In one of the biggest days in college basketball history, Seton Hall men’s basketball rose to the occasion by producing one of worst three-point shooting performances in program history—and winning anyway.
Hosting Georgetown at the Prudential Center on Saturday night, the Pirates (19-9, 9-8 BIG EAST) defeated the Hoyas (13-14, 5-11 BIG EAST), 51-47, while failing to hit a single three-pointer despite 18 attempts.
The Hall’s win was historical not just for the program but also for college basketball: it marked the first time any Division I men’s basketball team has won a game shooting 0-for-18 or worse in nearly a decade (2018), and the first time in at least two decades that it's happened in a high-major contest. They are just the sixth team to ever win no makes and 18 or more attempts from three.
But this isn’t the first time SHU has won without a made three-pointer: the last time was nearly two decades ago, when on Jan. 25, 2009, the Pirates shot 0-for-13 in a 65-60 win. The venue of that game? Prudential Center; and SHU’s opponents for that game? Georgetown.
With 13 of SHU’s misses from deep coming in the first half, the Pirates found themselves in a seven-point hole at halftime, trailing 27-20.
But in the second half, the Pirates avoided the three, and instead rallied behind the strong inside play of Najai Hines to steal the win from the Hoyas.
Scoring all his points in the final 20 minutes of play, the freshman forward finished with game highs of 12 points and 10 rebounds for his third double-double of the season, while shooting a perfect 3-for-3 from the field and 6-for-7 (85.7%) from the line. He also recorded five blocks, his third-most in a single-game this season.
It was Hines who gave the Pirates their first lead of the second half with a pair of made free throws after grabbing an offensive rebound and drawing a foul, SHU leading 45-44 with 5:57 left.
Half of Hines’ 10 total rebounds came on the offensive glass, with the Pirates edging the Hoyas out in that department, 17-16.
“Najai was really good down the stretch, getting some offensive rebounds, some tip-ins and stuff like that,” SHU head coach Shaheen Holloway said about the Plainfield native after the game.
Hines earned high praise from Georgetown head coach Ed Cooley after the game as well.
"I thought he was the player of the game," Cooley said. "I thought he was the X-factor with his ability to make free throws, and he has some incredible hands."
"Really, really good potential with him," Cooley added. "He'll be a name in the league that a lot of people will talk about as long as he's in college"
Cooley also praised Holloway, saying the SHU alum "will get my vote for coach of the year, for sure."
Hines’ pair of free throws was part of a 6-0 game-defining run from SHU, with junior guard Tajuan Simpkins hitting a pair of free throws of his own after Hines to give the Pirates a 3-point lead with 5:16 left.
After starting the past two games, fellow junior guard Mike Williams made his return to the starting lineup ahead of this one, with Simpkins returning himself to his six-man role for the Pirates off the bench.
Holloway was candid about what prompted the change, saying that Simpkins came to him and told his head coach that “he feels more comfortable coming off the bench.”
“What am I gonna say—‘I’m gonna start you?’” Holloway said, jokingly. "That was big of him to say that...It was good because Mike gave us some juice."
Outscoring Georgetown 14-4 in the final eight and a half minutes to emerge victorious, Holloway also mentioned how motivated the team was after suffering a disappointing loss to DePaul earlier in the week.
“We just dug deeper, and kind of found a way to win, made some plays when we needed to make them,” Holloway said about how the win came to be. “I think what it says about our team is, after the disappointing loss we had the other day, guys were just trying to figure a way, no matter what, how to win, to try and win a game.”
Earlier on, junior guard Adam “Budd” Clark found Hines on a slot cut for Hines' second-and-one since the start of the second half thanks to a goaltending call on Georgetown, SHU trailing 36-35 with 12:42 left to go. After making the free throw, Hines was subbed out to a standing ovation from Pirate Nation.
A few plays before, Hines scored his first and-one of the second, with Williams finding him deep inside for a baby hook over his defender, plus the foul, with the Pirates trailing 33-31 at the 14:37 mark after the ensuing made free throw.
Long before Hines’ two and-ones that brought SHU back into the game, Georgetown outscored the Pirates 16-4 in the final six and half minutes of the first half to take a 27-20 lead at the break.
Although the Pirates’ best play of the first half would have been a made three pointer, it was instead a sequence within the games first 10 minutes when Hines had a massive volleyball spike-like block, which then turned into a two-handed dunk through traffic by junior forward Josh Rivera after Clark found him on the break for SHU’s first lead of the game, 7-6, at 12:34.
Down 6-0 after Georgetown hit two three-pointers in the game's opening minutes, the Pirates started 0-for-4 from three-point range. Pirate Nation had to stand for the next four minutes before Williams scored the Pirates’ first points at 16:01 with a right-handed layup around a Georgetown defender to make it 6-2.
With the win, SHU move into sole possession of third place in the BIG EAST standings, 1.5 games ahead of Creighton in fourth. "Second Half Seton Hall" struck again in this one as well, as the Pirates earn their eighth win of the season when trailing at halftime, the most of any major conference teams this season.
More importantly, though, the stage is now set for a final three-game gauntlet to end the regular season that’s likely to either make-or-break the Pirates’ likelihood to earn a NCAA Tournament bid—something Holloway believes his team has already earned.
“Do I think we have a tournament team? Yeah I do,” Holloway said. “I thought we went and challenged ourselves in the non-conference, I thought we won some games.”
Earlier in the postgame press conference, Holloway sought to discredit what he also believes is a “crazy narrative” about the BIG EAST having a down year that does not help SHU’s tournament chances.
“Like, I’ve seen a lot of teams with 19 wins, and they’re ‘locks,’ Holloway said. “Like, 17 wins, they’re ‘locks.’ We got 19 wins, they talk about how bad the league is—the league is really good, its just very competitive. In some of the other leagues, the top is good, the bottom is not."
“But that’s a story for another day, I’m going all over the place right now,” Holloway added. “I just want to make sure that the narrative is crazy about how the league is down—the teams are good.”
Holloway and the Pirates will face their biggest challenge of the season in the first of this three-game gauntlet, when they travel to Storrs, Connecticut to face No. 5 UConn (25-3, 15-2 BIG EAST) on Feb. 28—but first, a much, much-needed week of rest.
“This team is just mentally, physically exhausted—like, I walked into the locker room, and you’d think we’d lost,” Holloway said. “So this bye week is very crucial for us.”
Zachary Mawby is the head editor of The Setonian’s Sports section. He can be reached at zachary.mawby@student.shu.edu.
