.

"The different thing about this team is we have some balance in our classes," Willard revealed. "Our juniors, Myles Cale and Sandro, had great years last year and it's now their turn to take another step, and our sophomores, Anthony Nelson and Jared Rhoden, I'm really excited about those two. I think they've taken the same jump that Myles Powell did when he was a freshman to his sophomore year, so we have great balance in our classes, and everyone's ready to take a big jump."

4) What do the two newcomers bring to the table?

First of all, size. Ike Obiagu, the 7-foot-1 Florida State transfer who sat out last season, will be able to team with Romaro Gill to give Seton Hall a twin tower look up front that will allow for Mamukelashvili to stretch the floor more and contribute from his natural position, while 6-foot-10 Canadian import Tyrese Samuel is more of a pick-and-pop shooter that can serve as an X-factor off the bench.

"I think Tyrese is really going to help us out at the power forward spot," said Willard. "He's got a 7-foot-2 wingspan, he could shoot it. I think he's going to take a lot of pressure off of Sandro at that spot. He's got a great basketball feel for a kid his age, and then Ike gives us something that we haven't had in a long time, which is a monster of a defensive presence, someone that's 7-1, 260, can change the game defensively. He's given us something that we didn't have last year, and that's defensive presence."

5) Is the sky the limit for Powell?

Willard, who likened his superstar guard to the third son he never had, has been effusive in his praise of the Trenton native since he recruited him, and has gushed even further leading into a year in which Powell is just 831 points away from becoming Seton Hall's all-time leading scorer, a number that -- provided the Pirates' season goes according to plan -- is easily within reach.

"I'm excited for Myles Powell," Willard recounted. "I think he's got an opportunity to show everybody that he's the best player in college basketball, he's got an opportunity to get drafted, because I think he's going to have a monster year. He had a great year last year, but I think he's going to have a monster year this year because he's got better players now, more experienced players around, that are going to help his game."