JP’s 5 Thoughts: Seton Hall edged by Michigan State in Top 15 matchup

By Jason Guerette (@JPGuerette)

NEWARK, N.J. — Boy, was that a heck of a game. And a heck of a tough loss for the Seton Hall Pirates. 

At home in front of the third-largest crowd to ever witness a college basketball game at the Prudential Center (14,051), the third-ranked Michigan State Spartans made a late push to sink No. 12 Seton Hall, 76-73, despite an all-time great performance by Myles Powell. It was a March game in the month of November.

Here are the thoughts:

1. Them's The Breaks

Seton Hall had a 71-66 lead with 2:40 remaining after Powell hit a gigantic three-pointer while being fouled by MSU's Gabe Brown. But the Pirates couldn't close the deal down the stretch, and head coach Kevin Willard blamed one thing.

"With that group on the floor, we should have done much better with time management," he said. "That's where we lost the game. We took three quick shots, shots that were not within the offense, and that gave them fast break opportunities."

Indeed, as the Pirates missed, Michigan State took it and ran with it. Rocket Watts' triple made it a two-point game, and superstar guard Cassius Winston's three-pointer on the next trip down put Michigan State ahead by one. Two Powell free throws made the score 73-72 in favor Seton Hall, but a sharp pass by Winston to Malik Hall (more on him shortly) against a zone defense put Sparty ahead to stay.

And that was because on the Pirates' last two shots, Sandro Mamukelashvili and Powell both drove the right side of the lane into contact, but there was no whistle. Now, without the aid of a replay, I can tell you that the first drive was definitely closer to a foul than the second one, but as Willard mentioned, with better clock management, Seton Hall may not have had to worry about the whistle. Powell certainly wasn't going to gripe about it.

"I'm not one of those players (that complains about the referees)," Powell said. "If you know basketball and you think I got fouled, I'll just leave it at that. The refs did a good job, they let us play basketball. A couple times, we went to the basket, they went to the basket, and they just let us play. When (they're) letting us play the whole game, you can't be looking for a call in the last 15-20 seconds. As a leader and a captain, I could have made a better decision, but I'm not going to blame it on the refs."

2. This... Is... Newark!

Holy cow, was this a fun atmosphere tonight. A mostly blue Prudential Center brought it from the opening tip to the final buzzer. Before the doors even opened, I saw the lines of students waiting to get in at about 20-deep, and the student section was pretty much full 45 minutes before tipoff. 

The rest of the fans made their way to their seats a little later, but still got there before the start of the game, and as I said, they were on every dribble, pass, and whistle. They yelped when they felt there should have been traveling called on Michigan State, they griped about fouls called on the home team, and maybe most of all, they were loud at the right times, so loud as the Pirates were introduced that by the time public address announcer Tim McLoone got to Powell, he couldn't even be heard.

Color the Hall of Fame coach on the visiting sideline impressed.

"I've been in a lot of great arenas," Tom Izzo said. "They don't have to take a back seat to anybody."

3. The Legend Grows

The $1 million question before the game was what Myles Powell's status was. After spraining his ankle early in the win over Stony Brook on Saturday, Kevin Willard said that Powell would be out a while, but rumors started almost instantly that the real story was much more rosy.

Turns out, the rumors were not only true, they were even more true than could have been expected. Powell not only played on a less-than-100-percent ankle, he shone brightly on the big stage, pouring in 37 points on 12-of-27 shooting, 6-for-14 from three-point range, and 7-of-9 from the charity stripe. 23 of those points came in the second half, with several of those patented "How The Fresh Heck Did He Do That?!" Powell shots that, of course, whipped the crowd into a frenzy.

Much ink, digital and from good, old-fashioned pens, has been spent in praise of a player that Willard has often called the best player in college basketball. And Izzo has now joined that group, though he did it without quill or parchment.

"(He's) one of the best players I've ever seen in college basketball," the Spartans' skipper said. "He seems to play hard, seems to have fun, seems like a great kid. Didn't talk a lot of crap, just did it the right way. My hat's off to him."

Coming from a coach who has seen more basketball than most, that's impressive. He wasn't finished, either.

"I don't know if God could have stopped him on some of those shots," Izzo quipped.

Pirate fans are so used to routine brilliance from the Trenton native, but tonight took it to a still higher level. While the initial prognosis for his ankle was definitely not as bad as it was portrayed to the media on Saturday, to go out and get 37 points against a team that year in and year out is one of the better teams in the nation on a less-than-perfect set of wheels ranks right up with one of the best performances this scribe has ever seen. And it's still only November.

4. The Hall Steps Up

Tonight, a Hall stepped up big in the second half. Unfortunately for Pirate fans, I refer to Michigan State freshman forward Malik Hall, who — despite playing in just his third career game and scoring as many points this season as I have up until halftime tonight — scored 17 second-half points while not missing a shot from the field. His 7-for-7 performance lifted the Spartans after they had Winston, then veteran forward Xavier Tillman in foul trouble, and fellow starter Aaron Henry dealing with a gimpy ankle himself.

Izzo said it best afterwards: You don't win a game like this without something like that happening, a player who most definitely was not high on Seton Hall's scouting report, playing huge in a big spot. Kudos to him, because without Hall's contributions, The Hall probably wins this one.

5. Cale Comes To Play

There are a couple things to take away from this game, the first being that Myles Cale appears to be back. He sunk a trio of threes in the second half and really gave the team a lift, finishing with 12 points. The junior had struggled in the team's first two contests, and while he has been hot and cold historically, something seemed a little off.

"I had a great conversation with him after the Stony Brook game," Willard said. "Sometimes when you go from your sophomore year to your junior year, you think you're going to start doing things magically. I told him he needs to get a little simpler on the offensive end. He was aggressive, but he was simple (tonight). He didn't try to force things, and took the open shot."

Throughout most of this game, it felt like the Pirates needed someone else to score other than Powell before he went bonkers in the second half, and Cale was that player. Perhaps this will be the start of an upward trend for the rangy wing.

The second thing to take away is that this game, for all that Seton Hall failed to do down the stretch, showed that the Pirates can hang with the very best that college hoops has to offer. Indeed, talking to Willard and the coaches after the game, there was very little gloom to go around. Part of it may be the quick turnaround heading to Saint Louis on Sunday for the first road test of the year, but I think that tonight served as evidence that this team is most definitely legit.

"Now we know we can compete with those teams up top, with the Oregons, the Gonzagas that we're looking forward to playing," Cale said. "This is a hard loss today, but we know we could have won if we did a couple things differently."