BIG EAST Semifinals Set With Top Four Seeds Read For Friday Action
By SEAN BRENNAN
Special to BIGEAST.com
Kevin Willard is tired of talking about last year, about the end-of-the-year meltdown brought on by dissension in the ranks, about last year’s BIG EAST Tournament when his Seton Hall Pirates bowed out meekly to Marquette in the first round.
This is a new year. The dissension is a thing of the past, winning has replaced infighting and even the BIG EAST Tournament has a different feel to it this season. Thursday night third-seeded Seton Hall showed what it can do when these young Pirates are all on the same page as they fought off a sensational outing by Creighton’s Cole Huff and a gutty bunch of Bluejays to pull out a hard-fought 81-73 victory in a quarterfinal-round game in the BIG EAST Tournament Presented by Jeep Brand.
The victory moves the Pirates (23-8) into a semifinal matchup with No. 2 seed Xavier Friday night at 9 p.m. Xavier earned its’ trip to the semifinals with a convincing 90-72 victory over Marquette. Seton Hall and Xavier split their two meeting this season with the Pirates taking the latest encounter, 90-81, on February 28.
“I answered a lot of last-year questions. We’re a different basketball team,” Willard said. “We have different personnel. These guys – Khadeen (Carrington), Isaiah (Whitehead), Angel (Delgado), Ish (Ishmael Sanogo), we’re such a different team. They’re such a great group, they care about winning. They want to win. It’s much different. I can’t explain it.”
It’s pretty easy to explain how the Pirates landed in the semifinals – it was mostly due to Carrington and Whitehead, who scored 27 and 24 points, respectively. But there were contributions big and small up and down the roster Thursday night. There were six points and eight big rebounds by Sanogo and eight more boards from Delgado as the Pirates won the battle of the boards, 45-25. There was a big three-pointer late in the second half by Derrick Gordon as well as a couple of key deflections on defense. And there was Carrington, the kid from Brooklyn just doing his thing in front of family and friends and not worrying about who was grabbing the lion’s share of the limelight, not caring about being an overlooked star for the Pirates.
“I don’t really care about the overlooking part,” said Carrington, whose 27 points represented a career-high as did his three-pointers (five) and field goals (10). “We were having a great season. Everybody has been doing well. Once everybody is doing well, the team gets accolades. Coach got an accolade (being named Co-Coach of the Year). As long as everybody wins that’s all that matters to me.”
There were times Thursday night when it didn’t appear it would be a happy ending for the Pirates. Creighton (18-14) the sixth seed, was riding the blistering-hot hand of Huff, who poured in 35 points on 11-of-16 shooting from the field and a scorching 7-of-11 from three-point range.
Huff’s outing tied former Bluejays star Doug McDermott for most points by a Creighton player in a BIG EAST Tournament game (vs. DePaul in 2014 quarterfinals) while his shooting percentage (.688) is tops for a Creighton player in BIG EAST Tournament history, topping McDermott’s .636. Huff set career highs in points (35) and three-pointers (seven) and tied his career high in field goals (11). But because of the play of Carrington, Whitehead and Friends, it just wasn’t enough to take down the Pirates.
After the game, Huff tried his best to downplay his breakout performance.
“I think I had a lot of shots they weren’t expecting,” Huff said. “My teammates and coaches did a great job of drawing up plays and getting me open. I converted some.”
Huff’s was the type of performance that usually ends with a victory. Just not on this night and now the Bluejays are hoping their season will be extended with an invitation to the National Invitation Tournament.
“I hope we get an opportunity to play some more,” Creighton head coach Greg McDermott said. “I think we’re NIT worthy. I think a lot of people probably saw that tonight.”
Next up for Seton Hall will be second-seeded Xavier, which took all the drama out of its’ quarterfinal-round game with Marquette just after halftime when the Musketeers quickly bumped their 16-point lead at the intermission to 20 points just after the break as they rolled to the 90-72 victory.
Xavier (27-4) held leads as large as 28 points in the second half as everything seemed to be working for the Musketeers, who defeated Marquette twice during the regular season but by just eight points each time. Xavier had five players score in double figures - led by All-BIG EAST First Team pick Trevon Bluiett’s 24 points – sank 11 three-balls, out-rebounded the Golden Eagles, 43-31, and shot 53% for the game to Marquette’s 38.1%. It was a truly dominating performance by the fifth-ranked team in the country.
“I thought our team was a little different than we’ve been the last couple of weeks defensively and we’ve been making a big point of it in practice,” Xavier coach Chris Mack said. “The message seemed to be heeded. I thought our guys from the very beginning of the game played really hard defensively. They’re a tough matchup. They’re one of the best scoring teams in our league.”
James Farr and J.P Macura each dropped in 12 points while Jalen Reynolds added 11 and Edmond Sumner had 10 for the Musketeers. Juan Johnson led Marquette (20-13) with 19 points while Haanif Cheatham and Henry Ellenson each logged 14 points.
For Ellenson, who has regularly been spoken of as a lottery pick in the upcoming NBA Draft, it could have been his final appearance in a Marquette uniform. But if this was the end for him at Marquette, he brought a lot to the program in a short time, according to Marquette head coach Steve Wojciechowski.
“Henry, first and foremost, he’s a very talented player,” Wojciechowski said. “He’s a kid who loves the game. He showed up (and) we’ve put a lot of pressure on him and the other young guys and for the most part they’ve delivered. And that’s not easy. I think we’ve given him more responsibility than any freshman in America. I think we’ve given him a ton of responsibility and by and large he’s delivered.”