Shaheen Holloway has proved himself to be a miracle-worker in the past—but his revival of Seton Hall men’s basketball’s program from last season to this one might be his finest work to date.
After going just 6-25 in last year’s regular season before falling to Villanova in the first-round of the BIG EAST Tournament, Holloway and the Pirates have flipped the script, finishing this regular season 20-11, while also going 10-10 in conference play.
SHU’s conference record was good enough for sole possession of fourth-place in the conference standings, earning them a first-round bye in next week’s BIG EAST Tournament, beginning March 11.
The No. 4 Pirates will play the following day, when they face the No. 5 Creighton Bluejays at Madison Square Garden (MSG) in the quarterfinal-round on March 12.
But five months earlier, no one predicted the regular season SHU would go on to have—that is, everyone except Holloway, of course.
At the conference’s Media Day in October, SHU’s fourth-year head coach dismissed the conference’s Preseason Coaches Poll, which had The Hall finishing in last-place for the second-straight season, and not a single Pirate named to any of the three preseason all-conference teams.
“I couldn't care less about what others think,” Holloway said. “I know who I got when it's gametime.”
Indeed, Holloway spent the offseason getting acquainted with the 11 newcomers to the program, with 10 coming through the transfer portal and a lone freshman recruit in 6-foot-10 forward Najai Hines—SHU’s highest-ranked commit (36th in class, 71st nationally) since Isaiah Whitehead in 2014.
Surprising the World in Nonconference Play
To the surprise of many, these newcomers helped The Hall emerge from nonconference play with a 10-1 record—their best start through 11 games since the 2011-12 season.
The highlight of SHU’s strong performance in nonconference play (and maybe their season overall) was when, on their way to an unlikely third-place finish in the Maui Invitational, the Pirates picked up a signature win over tournament-favorites North Carolina State, who were ranked No. 23 in the nation at the time.
Ultimately standing as their only Quad 1 win of the season, The Hall’s upset over the Wolfpack came behind the strong play of graduate guard AJ Staton-McCray, who earned that week’s BIG EAST Player of the Week.
“This just the first step in our journey,” Holloway said postgame. “We got a long way to go, we can’t get happy with this…there’s [still] a lot of basketball to be played.”
Surpassing last season’s win total of seven by the first week of December, the Pirates also defeated Kansas State, 78-67, in their first true road test of the season, before capping off their nonconference schedule with a dominant 81-59 win at home over Rutgers to reclaim the Hardwood Classic trophy and paint New Jersey Pirate blue until the annual in-state rivalry is renewed next season.
‘Second Half Seton Hall’
Despite their success, SHU’s nonconference schedule was just a warm-up: the Pirates’ season really began in mid-December with the start of conference play—and they responded accordingly initially.
Other than falling 64-56 to former SHU head coach Kevin Willard in his return to the Prudential Center with Villanova on Dec. 23, 2025, SHU won four of their first five conference games.
This included a span where “Second Half Seton Hall” pulled off three-straight come-from-behind victories after trailing by double-digits. The Pirates found themselves down by 10 to Marquette with just under 13 minutes left in their game on Dec. 30, 2025 before emerging victorious; 11 with 14 minutes left at Georgetown on Jan. 10, 2026; and 16 with 15 minutes left to Creighton on Jan. 4, 2026 in the most thrilling of these comebacks.
With just 1.3 seconds left against the Bluejays, Hines’ got on the offensive glass to clean up a missed jumper by junior guard Adam “Budd” Clark, and scored a putback, plus the foul, to cap off a game-ending 7-2 run that ultimately gave SHU the 56-54 win.
“We’re never going to let up,” Clark said postgame. “We’re resilient. We’re going to fight until there are zero seconds on the clock. We’ll find a way to win.”
A Poisoned Chalice
Having doubled last season’s win total by Jan. 10 at 14-2 (also 4-1 BIG EAST), the college basketball world started to take notice of SHU and their incredible program turnaround. This included the Associated Press (AP): after spending five weeks receiving votes that placed them just outside the AP’s Top 25 Poll, The Hall finally cracked the rankings on Jan. 12, debuting at No. 25 in the Week 10 Poll.
The ranking marked SHU’s first since the 2021-22 season, when they were last ranked No. 20 almost four years to the date on Jan. 10, 2022, and the first since Holloway took the helm of the program the following season.
And yet, getting such recognition may have been more of a curse than a blessing—because it marked the turning point of SHU’s season.
Midseason Woes
What ensued after the ranking was a four-game losing streak that spanned two weeks and undermined SHU’s strong performance up until that part of the season. The streak started just a day after the Pirates’ earned the ranking with a 69-64 loss at home, despite a late rally from SHU, to then-No. 3 UConn—a somewhat expected loss, to be fair, but not what followed it.
Amid their four-game losing streak, SHU suffered two of their worst losses of the season, first by falling 77-66 at home to Butler on Jan. 17, then 67-60 at DePaul a week later.
“I don’t recognize this team,” Holloway said after the Pirates’ loss to the Blue Demons. “I don’t know this team. We’re not playing like a team. We’re not playing like Seton Hall.”
In between those two games, the Pirates had a chance to earn their best win of the season, leading at St. John’s by as many as 15 points in the second half. But after being outscored 33-13 by the Red Storm in the final 15 minutes of play, SHU fell 65-60 inside MSG on Jan. 21 in the third of their four-straight losses.
“This sucks,” Holloway said postgame about the Pirates’ now three-game losing streak, “I just got to get back to the drawing board.”
“I thought we came in with a good game plan…and I thought for pretty much 30 minutes…we controlled the game,” Holloway added.
The ‘Peaks and Valleys’ of Mid- to Late-season
“Peaks and valleys” is a proverbial phrase for life, but it's really more fitting for the latter half of SHU’s season.
Now 14-6, 4-5 BIG EAST after having dropped four-straight, but with a two-game homestand ahead, the Pirates needed to get back to their winning ways—and Clark would help them do just that.
Clark and BIG EAST Sixth Man Award candidate Tajuan Simpkins combined for 51 points in The Hall’s first win over Xavier on Jan. 28. Trailing by 11 at halftime, Clark scored 17 of his 24 points in the second half, all while on 50%, 8-for-16 shooting on the night, to lead SHU to the 86-68 victory.
The 5-foot-10 guard also added a season-high seven rebounds, as well as four assists and four steals for one of his best all-around performances of the season.
Clark followed that performance with a 19-point, six-assist game, once again on 50%, 8-for-16 shooting, just three days later in another come-from-behind win for SHU, who won 69-64 despite trailing Marquette by eight at halftime.
“I just wanted to find a way to win, whatever it takes: me getting an assist, me getting steals, me scoring,” Clark said, who scored 15 points in the second half, postgame. “Tonight, I did a little bit of both: I scored, I dished it out a little bit, and I just brought energy to the game, energy to my team and tried to lead them to a victory.”
Averaging 21.5 points on 50% shooting, five rebounds, five assists and three steals in a bounce-back 2-0 week for the Pirates, Clark was named the BIG EAST Player of the Week.
After getting back on top with that pair of home wins, however, the Pirates then found themselves right back in the valley of a 0-2 week on the road.
The Hall first extended their winless streak at Villanova to 32 years, falling to the Wildcats 72-60 on Feb. 4, then blew a 9-point lead with just 90 seconds left at Creighton on Feb. 7 behind a go-ahead three-pointer by the Bluejays with just two seconds left to hand SHU a 69-68 loss.
Luckily, SHU had Clark to lead them out of the woods once again. In their first win of another 2-0 week over Providence, the junior guard led the Pirates with 31 points, just one point shy of his career high, while also recording eight assists and a season-high five steals—an all-around performance of historic program and conference proportions.
Clark’s 31 points not only marked the first 30-point or more game by a Pirate since 2022, but, add to that his eight assists and five steals, and the Philly native became the only BIG EAST player to compile such a statline in regulation since the 1996-97 season—a performance good enough to earn Clark his third conference Weekly Honor Roll nod of the season.
“I think he’s understanding the mission, understanding what I’ve been preaching to him about making people follow you,” Holloway said postgame. “He’s not vocal, he’s more ‘Follow by his actions,’ but I’ve been on him to be aggressive and don’t let the game come to you.”
“Be aggressive and have people run with you,” Holloway added. “I think he’s doing a better job of that now, understanding that as he goes, we go.”
SHU earned their second-straight win on Feb. 15 at Butler—but with one peak followed another valley, as SHU suffered another one of their worst losses of the season the next week when they fell to DePaul once again, this time at home on Feb. 19.
Final Three-Game Gauntlet
Bouncing back from such a loss with a 51-47 home win over Georgetown—while shooting 0-for-18 from three—on Feb. 21, SHU found themselves at 19-10 and 9-9 in conference play, having gone 5-4 in the nine games since their four-game losing streak.
With March Madness slowly approaching, and SHU having squandered their only prior opportunities for Quad 1 wins since their upset of NC State in Maui, the Pirates were still in the hunt for a second signature win to add to their postseason resume.
Fortunately, before them was a three-game gauntlet to close out the regular season with trips to UConn (Quad 1) on Feb. 28 and Xavier (Quad 2) on March 3, before hosting St. John’s (Quad 1) for their regular-season finale on March 6.
Unfortunately, though, SHU’s final three-game stretch didn’t get off on the right foot. Inside Gampel Pavilion on UConn’s Senior Day, the Pirates led the Huskies by eight with 8:45 left—before a 23-11 scoring response from UConn, led by latest Husky of Honoree Alex Karaban, in the time remaining that ultimately lost The Hall what would have been a season-defining upset.
In one of the more bizarre plays this season, with just 18.3 seconds left in the game, UConn leading 68-65, former Pirate and Huskies head coach Dan Hurley instructed his team to intentionally foul up three to prevent a game-tying 3-pointer from The Hall. UConn’s Silas Demary Jr. then fouled Clark at mid-court, with everyone in attendance aware of what UConn’s intentions were.
That is, everyone except the referees, who successfully called the first intentional foul, but not the second, despite Demary Jr. placing two hands on Clark, who threw up a wild shot in anticipation of the foul—but none called.
Despite the loss, Staton-McCray made his return to the Weekly Honor Roll after scoring 15 of his team-high 20 points against the Huskies in the second half, while hitting a season-high four 3-pointers.
Staton-McCray and the Pirates bounced back in a major way later in the week, earning a 77-68 victory at Xavier for their 10th win in conference play and 20th win of the year—a 13-win improvement from last season that tied a program record, and stands as one of the largest single-season win improvements in the nation this season.
Picked to finish dead-last, the win also gained the Pirates a finish no worse than fourth-place in the conference standings, clinching them a first-round bye in next week’s BIG EAST Tournament.
Such a win, however, came at a cost: both Clark and Hines suffered a left quad and ankle injury, respectively, against the Musketeers.
But neither could stop the duo from playing in the Pirates’ next game, when SHU hosted No. 18 St. John’s (STJ) on March 6 for the last time at the Prudential Center this season and their last chance at a signature win.
After trailing 30-27 at halftime, The Hall found themselves within one-point of The Red Storm several times in the second half, having benefitted from Preseason BIG EAST Player of the Year Zuby Ejiofor being in foul trouble.
But SHU was never able to get over that hump, as once Ejiofor returned to the game, STJ started to pull away behind a nearly four-minute 12-2 scoring run to gain an 11-point, 62-51, lead, their largest of the night with just four minutes remaining. The Johnnies also shot 65.2% in the second half, making 5-of-9 3-pointers while the Pirates made just one on the night.
Although “Second Half Seton Hall” rallied late to bring it back within one-point, it was to no avail, as STJ iced the game from the line as SHU’s chances at an at-large bid for the NCAA Tournament went up in flames.
Finishing the season 20-11 but with only one signature win, The Hall’s only hopes to go dancing lie in winning the BIG EAST Tournament—a challenge fitting of the Pirates this season, as Holloway acknowledged postgame.
“We can play with anyone, we just gotta finish games out or do the little things,” Holloway said. “It’s funny, this team doesn’t like to do things easy, they like doing things the hard way, so now we gotta go to New York and earn it, and take it.”
Also reflecting on the regular season, Holloway praised his side for the resilience and grit they showed all year long, while reassuring Pirate Nation that the team gave it their all.
“I think all our fans should be encouraged,” Holloway said. “I mean, this team gave them everything they had. Everything, everything. They played their tails off, their butts off, everybody wrote us off and this team just continued to keep battling, battling, and I think that’s a great sign for us.”
“I'm sad about the loss, but I’m pleased about the way this team carried itself this year,” Holloway added. “And I’m looking forward to next week.”
Holloway and the Pirates will return next week, when they face No. 5 Creighton on March 12 at MSG in the quarterfinal round of the BIG EAST Tournament.
Zachary Mawby is the head editor of The Setonian’s Sports section. He can be reached at zachary.mawby@student.shu.edu.
