5 Thoughts: Villanova stumps Seton Hall in Willard’s return

By Jason Guerette (@JPGuerette)

NEWARK, N.J. — When Kevin Willard was hired to be the head coach at Villanova this past offseason, you immediately circled this game on the calendar, when he would return to Prudential Center to coach against the program he rescued from the scrap heap and elevated to prominence.

And on Tuesday night in Newark, the Wildcats hit a bunch of threes early to build a halftime lead, then used a 16-0 run in the second half fueled by their defense to put the game out of reach, running away with what became a 64-56 victory over Seton Hall that marked the Pirates’ second loss of the season, a letdown for the home side after a stirring win at Providence over the weekend.

Here are the Thoughts:

1. Budd in the Mud

It's been a roller-coaster ride for Budd Clark in the last three games. Against Rutgers, he dominated from the start. On Friday against the Friars, he was held in check for the most part, but came up enormous when the game was in the balance.

Tonight, he struggled badly. After picking up two fouls in the first 1:15 of the contest, he played just five minutes in the first half, and could not find any sort of flow, finishing with just four points on 1-for-11 shooting and four personal fouls along with only two assists, and with all four points coming late when the game was out of reach.

“I thought having those two fouls early kind of got him out of rhythm,” Seton Hall head coach Shaheen Holloway said after the game. “He’s not used to sitting. Then with him sitting down, we didn’t really get into the flow of the offense too much, and I thought in the second half, he came out aggressive, missed a couple shots. They got a couple runouts and then from there, we were trying to play catch-up. He had a tough game, and not just him. A lot of our guys had tough shooting games tonight.”

“Our whole game plan was to make Budd a scorer,” Willard said about the Pirates’ lead guard. “You can’t let him spray (passes), he’s so good at spraying it. We would have changed up our defense if he was making shots, but you can’t let Williams and (Staton-)McCray make threes, because it really ignites their defense.”

More on that last point in a bit.

Seton Hall was able to weather the storm in the first half despite getting almost nothing from its most important player thanks to forcing turnovers and crashing the glass, but when the struggles continued deep into the second half, the Pirates’ offense could not pick up the slack against a Villanova defense that, if nothing else, was sound and physical.

One of the hallmarks of the early season for the Pirates is that they have so many players who can lead the charge, but against good competition in the Big East, they’re going to need to be led, if not statistically, then spiritually, by their point guard.

2. Remember Who You Are

Tonight was a rough night, no doubt about it. But even on nights like tonight, it was good to see the Pirates’ identity show through, at least on paper.

Point No. 1: Balance, although maybe not enough of it volume-wise. Seton Hall got another solid outing from Elijah Fisher, with 13 points, four rebounds, and two steals, continuing to be maybe the stickiest of The Hall’s glue guys.

Josh Rivera played a good hustle game as well, finishing with a season-high 10 points, and playing well at the head of the Pirates’ full-court press in the second half when they fell behind by 20 and needed a spark.

“It’s a positive for him because it gives him more confidence,” Holloway said. “He understands what I want from him. He has to play like that all the time, not just sometimes, play with that type of energy and passion. If he does that, he’ll see more minutes.”

Point No. 2: Defensive hustle. According to the Pirates’ skipper, it was there “in spurts” tonight, but just not on a consistent basis. The final tallies were nonetheless pretty good, with 18 turnovers forced and 23 points off those takeaways, as Seton Hall finished a plus-14 in that regard over the Wildcats. If those kind of numbers are present on an off night, if and when The Hall’s pressure gets really going, look out.

Even the opposing coach had something to say about that.

“They make it so hard for you to execute,” Willard said after the game. “If they play defense like that all year, they’re a second round NCAA Tournament team.”

But it didn’t translate onto the scoreboard because...

3. Buckets Absent

The saying that offense wins games, but defense wins championships, gets bandied about a ton in a lot of different situations in many different sports. But the reality is that if you can’t put the ball in the basket, you’re not going to be successful.

And in Seton Hall’s case, it also doesn’t allow them to reach its full potential on defense if the ball doesn’t go in the hoop.

“We didn’t make any shots, so we couldn’t get in our press,” Holloway said. “Then, down the stretch, you’re playing comeback, you’re making some steals, and scoring, now you can get in your press. But we couldn't score, and when you don’t get in your press against a team like that, they run the shot clock down. They run all these dribble handoffs, and the point guard’s phenomenal. And when they make shots, they’re a tough team to beat.”

Clark will get the brunt of the comments tonight, but Seton Hall shot just 3-for-13 from deep as a unit, and the other big-gun guard from Friday’s win at Providence also struggled, with Tajuan Simpkins going just 2-for-11 from the field for six points. As Holloway mentioned, a lot of guys who have stepped up at times this season had off nights.

Speaking of that point guard for Villanova...

4. Awesome Acaden

I was impressed by Villanova overall tonight, but Acaden Lewis maybe the most. As only a freshman playing in his first Big East game, he scored Villanova’s first six points, including converting a four-point play while drawing Clark's fateful second foul. He finished with a game-high 16 points on 6-for-11 shooting, adding five rebounds and a pair of assists along with three steals.

“Acaden Lewis is special, man,” Willard said. “He’s had one bad college game so far in my eyes, no one played (well) at Michigan. But you look at what he’s done…we start two freshmen, a sophomore, a junior and a senior, and they’re getting better and better. He’s a special point guard.”

A former point guard himself and developer of guards, Holloway also had good things to say about Lewis afterwards.

“I thought he played well,” the Pirates’ head man said. “I think we didn’t do a good job of putting him on his heels, pressuring him, making him think. I thought he played free, and when you play free, you play well.”

For a younger team entering its first Big East action against a Seton Hall team playing so well coming in, and on the road with a first-year point guard, Villanova was uncommonly poised despite The Hall being able to turn them over. It’s something that we saw over and over again from Willard’s Seton Hall teams of the past: They would go to places like Maryland, Michigan, Madison Square Garden against a pro-Kentucky crowd, and win those games.

“We’re battle-tested,” Willard said of his new team. “We’ve played BYU on the road, Michigan on the road, Wisconsin on the road, we’ve had to play three Big 5 games. I’ve got a lot of confidence that our guys have played some really good teams, and watching Seton Hall on film, we knew we were going to have to play very well to get a win.”

And play well, they did, taking the first of what figures to be many head-to-head matchups between Willard and Holloway. I look forward to watching future matchups between the former mentor and mentee in Big East play.

5. Willard Returns

I’ve told the story before, but I’ll tell it again. Back in 2010, Seton Hall was in desperate need of a reset. Coming off a Bobby Gonzalez era that I’ll be kind and describe as tumultuous, and an end to said era that embarrassed the program, I remember attending the press conference at Walsh Gymnasium introducing Kevin Willard as the head coach of the Pirates. I came away from that press conference knowing that The Hall got someone who could handle the task ahead.

It took time, but once Willard was able to elevate the talent level of players in the program, things took off like a rocket ship. A school that hadn't sniffed the NCAA Tournament in a decade broke through in 2016 with a Big East championship, and became a fixture on Selection Sunday. Even though those great teams were only able to win one game in the gauntlet that is the Big Dance, what Willard did was outstanding over 12 years leading the Pirates.

It’s what made the appreciative ovation just before the national anthem when Seton Hall played a tribute video to its former coach hit home. That was the appropriate reaction from a sold-out Prudential Center, even if afterwards, it reverted to fans wanting nothing more than to see him go down on the other sideline.

Willard himself put things in perspective when talking about how it was to come back to a building he once got rocking like it had never rocked before.

“When I got this (Seton Hall) job, I had a one-year old and a three-year old,” he said. “Now, I have a senior in high school and a freshman in college. This place helped raise my family in a very special way. We still have the same security guards that used to carry my kids after games back there, the same alumni, so for me, that was kind of the emotional part. We went through the pictures, we relived a lot of the good times, relived a lot of the bad times. This place is a very special place because they take care of their own.”

When he left for Maryland, though it wasn’t the cleanest exit ever, the reason I wasn’t really torn up about it as a Seton Hall alum myself was appreciation for what he accomplished. I was a student when he was hired in South Orange, and saw firsthand the magnitude of the task ahead, and to go from those lows to the heights he hit was special. It remains a crime that his best Seton Hall team got shut down by the pandemic.

I’ll close by saying it’s nice to have him back in the Big East Conference, if for no other reason than his dryest of wit will give us all some good things to write about when the Wildcats are in town.

For Seton Hall, it’s back to the drawing board after Christmas to take on a Marquette squad that has struggled to find its footing this year. Thanks for reading, and Happy Holidays to all!