5 Thoughts: Seton Hall starts fast, runs away from Georgetown

Romaro Gill posted career-high 17 points as Seton Hall powered past Georgetown Friday. (Photo by Bob Dea/Daly Dose Of Hoops)

By Jason Guerette (@JPGuerette)

NEWARK, N.J. — The game started out 7-2 in favor of Georgetown, but that lead quickly evaporated to say the least, as Seton Hall entertained the 10,481 in attendance on a late Friday evening at Prudential Center by blitzing the Hoyas, 78-62, improving to 2-0 in Big East Conference play.

Here are the 5 Thoughts from Newark:

1. Opposite Day

Hearken back to last season in the first round of the Big East Tournament, when Myles Powell set Madison Square Garden on fire himself with a Big East-record 29 points in the first half, running the Hoyas out of the building and essentially ending the game before halftime.

Fast forward to tonight, and after the first five minutes and change, Seton Hall was on pace for 120 points, up 15-9 with not a single tally from its best player. Heck, until Powell went on a personal scoring binge, pouring in eight points in a game-sealing 10-0 run in the middle of the second half, he'd been pretty well-bottled up by Georgetown. 

The Pirates have been waiting patiently for a night like this, where everyone steps up big around Powell, who by his standards had a bit of an off night. More on that in a bit. 

The first to make it happen was...

2. Roasted Cale

Seemingly a new man in 2020, Myles Cale was the Myles that was lighting up the Hoyas in the first half. Five three-pointers was the sum of the damage, including 4-for-4 to start the game. He carried over his performance from the DePaul game, notching back-to-back double-digit outings for the first time this year.

"It's huge," head coach Kevin Willard said about Cale's recent performance. "He gives us another guy on the wing that's confident, that can shoot the basketball, and that really opens up things for Ro (Gill) in pick-and-rolls. (He's) been working extremely hard, we've been really working on his release point over the last two weeks, and he's been putting a ton of work in."

Willard went into some detail on the radio about the process for Cale this season, and expanded further tonight on the specifics of the instruction he's been giving. He likened the work on Cale's release point to tinkering with a golf swing, that it seems small, but takes time and patience to really correct.

Cale knows how much such adjustments help, too.

"It gives (us) a real boost," he said. "It's an extra person that (the defense) has to see, that they have to concentrate on. It's just me having confidence. I hear the guys all the time, harping on me, saying, 'shoot the ball, just play like you play,’ and I've been doing that."

3. Floor General

How about Quincy McKnight in this game? The senior point guard was in complete control of this one from start to finish, starting the game by assisting on four of the Pirates' first six baskets. He ended up with a career-best 10 assists (without a single turnover) to go along with 14 points and six rebounds, missing out in a bid for the second triple-double in Seton Hall history by four boards.

"Honestly, it was (a matter of) looking for my guys," McKnight said of the quick start. "Making the right pass, the right read. Ro's been setting good screens, guys have been working well off our screens and playing pick-and-roll, and that's what really worked well for us today."

Did he know how close he was to achieving what only the late Eddie Griffin had ever done in a Seton Hall uniform? 

"I definitely did," McKnight chuckled. "After I got the last two assists to Myles (Powell), everyone said, 'Board, man, it's time to board up!' When I started focusing on the rebounds, it seemed like the rebounds were all going away from me, so that was tough, but I'm happy with my stats tonight."

4. Ro' Money, Ro’ Problems (for the Hoyas)

Yup, it's time to talk about the big guy again. Romaro Gill was a force to be reckoned with on both ends of the floor, scoring a career-high 17 points and adding four blocks and eight rebounds before fouling out in the second half. He shot 6-of-9 from the floor and 5-of-6 at the free throw line to compliment his shutting down Hoyas big man Omer Yurtseven, holding him to just nine points and five boards on 3-for-14 shooting.

How impressive was Gill tonight? Ask Hoyas coach and former dominant center Patrick Ewing, who knows a thing or two about Gill's type of game.

"He's playing great," Ewing said. "He does everything that he needs to do. He protects the rim, fights for everything. He does a great job of defending in the post, blocking shots, and in pick-and-rolls, when they lob it to him, he catches it and finishes."

Not sure there's much higher praise than for someone like Ewing to pay you those type of compliments. It's fitting, because over the course of the last two years, Gill's become perhaps the best big man in the Big East in terms of affecting the game on defense. 

"What I'm proud of with Ro is the consistency in back-to-back games," Willard said. "The second half of the DePaul game, and now this game, we've been trying to get him the ball a little more around the rim so we can reward him for all the stuff he's doing defensively. I thought the guys did a great job of looking for him tonight."

5. A Complete Team

It's pretty safe to say the Pirates are no longer a one-man show, if they were ever one to begin with. Earlier this year, Myles Powell got so much attention, and rightfully so, but in the games Powell missed, Kevin Willard has found something critical for the remainder of the Pirates' season that showed up big-time tonight- comfortability and confidence in his whole roster.

"I think for me, it's much easier to navigate having gone through a couple of games without Myles to know what my rotation is and who we can depend on," he said. “When you lose a guy mid-game, it’s so hard to make an adjustment in college basketball, but when you have some time to sit there and say, ‘Okay, now we can adjust and we can do this, we can move the chess pieces around,’ I think, more than anything, it’s given me a lot of confidence in running different things for different guys at different times.”

And now that the pieces around the All-American have found their roles and are starting to succeed in them, I don't think it's premature to say that the sky's the limit for the Pirates. They head to Xavier next to look to make it a 3-0 start to conference play.