Seton Hall Edges Villanova For BIG EAST Tournament Title
By SEAN BRENNAN
Special to BIGEAST.com
NEW YORK -- The BIG EAST championship had just been decided seconds earlier, Seton Hall 69, Villanova 67, and the images on each end of the floor couldn’t have been more conflicting.
On one end of the floor there was a stunned group of Villanova Wildcats, who had just seen their reign as tournament champions come to an abrupt end. There was coach Jay Wright leading his gallant team off the court and into the locker room with a tearful Josh Hart the last to leave the court.
On the other end there was a joyous group of Seton Hall Pirates, who had just clinched their first BIG EAST Tournament championship since 1993, before a single Pirates player on the roster had been born and when head coach Kevin Willard was an 18-year old with a full head of hair playing point guard at Western Kentucky, before his more formative playing days in the BIG EAST at Pittsburgh.
Willard took the podium at center court to receive the BIG EAST Tournament championship trophy, next to him stood Isaiah Whitehead clutching the Most Outstanding Player hardware after his 26-point performance Saturday night. Soon the rest of the exuberant Pirates stormed the podium to take in the celebration. Remember when the 1980 USA hockey team joined captain Mike Eruzione on the stand for the medal ceremony? Same thing at the Garden Saturday.
Nearby assistant coach Fred Hill, one of Willard’s trusted lieutenants and one who was instrumental in luring The Fab Five sophomore class of Whitehead, Khadeen Carrington, Angel Delgado, Desi Rodriguez and Ishmael Sanogo to Seton Hall, had tears in his eyes as he took it all in.
“Five sophomores and two freshmen off the bench. Against that team?” Hill said. “This is insane. I can’t believe this. I just can’t believe this.”
And as the victorious Pirates gathered to cut down the championship nets – Delgado, in his excitement, had to be told which side of the ladder to climb up on. And of course there was Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run,” the unofficial theme song of New Jersey, blaring over the sound system.
No one could have seen this coming. Knocking off Xavier, the No. 5 team in the nation, in Friday night’s semifinals was one thing. Following it up with a victory in the BIG EAST Tournament Presented by Jeep Championship game over No. 3 Villanova? Who’da thunk it?
Well, Delgado did.
“A lot of people didn’t show us respect,” said Delgado, who scored eight points and grabbed seven boards in the win. “But we worked so hard and when we do we can do whatever we want. Before the tournament a lot of people didn’t even know us. Now we just want to prove people wrong every time we go out on the court.”
The Pirates certainly were doing that in the first half when they built a 40-29 lead at the break and had Villanova wondering “Who are those guys?” The Wildcats had swept the season series from Seton Hall in the regular season but you know what they say about beating a good team three times in a year?
But with Villanova, the tournament’s top seed and third in the nation, you knew a run was going to come and the Wildcats caught fire in the second half. Seton Hall’s lead was at 13 points (46-33) with 17:33 to play when the Wildcats went into “it’s-now-or-never” mode and began riding the hot hand of Kris Jenkins. The burly junior knocked down four of his five three-balls in the second half with his second one tying the game at 50-50 with 9:17 to play and his last one giving Villanova its largest lead of the game at 67-64 with 50.5 seconds to play.
But Whitehead has been phenomenal in the tournament and his bag of tricks was not empty just yet. After a Whitehead free throw with 42 seconds left brought Seton Hall within 67-65, Villanova got called for a five-second violation which opened the door one more time for Whitehead and the stellar sophomore delivered the biggest shot of his young career, tossing in a layup while being fouled by Jenkins with 18.5 seconds to play. Whitehead made the free throw for a 68-67 Pirates lead an when Jenkins missed a three-point attempt with seven seconds to play, and Hart could do nothing with the rebound, the Pirates had shocked Villanova and had their first BIG EAST championship in almost a quarter century.
“This whole year coach has been raving about just making winning plays,” Whitehead said. “I really just attacked the basket. I felt I had an opportunity to score the ball. I saw Kris Jenkins coming over and I knew that he wouldn’t be able to get in position fast enough for me to draw a charge. I just tried to lay it in on the rim.”
And because he did, the Pirates are the talk of the college basketball world, having taken down the No. 3 and 5 programs in the country in under 24 hours. Talk about peaking at the right time.
“Me and Khadeen talked about it before,” Whitehead said. “Before I committed – actually he committed before me – he really tried to string me along. I really went for it. He said they have a great group of coaches here and that could get us better and hopefully win a BIG EAST championship. It’s a great accomplishment. It’s an amazing feeling. This is one of the main reasons I chose to stay home, just so my friends and family could see me play as much as possible. And having them in the crowd and really cheering me on and seeing me hold up the trophy at the end, it’s picture perfect.”
Despite the loss, Villanova will still most likely earn a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament and though the loss was a painful one, the Wildcats had nothing but admiration for the Pirates.
“A great college basketball game,” Wright said. “Just awesome to be part of it. The Garden was rocking. We just got beat by a team that played better than us tonight. They played a great first half, we played a great second half and then down the stretch they made plays and we didn’t. Some of the reasons we didn’t is because they made some great defensive plays.”
“They played really well,” said senior guard Ryan Arcidiacono. “We didn’t execute our game plan. You have to give them credit for the way they played.”
Willard was asked when he thought a night like Saturday night might be possible for these Pirates. Was it after the regular-season victory of Xavier? No, according to Willard it was much earlier than that.
“May 19th,” Willard said. “That’s when I knew. (Assistant coach) Grant Billmeier reminded me of something. When I rehired Grant I said, ‘I know things look shaky but I’m telling you, man, these kids are special.’ And after about a month of Grant being around, he came up to me and said, ‘You’re right.’ That was the point where I thought these guys could be something special.”
It was a special night at the Garden for Willard and his special group on as large a stage as any of his Pirates had played before. The championship game, which was a sellout with a crowd of 19,812, proved to any remaining doubters that the BIG EAST is still one of the most formidable conference tournaments in the country.
“I got asked the question before about is the tournament in trouble?” Willard said. “And I think today people were in the sky bridges. They were hanging over the sky bridges. If you watched the level of basketball these kids play, I’m sorry, it’s uncomparable. Is that a word?”