This time, Pirates’ latest program-defining win resonates just a little more

Romaro Gill (35) blocks Maryland’s Jalen Smith for one of Seton Hall’s 15 rejections as Pirates stunned seventh-ranked Terps Thursday night. (Photo by Bob Dea/Daly Dose Of Hoops)

NEWARK, N.J. — The story has been repeated so many times in Kevin Willard’s decade-long reign at Seton Hall.

Team with its proverbial back against the wall, sometimes missing a key player, maybe two, maybe even asked to do something it had not done before, matches up against program with Top 10 ranking. Fans and pundits alike predict worst-case scenario, only for said underdog team to rise up and score massive upset.

That tale has come to define Seton Hall over the years, for better or worse. So many of the Pirates’ memorable victories — take your pick of any during Isaiah Whitehead’s transcendent run to a Big East championship, or maybe last year's epic takedown of Kentucky — have come when the chips were down in and around South Orange, bringing the Big East’s ultimate blue-collar team together to rally for and with one another to produce a heart-stopping instant classic.

So it was again Thursday night, when Seton Hall welcomed a seventh-ranked Maryland team into the Garden State to complete the back end of a two-year series the Pirates opened last December with a resilient — and resonant — victory in College Park. Unlike last year, though, the manner in which The Hall pulled out this latest rabbit from its hat was one that was unexpected by almost any of the 13,000-plus patrons that played a deciding factor in Maryland suffering a second consecutive eyebrow-raising defeat.

It wasn’t so much the workmanlike, defense-oriented tenor of the Pirates’ 52-48 triumph over the Terrapins that commanded everyone’s attention, but rather the circumstances surrounding the game and the willingness to fix the mistakes of the past week by reinventing the team’s identity. Playing without Myles Powell after his concussion suffered against Rutgers, and Sandro Mamukelashvili as he continues to recuperate from a broken wrist indeed handicaps Seton Hall offensively, and admittedly does make things more challenging, but if there is one thing to learn about any of Willard’s teams over the years, it is that this bunch — no matter the names and faces — does not take no for an answer, never has, and most likely never will.

“It shows everybody,” Quincy McKnight — now thrust into the role of alpha dog offensively in Powell’s absence — said of the significance of the latest name-brand win collected by the Pirates. “There’s been a doubt with us since we lost to Iowa State (December 8), there’s been a doubt losing Sandro, losing Myles. There’s been a little doubt, and we proved to everybody that we can still play.”

“We did a lot of soul searching these past four days, and this is a big program win right here. We’re out an All-American and we’re out our starting power forward in Sandro, and when we’re down two players like that, it’s tough. But we dug down and got a good program win.”

There were no players-only meetings this time around, no outside distractions, no off-the-court drama between Saturday's 20-point loss to Rutgers and Thursday night. It was all business, and an uncharacteristically long pregame film session after three days of intense practices confirmed the shift in mantra.

“We came back Monday and we literally watched the first half for an hour and a half,” McKnight recalled. “It was a gut check, simple as that. Everybody came back and we practiced hard. We’ve just basically been getting after it.”

It was that gauntlet of sorts, in fact, that prompted Seton Hall’s coach to reaffirm his own vote of confidence in a team predicted to be the Big East favorite before the ball was even tipped for the first time last month, citing the toughness he once questioned in his core group several years ago.

“I was looking to see how they were going to bounce back,” said Willard. “They were honest in the film — we all talked about things that were going on in the film — and then we had three days of our best practice we’ve had all year.”

Not only did the Pirates bring the behind-closed-doors intensity out for the public to see, the supporting cast was unfazed by the number next to the visitors’ name, nor did it cower in the absence of its Batman and primary Robin. From McKnight playing off the ball and underscoring Anthony Nelson’s burgeoning prowess as a facilitator, to Romaro Gill and Ike Obiagu combining to block a dozen shots — Seton Hall registered 15 rejections as a team — to Jared Rhoden channeling Angel Delgado and Michael Nzei with a nose for the basketball, Seton Hall cared not about what was at stake, it simply cared about getting the job done, regardless of cost.

“They proved to me that they weren’t going to hang their heads, they weren’t going to worry about anything,” Willard proudly assessed. “And they showed up and played great defensively.”

And the beat goes on for the boys in blue, who will get a brief respite before Sunday’s encounter with Prairie View A&M, the final tuneup before Big East play opens at DePaul eight days later. But for whomever lies ahead, the objective remains the same for the Pirates, a group that has taken an adverse situation and turned it into a positive, carrying an all-for-one and one-for-all approach to navigating the choppy waters separating Seton Hall from Powell and Mamukelashvili returning to finish the job.

“We all knew that we needed each other to win tonight,” Rhoden reiterated. “A lot of people were doubting us, a lot of people were saying our season’s going down the wrong way. I just feel like this win stamped us and showed us what we’re made of, and showed what Seton Hall is all about.”