5 Thoughts: Seton Hall blown away by Xavier

Souley Boum led Xavier with 23 points Friday as Musketeers routed Seton Hall. (Photo by Bob Dea/Daly Dose Of Hoops)

By Jason Guerette (@JPGuerette)

NEWARK, N.J. — Seton Hall came into a sold-out Prudential Center Friday night desperately needing a quality win for its NCAA Tournament resume. After a loss at UConn last weekend, the Pirates also needed a spark at home.

But with their best player, Kadary Richmond, sidelined with a back injury, Seton Hall played its worst half of the season to start the game, digging a 19-point hole at halftime from which it could not recover in an ugly 82-60 loss to 16th-ranked Xavier.

Here are the 5 Thoughts:

1. Xavier Goes Boum

Not a lot of teams have had an answer for Xavier guard Souley Boum all year long, but he put up a surgical first half, scoring 13 points on 5-for-7 shooting along with a 3-for-4 mark from deep. He also added three rebounds and three assists without a single turnover in 19 minutes. Boum was the best player on the floor without a doubt, and he had help as well, with Xavier following his lead to the tune of 52 percent shooting as well as a 6-of-10 mark from beyond the arc.

But Boum also kept it up in the second half, finishing with 23 points on 8-of-13 shooting and 5-for-8 from deep. In basketball, when you have the best player on the court, you're going to win a majority of those games, and Boum was the alpha dog in Newark. Even if Seton Hall had played well, it's not likely the Pirates would have prevailed with how the graduate student played tonight.

2. Backbreakers

Two sequences defined the first 20 minutes, and as it turned out, the game itself. The first one came early, with the game tied at 7 after a ragged start. Femi Odukale blocked Cesare Edwards’ hook shot inside, and in the scrum in the corner that followed, the ball was called out off the Pirates, a call the Seton Hall bench disagreed with. Then, with the shot clock winding down, Adam Kunkel tossed up a three, which ended up going in, deflating the crowd a bit as Pirate fans responded with an audible groan.

The second one came later in the half, when the Musketeers were already comfortably ahead. KC Ndefo knocked the ball away for a steal, and missed a driving layup. Seton Hall got on the offensive glass, and Odukale almost rammed it back in, but also missed. Xavier then raced back the other way, and Boum spotted up to can a 3-pointer for a five-point swing.

Head coach Shaheen Holloway was asked what has been missing over the last few games aside from players being out with injuries, and his answer was that the Pirates are letting teams get on runs, falling behind, then having to expend so much energy to come back that they run out of gas.

Which is exactly what happened tonight: Those big swings led to a big first-half run, and the second half followed that script that Holloway stated in the press conference.

3. Pirate Push... But X'd Out

While Seton Hall was not able to dig itself out of that halftime hole, it should be noted that it almost did. The Pirates began the second half on a spirited 12-1 run that both woke up the crowd and cut the lead all the way down to eight points at 41-33. It looked like a completely different team came out of the locker room. 

“We had a talk and told the guys, ‘you gotta man up, you gotta come out and defend,’” Holloway said. “It was a great crowd, a very important game, and coming out flat because we had trouble scoring kind of hurt us on defense. And then letting these guys hit five or six threes in the first half, something they do really well, was unacceptable. So we had a talk. I thought the guys came out the first five minutes of the second half and got right back into it.”

But after Sean Miller called a timeout, his team regrouped. It was Boum (who else?) who kick-started what became a 12-0 game-deciding Musketeers run with a 3-pointer, a run that also included both of Seton Hall's top defenders (Ndefo and Odukale) picking up their fourth fouls. Already down Richmond, Seton Hall just could not keep up as Xavier rolled on to the win.

4. Sanders Shows Out

The lone bright spot in this game was freshman Jaquan Sanders, who came off the bench to score 11 points, giving the Hall a sorely needed bucket-getter on a night where nothing went right, including the shots going through the hoop.

“He showed something,” Holloway said. “He went in there and made some shots for us, which we desperately need. I just gotta get him to defend now, right? When you score 11 points, you can’t give up 11 points. But it was good that he was ready.”

“I’ve been talking to him about being ready. He came in and I thought he made some shots for us, he made some plays. That’s good for me to see, because we need somebody to make some shots moving forward.”

5. Running Out Of Time

Local bracketologist Brad Wachtel tweeted out after the game that Seton Hall's NCAA chances following this loss are bleak, adding the Pirates likely have to win their final two games (at home vs. Villanova, at Providence), plus two more at Madison Square Garden in two weeks to have a shot. Most bracket-minded folks had the Pirates in the “Next Four Out” category entering tonight's action.

So, yes, in short, this loss does damage Seton Hall's standing when it comes to March Madness, moving the Pirates to the brink if not outright extinguishing their hopes. The ending of this game, with Sanders and Boum getting into an altercation that resulted in double technical fouls and Ndefo ejected for leaving the bench area, was ugly, and it ended what turned out to be an ugly loss.

Holloway addressed the situation after the game.

“First, let me say I want to apologize for what happened at the end of the game,” Holloway said. “That should never happen. As the head coach, I take full responsibility for that. My guys gotta do better, I gotta do better, it will never happen again."

“We got beat pretty bad in all phases…on the court, coaching, everything,” he continued. “It’s disappointing because I thought we had a good couple days of preparation. You can’t let a team come out like that and get 40 points in the first half, especially coming off a loss. I knew they were gonna come out and get fired up, but I thought we had a good couple days and it’s disappointing because I didn’t expect this. But I’ll take the blame for it, it’s on me. We gotta do better, I gotta do better.”

I know for a fact that the Pirates won't want this game to be the enduring memory of the end of their season, so it will be on the players and Holloway to sail the ship into calmer waters down the stretch. In essence, do better, as Holloway stated.

In the intervening time between tonight and its next game Tuesday against a much-improved Villanova team finally healthy and playing up to its potential, Seton Hall will need to do some soul-searching, and perhaps use this stinging defeat as fuel to bounce back before stepping onto the Big East Tournament stage. Like Holloway said, the Pirates won't want what transpired tonight to happen again.