5 Thoughts: Seton Hall stumbles again, loses to Monmouth

By Jason Guerette (@JPGuerette)

NEWARK, N.J. — The entire Big East Conference has struggled this season with the non-conference schedule.

Seton Hall is no exception, losing at Walsh Gym to Fordham and on Long Island to Hofstra. In both of those games, The Hall was beaten late, with the free throw line the main culprit for the defeats against the local mid-majors.

Today in Newark, it wasn’t close. The Pirates yet again struggled at the line, but their trademark defense was absent in the second half as 0-8 Monmouth beat them for the first time ever, 63-51, at the Prudential Center for the Hawks’ first win of the season.

Here are the Thoughts from a rough day at the office for The Hall:

1. Hard Times in Babylon

Seton Hall played this game without Dylan Addae-Wusu, who had the flu, so the Pirates were without one of their top individual defenders. Nevertheless, they defended well in the first half, sticking in front of their men, and giving the type of effort we’ve been accustomed to seeing this year.

The second half was a different story. Seton Hall left shooters wide open, was a bit chaotic in its rotations, and as a result, Monmouth opened the second stanza on fire, shooting upwards of 60 percent in the first 10 minutes and 4-for-6 from downtown. In the end, the Pirates dug a hole that was too big to get out of. Overall, the tally read 54 percent shooting for the visitors after halftime, and 6-for-11 from deep.

“Today was a bad game for us,” head coach Shaheen Holloway said. “It sucks because we're at home, you kind of want to build off of last week in Charleston, but I thought it was a total letdown. Not good.”

Lapses on that end of the floor are just not something Seton Hall can afford this season, and today showed why. Down the stretch, buoyed by their efforts, it was Monmouth that was playing the type of scrappy defense that Seton Hall is known for. The Hawks were the team getting deflections, and diving on loose balls, a bitter dose of The Hall's own medicine to rub in the defeat, and an illustration of needing to get back to the drawing board.

“We can’t back down,” Holloway said. “Nobody is going to feel sorry for us. We just have to keep fighting, keep building. As the head coach, I’ve got to find a way to get us ready. I thought we didn't have a great week of practice, a lot of guys were banged up and tired from the trip, so I tried to save guys’ legs. But we just have to get back to being who we are. That’s it.”

2. Free Throws

The Pirates’ difficulties at the charity stripe have been well-documented, coming into this game hitting on just 60 percent of their attempts on the year. As I mentioned, both of their previous losses outside of Charleston essentially came down to the free throw line

In the second half, they hit just one of their first six attempts, drawing boos from the crowd. When Manny Okorafor hit one on their next trip, the fans responded with a Bronx cheer.

“We’ve just got to keep working on them,” Holloway said of the free throws. “We work on them a lot. Guys make them in practice. But we just have to keep working at it.”

Again, for a team that struggles to score consistently, they simply cannot afford to throw away easy opportunities to get points at the line, especially because they tend to get fouled due to how hard they play on a regular basis.

3. Bashir Bashes the Hall

Abdi Bashir came in as Monmouth’s clear alpha dog on paper, averaging a shade under 20 points per game this season. Notably, he dropped 38 on Rutgers at the RAC to keep Monmouth in that contest. And in the first half today, he lived up to the billing, scoring 18 points on 7-for-10 shooting, including 4-for-5 from three-point range. The tough part about it for Seton Hall is the Pirates defended him well. Not many of his makes were open. 

There’s no doubt that Addae-Wusu would have been the primary defender on Bashir had he played, but I'm not sure how much of a difference he would have made given the difficulty of the shots that he was able to make in the first half. Bashir continued his strong play in the second half, finishing with 28 points on 11-for-19 shooting and 6-for-9 from deep, a very impressive line for someone who should be one of the top scorers in the CAA this season.

4. Second Efforts

A couple of positives now. Seton Hall trailed at the half of this game by two points, but it could have been worse if not for the Pirates’ effort on the offensive glass, turning six offensive rebounds into 12 points. It was a team effort that was sorely needed to stay with Bashir’s hot shooting. In true Holloway fashion, the production was spread out evenly, with five different players recording those second chances. Efforts like that will certainly help The Hall’s cause offensively. 

But as we have said, the Pirates will need more than just that. Case in point, Monmouth played a zone defense today that had great effect on the Pirates, a defense that, by Hawks head coach King Rice’s own admission, his team hasn’t played very often in the past. Holloway said after the game, however, that Seton Hall was prepared to play against it, but the ball didn’t move enough. It goes to further illustrate how it must be a team effort on a nightly basis for the Pirates to have success, both in preparation and execution.

5. The Book of Isaiah

Isaiah Coleman came alive down in Charleston, as the sophomore guard scored in double figures in two of the three contests, setting a career-best with 20 points against Vanderbilt. Today, he led the Pirates with 20 points on a pretty efficient 8-for-13 shooting overall. 

He was also in foul trouble in this game, picking up his third personal foul just 90 seconds into the second half, but Holloway showed trust in him, keeping him on the floor anyway, and Coleman rewarded his head coach's confidence, scoring 14 of his 20 points after halftime while not picking up a single additional foul the rest of the game. 

Hopefully for the Pirates, he can emerge as a consistent second scorer alongside Chaunce Jenkins, because the team could certainly use the production.