5 Thoughts: Seton Hall suffers heartbreak again in loss to Georgetown

By Jason Guerette (@JPGuerette)

NEWARK, N.J. — The temperature in Newark was below freezing all day Sunday, and as Seton Hall played its Big East home opener against Georgetown, the Pirates looked to get out of a deep freeze of their own, coming in with a three-game losing streak against a young 9-2 Hoyas squad riding high after blowing out Creighton on Wednesday.

And Seton Hall trailed the entire game, but willed its way to the brink of winning thanks to turning the visitors over and the Hoyas building a brick house at the free throw line. But with a chance to win, Dylan Addae-Wusu lost his dribble, and the Pirates suffered yet another heartbreaking loss by a 61-60 score at Prudential Center, falling to Georgetown for the first time in eight meetings and the first time at home in a decade.

Here are the 5 Thoughts:

1. End Game

Against all odds, despite a bad shooting night, Seton Hall still had a chance to win after forcing Georgetown into its 19th turnover of the game with 10.2 seconds left in regulation.

But after Addae-Wusu brought the ball into the frontcourt, he tried to get it to Isaiah Coleman, who had a career-high 25 points in the game and has proven to be Seton Hall’s best player in recent weeks. With the seconds ticking away, Coleman couldn't shake free of his man, leaving Addae-Wusu with the responsibility to create the game-winning play.

He fumbled the ball trying to cross over, nullifying any chance the Pirates had of getting a shot off, and sealing the game for Georgetown.

“Yeah, we had two options off (of) it,” head coach Shaheen Holloway said after the game of the final play. “Obviously, neither one of them worked...one was to get it to Isaiah and Dylan just had to go…I don’t know, he just ran out of time, I guess.”

Now, Seton Hall had a timeout in the bag, and in hindsight, it might have been a good idea to use it once the initial plan to get the ball to Coleman failed, even with just a few seconds remaining. Addae-Wusu is one of the closest things the Pirates have to a point guard, but he’s not the greatest ball handler, and taking that timeout would have given Holloway a chance to draw up a play on an out-of-bounds set, which has honestly been a really solid strength of the Pirates this season and in this particular game as well. But Holloway also had some more to say on the game's final sequence.

“If the play is for you, you gotta go get the basketball, you can’t get denied,” he said. “And I don’t want to blame him, that didn’t lose the game for us, that didn’t lose the game at all...but there are good ones, and the great ones, they go get the basketball.”

“Give (Isaiah) credit, I give a lot of credit,” Holloway added. “He said, ‘Coach, I want the ball.’ That’s why I switched the play up. Alright, go get it, you can’t get denied. He got denied and kind of just stopped. And I told Dylan at the same time, ‘if you can’t give it to him, just go. You go.’ And then he kind of got stuck, and we ran out of time.”

The whole sequence illustrates the need for the Pirates to find an alpha dog to get the ball to when the game is on the line, something the skipper most certainly addressed after things were finished tonight.

“I gotta get a closer. Period,” Holloway said. “You need a closer. When you guys—when I say, ‘you guys,’ the media, you’ve been around a long time. I’m gonna say this and I don’t want you guys to take offense to it—at the end of the games, there’s not too much coaches can do. And I’m not throwing my players under the bus, I’m just being totally honest right now. At the end of the game, the players gotta make plays, right? I gotta put them in position to make plays, so that’s on me, but we just need somebody that wants to be a closer and wants the ball.”

From what I’ve seen this season, that should be Coleman. He’s strong with the ball in his hands, he can raise up and shoot over most perimeter defenders, and he can also get to the rim and finish with his size and strength.

2. What Trenton Makes, the Hoyas Take

Georgetown freshman big man and native Trentonian Thomas Sorber was quoted as being disappointed in an article by Adam Zagoria on NJ.com the other day that neither Rutgers (who didn’t recruit him at all) nor Seton Hall (who apparently got involved late) didn’t give him attention coming out of high school.

“I’ll say I was kind of hurt from not receiving any calls from my hometown state,” Sorber said in the article.

Well, boy, could Seton Hall use a player like him. Sorber is currently getting everyone’s attention by averaging 15 points, eight rebounds, and a pair of blocks per game, and he torched the Pirates for 13 points in the first half, showing both an ability to finish near the basket, post up, and hit a mid-range jumper.

One of the things that can alleviate Seton Hall’s struggles overall is becoming a better free throw shooting team, and the Pirates were pretty good Sunday, going 11-for-14 in the second half, but another is having a player that you can throw the ball to in the paint to diversify the offense and not have to rely on the guards to do it all themselves. 

No one has stepped up and proven to be that guy yet, and I don’t think you can say that any of Seton Hall’s bigs is a true threat to post up. Sorber is giving that to Georgetown, and did so tonight, leading the Hoyas with 19 points, adding eight boards, four blocks, and a game-best eight fouls drawn.

3. Fightin’ Pirates

Georgetown was never allowed to run away with this game in the second half. The Pirates got nine early points from Coleman to get within four at one point, and then when the Hoyas attempted to extend their advantage, they weren't able to get the lead past about seven or eight.

Seton Hall kept turning the Hoyas over, creating opportunities to chip away, and occasionally, it did, and then was finally able to get within striking distance late. The Pirates amassed 22 offensive rebounds in the contest, a clear, tell-tale sign of effort in the box score. But constantly being put in that position is the thing that's holding Seton Hall back. 

“What lost the game for us was we can’t keep spotting teams,” Holloway said. “We’re spotting teams points in the first half, right? Then we try to come back and we waste a lot of energy coming back, and guys are a little fatigued.”

This game felt very similar to the Oklahoma State game two weeks ago, a poor first half put Seton Hall in the hole, a great surge in the second half gave the

Pirates a shot, but ultimately, things didn’t go their way. This time around, the game was closer at the end because of all of Georgetown’s misses at the free throw line and the fact that the Hoyas are a much younger team than the Cowboys are.

A common denominator in both comebacks? Well, there’s one player in particular that has been on the court for a large portion of both of them:

4. All Aboard the Gus Bus

If you look at Gus Yalden’s time in the box score, you will see a very modest stat line: Two points on 1-of-3 shooting and one offensive rebound, one assist, one steal, and a pair of blocks along with five fouls in 13-and-a-half minutes. But of all of the players on the roster for Seton Hall, it’s the big guy from Wisconsin that seems to stand out as a player who brings energy to the court whenever he’s out there. 

One thing is certain, the fans cannot get enough of the guy. Each time he even got up off the bench and took off his warmup shirt to check into the game tonight, the Pirate faithful immediately started to cheer. The loudest the Rock got all night was when Yalden scored his lone basket, making a few pivots in the post for a score that further cut into the Hoyas’ lead.

Energy from the fans directly translates into energy from the players. Every athlete you can possibly name from all throughout human history would say that vocal crowds get their juices flowing, and can lift them to incredible feats. And when Yalden exhorts the crowd to do so whenever he’s out there, they respond in kind.

I asked Holloway about Yalden after the game.

“Gus is a good player,” he said. “Gus is hurting Gus, like, he overthinks everything. Just play basketball. He played tonight, he just played. He’s physical, he set some good screens, got us some second-chance points. There’s a lot of stuff I gotta look at moving forward.”

One of the things I hope he looks at is finding more playing time for Yalden. He mentioned postgame that Seton Hall needs to get more from its big men, and I don’t think it can really hurt to give the “Gus Bus” a shot at providing that given what he already provides his teammates and the fans, too.

5. Future Outlook

Georgetown head coach Ed Cooley, who has been a mentor to Holloway, was asked about what his advice would be as the Pirates have one of their toughest seasons in about 10 years. 

“It's very difficult when you’rw going through these rebuilding or restructuring (years) and you’re not used to it,” Cooley said. “I would tell him (to) trust what he’s doing, because you’re right there. I mean, this has got to be the third or fourth game he’s lost at the buzzer, so if you win one, two, or even three of those, we’re not even having the same conversation."

It’s very true. If the Pirates had found a way to beat Fordham, Hofstra, and/or Rutgers, the narrative would be a heck of a lot different than it currently is, standing 5-8 and 0-2 in Big East play. 

I will say this: As a coach, Holloway’s teams have a combined winning percentage of .481 in November and December, but after the calendar turns to the new year, that leaps up to .686 in January, February and March.

Suffice it to say that there is precedent for a turnaround, although this is probably the toughest challenge of all for Holloway in his coaching career. As frustrating as it is for Pirate fans—and trust me, I know the frustrations—staying the course through the stormy seas is kind of the school motto, one that you would hope Seton Hall would find a way to follow in the coming weeks.