Saint Peter’s faith and affirmation culminates in MAAC championship payoff

Shaheen Holloway (second from right) steered Saint Peter’s through adversity to MAAC championship. (Photo by Bob Dea/Daly Dose Of Hoops)

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — Shaheen Holloway remembers the advice well.

It was April 2018, and the former Seton Hall point guard, fresh off his latest run to the NCAA Tournament at his alma mater as the top assistant to Kevin Willard, immediately became the top candidate for a head coaching vacancy at Saint Peter’s University after John Dunne parlayed a 12-year career of extracting blood from a stone at arguably the toughest place to win in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference into a well-deserved raise at Marist.

Never mind the fact that Holloway knew Bryan Felt — then the athletic director at Saint Peter’s — from his own stint at Seton Hall, and thus could count on a commitment to give him all the resources necessary to keep the Peacocks near the top of the MAAC. The doubters and skeptics still appeared, and were vocal in their distrust. Yet Holloway, always one to march to the beat of his own drummer, told his naysayers in no uncertain terms where their opinions could be stuck.

“I remember taking the job and everybody telling me, ‘that’s a bad job, don’t take it,” he recalled in the light of his breakthrough to the masses Saturday, a MAAC championship win that will bring the Peacocks back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2011. “And I said in my press conference, sometimes you gotta believe in yourself, bet on yourself. And that’s what I did.”

“Every place I’ve been, that’s what I did, as a player and as a coach, and everywhere I’ve been, I’ve had success. That’s what I stress to these guys all the time, you can’t run away from hard work. That’s who I am and that’s who our team is.”

Saint Peter’s is a defense-first team, its commitment to that side of the basketball being its driving force restored during a non-conference season where the Peacocks abandoned their gritty, take-no-prisoners style to try to develop an offensive identity. No matter. After a handful of games where the new approach was not working, Holloway and his players went back to the drawing board, rediscovering the style that made them so successful two years ago, a deep roster and an unselfish commitment to team basketball.

“Everybody sacrificed something,” Holloway revealed. “We’re a team that plays 10-11 guys double-figure minutes. A lot of people told me I was crazy to do that, it wouldn’t work in this day and age, but for the last couple of years, we’ve been doing it and we’ve been successful. If you practice hard, the game is easy, and so far, that’s how it’s been for us.”

Having a veteran roster in an era where the game is dominated by the transfer portal only expedited the maturation process. And following the Peacocks’ 26-day pause from mid-December to mid-January, when all but five players had to self-isolate to contain the Omicron variant of COVID-19, the results and fruits of their labor once again manifested themselves. So, too, did a hungry attitude and a motivation to prove people wrong after being somewhat slighted in all-conference voting.

“I know what I’m getting,” Holloway confidently said of his upperclassmen. “When Matt Lee was out for a month-and-a-half, we struggled because he’s our leader, our general. KC came back and he was out of shape, but once he got back in shape, I knew he was going to be good.”

“And it’s a shame Doug Edert didn’t get Sixth Man of the Year. I’m up here lobbying for my guys, but it’s the facts. When you win 14 games in the league and you only get two guys on the (all-conference) teams, it’s a little kick in the you-know-what. And these guys came out with a chip on their shoulder, and I’m proud of them, the way they carried themselves. My thing is, you handle your business off the court, you handle your business on the court.”

Arguably no one in college basketball possesses the innate ability to connect with everyone he meets quite like Holloway, one of the many reasons why the charismatic coach is so widely revered by both his players and his competition. King Rice, Holloway’s counterpart in Saturday’s MAAC championship game, praised him as not only a master tactician, but someone who helped change his own perspective in life.

“We’re very similar guys,” Rice, as fierce a competitor as the day is long, said. “As bad as it hurts me right now, I’m happy for my brother. He’s helped me grow as a man, he’s pointed a lot of things out to me that I didn’t see as a black man that I see clearer now, and he’s the younger brother in our friendship. I’m sad for our kids and our program, but I’m happy for that brother right there, because this is what it’s all about.”

“Sha’s a great human being,” Monmouth senior Shavar Reynolds proclaimed, attributing his own career to an invitation extended by Holloway to attend a Seton Hall practice, where Reynolds made a favorable impression on Pirate big man Angel Delgado to earn an opportunity as a walk-on. “It comes full circle. He gave me my first chance, and he got his first tournament against me. Nothing but respect for Sha. I’ve got nothing but love. He’s honestly the reason, one of the key parts why I’m able to talk to you and even participate this season, have my whole college career. I can’t express how much because just that simple decision that was minor to him changed my whole life. There’s endless congrats and love from me for Sha.”

But ask anyone who knows Holloway even remotely, and everyone will tell you that that is simply who he is: A man grounded in his faith, his family — immediate and extended — and his selfless desire to include everyone in his joy, which now includes a cloud nine experience that only reaffirms the message of the journey they all share together.

“For these guys to believe in what I was doing here and what we could do here, this day was big,” Holloway admitted. “I don’t get too high. I’m not that excited right now, maybe later on tonight, I will be. I just want to make these young gentlemen understand what it’s all about. It’s about family.”