3 Thoughts: Seton Hall’s 10-game win streak halted as Pirates lose to Xavier

Quincy McKnight scored 15 points, but is day-to-day after sustaining knee injury in second half of Seton Hall’s loss to Xavier Saturday. (Photo by Bob Dea/Daly Dose Of Hoops)

NEWARK, N.J. — Winners of ten straight games, the longest winning streak in the program since its banner 1992-93 season, Seton Hall put its unblemished Big East Conference record on the line Saturday morning, hosting Xavier in an 11 a.m. tipoff to conclude a three-game homestand as well as the first half of league play.

Fittingly, the first half — as it has been for the 10th-ranked Pirates in recent weeks — proved to be the difference.

Allowing a game-opening 30-6 run to the Musketeers, Seton Hall (16-5, 8-1 Big East) pulled within seven points late in the second half, but got no closer after that, as Xavier ripped off seven unanswered markers of its own to pull away to a 74-62 victory at Prudential Center, scoring a massive upset that will resonate in March while handing the Pirates their first Big East loss of the season.

On the bright side, Seton Hall remains in sole possession of first place in the Big East after Villanova lost to Creighton on Saturday, a game that moved the Bluejays to within two games of the conference lead. Of greater concern for the league leaders, however, is the status of point guard Quincy McKnight, who appeared to twist his left knee on a drive to the basket with 6:02 remaining in regulation.

Head coach Kevin Willard initially said the injury was not as bad as it looked when discussing it on his postgame radio interview, but later went on to clarify that he did not have any idea of just how severe it was at the present moment. McKnight’s health leads off our troika of thoughts from the Garden State:

1) Q&A

McKnight scored a team-high 15 points before drawing a foul on Xavier’s Tyrique Jones that sent him down to the floor, favoring his knee. Willard and Seton Hall trainer Tony Testa immediately tended to the senior point guard, with Myles Powell looking on a few feet away, a legitimate look of concern on his face for his backcourt running mate. Although Willard would not definitively speculate as to the status of his floor general, Sandro Mamukelashvili — who accurately diagnosed Powell’s ankle injury against Stony Brook in November — offered a more introspective synopsis.

“He’s looking good,” the junior forward, in just his second game back since returning Wednesday from a fractured right wrist, said of McKnight. “They said it’s a little bruise on his knee. Hopefully we’re going to have him back for Georgetown (Wednesday night), so I’m really happy nothing serious happened to him.”

2) “They pretty much punked us.”

Myles Cale opened the scoring for the Pirates 53 seconds into the action, but the brief 2-0 lead was the only advantage Seton Hall would have, as the hosts were quickly done in by Xavier’s efficient shooting and domination of the boards, the latter being executed to the tune of a 51-22 rebounding edge that sophomore forward Jared Rhoden chalked up to a lackluster beginning that needs to be collectively addressed.

“It just takes us a while to get our bodies going,” he said. “It’s something we’re trying to work on, especially early in practices, just trying to get our motors going, trying to get our energy going early in the game so we can get started.”

“It was really bad,” he added, citing the 30-6 start. “We didn’t really rebound the ball too well, we weren’t talking, communicating defense. We weren’t playing Seton Hall basketball overall, and that’s on us. It’s an early game and we kind of came out lethargic, and we knew that that was going to happen playing an early game today. It just really wasn’t our day overall.”

Before Seton Hall hosted Cincinnati in 2013, Mick Cronin, now the head coach at UCLA, once spoke of 11 a.m. starts as being more advantageous to road teams due to the ability to get off the bus and start shooting around as though it was just another day at the office, whereas the home team would have its routine drastically altered from a traditional evening tipoff. Willard, however, was more pragmatic about the loss, not making any excuse for the morning soirée, instead giving credit to Xavier for simply being the better team.

“I thought Xavier came out and played terrific,” he stated. “We weren’t going undefeated. It’s great that we started off 8-0, but if you don’t play well in this league, you’re going to take a loss. It’s one loss. It’s conference play. It’s going to happen.”

3) Mr. Brightside

One positive for the Pirates was Mamukelashvili’s production, scoring 10 points in just over 16 minutes while making four of his five field goal attempts. With Powell struggling, shooting 3-of-14 from the floor in an effort Willard attributes to simply going through a rough patch, the lift the junior forward gave Seton Hall proved to be a welcome shot in the arm.

“I was excited about Sandro,” said Willard. “He played about four more minutes than I was planning, but I thought he gave us good energy, I thought he was aggressive. He showed me that he’s coming along, so I think he looked pretty good.”

“It helps me a lot,” Mamukelashvili opined, concurring with the offensive spike being beneficial to his confidence. “The first game against DePaul was weird and everything was going so fast, but Coach told me not to worry about stuff. He said it’s just the beginning, that I’m going to get more playing time. I felt going into this game that I was more confident.”