After a first half which saw Seton Hall finish on a 25-7 run, the Pirates found themselves in unfamiliar territory.
The Butler Bulldogs had flipped the script, scoring 11 unanswered points to cut what was once a 12 point-Pirate lead to just one with eight minutes remaining in regulation.
Normally a second half team, The Hall looked for answers, and found one in a player who has made big shots his calling card during his time in South Orange: Shavar Reynolds.
Off a Myles Cale offensive rebound, Reynolds drained a clutch three to stop the bleeding. He would end the last eight minutes with seven points and two assists, stabilizing the Pirates’ offense, and guiding them to a 68-60 win over the Bulldogs at Prudential Center. Per usual, Reynolds’ numbers weren’t eye-popping, but his contribution went far beyond the box score.
“I don’t really prepare for clutch moments,” Reynolds said after the game. “I just shoot the shot. I practice it a thousand times, tens of thousands of times, so it's the same shots. I'm just glad my teammates have the confidence in me to pass me the ball for those moments.”
“I thought he played great,” head coach Kevin Willard said of his point guard. “He was a little bit more aggressive on the pick-and-rolls. He tried to get downhill, tried to get in the lane. And I think sometimes, he's not passive, but I think he's trying to make the right read a little bit. And I think he understood that Sandro hadn't come out, and they were doing a good job on the wings, and I thought he did a good job of being aggressive and trying to get to the hole.”
Seton Hall (8-4, 5-1 Big East) ended the first half today in a similar way with which it ended the first half on Wednesday against Xavier. While the Pirates poured 15 unanswered points on the Musketeers in Cincinnati, today they outscored the Bulldogs by 16 over the last 9:37 of the opening stanza, extending the run to 24-5 on the first play of the second half. The shooting of Myles Tate for Butler helped keep LaVall Jordan’s scrappy Bulldogs in the game. Tate finished with 22 points on 5-of-8 shooting from 3-point range, including two which were, at the very least, close to 30 feet away. Sloppy ball handling also played a role in The Hall’s near-collapse, as the Pirates committee seven turnovers in a near-eight-minute stretch in the second half, keeping the Bulldogs afloat.
Sandro Mamukelashvili continued his rip-roaring start to the season with a boxascore filling performance, tallying 24 points, nine rebounds, and six assists in just another display of why Mamu is a contender for Big East Player of the Year honors, as well as the Karl Malone Award for the nation’s best power forward, and why the race for the Haggerty Award appears to be a two-horse race between the 6-foot-11 Georgian and Ron Harper, Jr. of Rutgers.
“I really believe he's got another level that he's gonna play at as the season goes on,” Willard said of his star. “There's times where I think he just gets a little ahead of himself. I think once he realizes the speed that he needs to play with at times, you're going to see a player take another jump this season, I truly believe that. I think he’s the best player in the country right now, but I also think that you're going to see him get better as the season goes on.”
It was outside shooting, however, that nearly felled the Pirates today. A 7-of-24 clip from distance continues a trend of poor perimeter shooting, as The Hall has only shot above 40 percent from three twice this season, and have shot a combined 32 percent from distance in its last four games.
Nobody seemed to tell Jared Rhoden about the Pirates’ offensive struggles. The versatile junior had what has become a typical game for him, with 19 points and seven rebounds. His rise from role player to All-Big East shoe-in is an embodiment of the consistent player development that the Seton Hall program has had under Willard.
“The consistency that we have with with losing good players and having really good players ready to step up and be in the fold in the program, I think it just kind of shows you where the program’s at,” Willard said, as he is now just one win away from 200 in his Seton Hall career, which would put him just 12 behind PJ Carlesimo for second all-time in South Orange.
Despite Butler coming in shorthanded missing top scorer Aaron Thompson for the fifth straight game, as well as promising freshman JaKobe Coles — who sustained an injury in practice — the win is no less meaningful for The Hall, which has now won three straight and seven of its last eight. At 8-4, Seton Hall now enters the meat of the condensed Big East schedule, with a trip to Creighton awaiting on Wednesday. The 11th-ranked Bluejays have been far from unbeatable so far, needing a last-second dunk to get past Providence today, but they provide the biggest test so far for the Pirates. A trip to the Pavilion to take on Villanova also awaits in January, a building in which the Pirates haven’t won since 1994. Return trips from both Creighton and Villanova also come in January, making it a make-or-break month if the team wants to make its fifth straight NCAA Tournament appearance.
Regardless of what the future holds, 8-4 is a record the Pirates will take after a 1-3 start, capped off by a game which has embodied their season up to this point.
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