When Seton Hall was tabbed the preseason favorite in the BIG EAST, the distinction was not met with a feeling of pressure to live up to the lofty billing, but with a sense of appreciation from head coach Kevin Willard.
Last season, after being picked to finish eighth in the BIG EAST, the Pirates ended up going 9-9 in conference play, finished in a tie for third place and advanced to the BIG EAST Tournament title game where it lost a 74-72 heartbreaker to Villanova.
So this time around, head coach Kevin Willard is looking at being picked preseason No. 1 - the first time since the early 1990s - as a badge of honor the Pirates are looking to wear proudly this season.
“I think it’s a great honor,” Willard said. “I think it’s exciting for the players, I think it’s exciting for the university and the program. It kind of shows you how far we’ve come, but at the same time, it’s a great challenge and we really have a lot of work ahead of us.”
That work begins on Nov. 5 when the Pirates host Wagner in their season opener. But it soon continues with some national heavyweights who dot the Hall’s non-conference schedule this season, beginning with a matchup against No. 1 Michigan State in the Gavitt Games on Nov. 14. There are also games against No. 15 Oregon, possibly with No. 8 Gonzaga as both the Pirates and Zags will play in the Battle 4 Atlantis during Thanksgiving, and versus No. 7 Maryland. The Pirates start the season ranked No. 12.
“First and foremost we have a brutal non-conference schedule and I think it’s going to give us opportunities to really see where we are and be more prepared than we have in the past,” Willard said. “But I’m excited for Myles Powell. I think he’s got an opportunity to show everybody that he is the best player in college basketball. I think he’s got an opportunity to be drafted because I think he is going to have a monster year because he’s got better players, more experienced players around him to help his game.”
Ah yes, Myles Powell. It was hard to find any national publication that didn’t feature the Seton Hall senior guard on its cover this year. And when he decided last spring to forego jumping into the NBA draft pool and return to South Orange for his senior season, sky-high expectations immediately followed.
But that doesn’t faze the Pirates’ superlative senior.
“The guys know that I could have gone pro but I came back just to be with them and go through the whole college experience one last time,” said Powell, the BIG EAST’s Preseason Player of the Year. “With coach Willard and my brothers, and by brothers I mean my teammates, I love the bond we’ve created here and it’s going to last for the rest of our lives. I just can’t wait to really get it going.”
But what of that monster non-conference schedule Willard cooked up for the Pirates?
“Coach knows what he’s doing and if he thought we weren’t ready he wouldn’t have made our non-conference so tough,” Powell said.
Willard said the current state of the Pirates is a long time in the making and building blocks for what could be the most special Seton Hall team since the 1989 Pirates advanced to the National Championship game was cemented several seasons ago.
“Four or five years ago, the class of Isaiah (Whitehead) and Angel (Delgado) and those guys, they laid the foundation from a standpoint of work ethic,” Willard said. “That group of Khadeen (Carrington), Ish (Ismael Sanogo) and Desi (Rodriguez), they not only left a great legacy of winning but they left a legacy of how they did it. They did it because they worked extremely hard as a group and I think that’s carried over now. You’re not allowed to walk into our gym with a bad attitude. You’re not allowed to walk into our gym and not work hard. Those were the rules that that group left.”
This season’s version of the Pirates will have a rather different look to it as the Hall’s roster boasts five players 6-10 or taller with two - Romaro Gil and Florida State-transfer Ike Obiagu - each checking in at 7-1. That’s a whole lotta Pirate.
“I think what hurt us last year, even though Mike (Nzei) and Sandro (Mamukelashvili) battled inside for us, no one was really physically worried about us inside from a defensive standpoint or an offensive standpoint,” Willard said. “And now we go from starting 6-6 and 6-8 to starting 7-1 and 6-9 and coming off the bench with 7-1 and 6-11. So just from a defensive presence, we’re such a different team than we were last year. We can be more aggressive, we’ll have the opportunity to press a little bit more, play small or play big, where last year we were kind of a one-trick pony. We’ll have opportunities to play so much differently this year.”
While Powell will be looked at to do most of the heavy lifting on offense, he will not be alone and has a strong supporting cast with which to run with this season.
“Our juniors, Myles Cale and Sandro, had great years last year but understand that now it’s their turn to take another step,” Willard said. “And our sophomores, Anthony Nelson and Jared Rhoden, I’m more excited about those two because I think they’ve taken the same jump that Myles Powell did when he was a freshman. So we have great balance in our classes and everyone is ready to take a big jump.”
But if Seton Hall is to reach the pinnacle of the BIG EAST, and make a deep run to the NCAA Tournament’s second weekend or beyond, it’s all going to rest on Powell being, in Willard’s words, the best player in college basketball.
“I think the greatest thing about Myles Powell is that he is as humble today as the day I recruited him in high school,” Willard said. “Every day he shows up and works hard. His attitude hasn’t changed, his demeanor hasn’t changed. He’s as good a teammate today as he was as a freshman. I have no worries about him whatsoever. He’s very driven to make his ultimate goals and also to make Seton Hall’s goals. Ever since he’s stepped into our program he has been a young man who has represented us at the highest level. For me he’s been like a third son.”
Myles Powell-Willard. Has a nice ring to it. And beginning tonight, the chase for a championship ring begins for the Pirates.
“I didn’t accomplish everything I could accomplish in college basketball so I came back to win a championship,” Powell said. “The BIG EAST championship or the national championship. That’s what I want to give back to Seton Hall.”