Seton Hall basketball loses to Providence for 2nd straight loss

The painful lesson of the 2018 season was this: Two bad weeks could ruin your draw for the NCAA Tournament.

The Pirates went halfway down that road Saturday.

A 74-71 loss at Providence completed an 0-2 week that leaves the Hall with just a one-game lead in the Big East standings.

Tenth-ranked Seton Hall (18-7 overall, 10-3 Big East) met a desperate team in Providence (14-12, 7-6) and could not respond out of the gate, falling behind 34-9. The Pirates rallied but never scaled the mountain, pulling within two midway through the second half.

Senior guard Myles Powell paced the Hall with 27 points, moving into third place on the program’s all-time scoring list. He passed Jeremy Hazell and now trails only legends Terry Dehere and Nick Werkman.

But the story of the night took place after the final buzzer, when head coach Kevin Willard tore into his team's attitude in his postgame radio interview. 

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THREE THOUGHTS

1. A team with this much talent should never fall behind by 25 points. It doesn’t matter who the opponent is or where the game is played. It could be on Mars. That’s twice this happened now over the past two weeks. It gives you real concern that the Pirates could have one of these no-show halves in the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament.

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2. Too many lapses. Providence outscored the Hall 30-10 in fast-break points and grabbed 20 offensive rebounds. Powell took forever to warm up, again. The latter two issues have been ongoing. The rebounding is not curable and will have to be endured on a matchup-to-matchup basis, but Seton Hall has to run some plays to let Powell see the ball go in the basket early, even if that means ditching the weave for some sets.  

3. Albany hangs in the balance this week. For the Pirates to win the Big East and wrap up a spot in Albany for the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament — the whole point of this regular season — they really could use a home sweep of Butler and St. John’s this week. Butler is in a funk, too. Willard took a strong first step toward that by calling his players out. There is too much on the line for his softer, behind-closed-doors approach from years past (notably 2018). It's good that he recognizes this, and I expect the team to respond accordingly next week. 

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THREE QUOTES

(From Kevin Willard’s postgame radio interview with Gary Cohen and Dave Popkin).

1. On the team's attitude: “We have some guys with bad attitudes right now to be perfectly honest with you. When you have a bad attitude and you’re pouting and complaining that you’re not playing enough time yet your team is 10-2, you have issues."

“It’s amazing to me that, when we lost to Xavier I saw a team that bounced back and was hungry to go to Georgetown and get it. When we lost to Creighton the other day and we played terrible (in practice), and I’m sitting in practice and I’m thinking, I’ve got a guy moody that doesn’t want to go through practice who hardly played. I have another guy who played 25 minutes that can’t make a shot and didn’t have a rebound. I have another guy that got embarrassed defensively."

Game recap:Seton Hall basketball falls to Creighton as Powell goes ice cold

2. On what he's going to do about it: "I will make sure of it, come in 20 minutes that there will be a very large correction . . . The bench is going to get shortened. Either you’re going to show up in play or you’re not. I’m really disappointed in a few guys who, either they regain their focus or I’ll just play six.”

3. On the big picture: “Everyone goes through it. Every team in every conference goes through a little (tough) stretch. We’re going through it now. I know we’ll get it right. I know we’ll bounce back. I’m just a bit disappointed in the fact that we have an opportunity to be really good — it doesn’t happen very often. I’m going to get these guys focused. We’re still in a great spot.”

DEHERE WATCH

Where does Myles Powell stand on Seton Hall’s all-time scoring list?

1. Terry Dehere 2,494

2. Nick Werkman 2,273

3. Myles Powell 2,162

4. Jeremy Hazell 2,146

5. Greg Tynes 2,059

6. Dan Callandrillo 1,985

7. Andre McCloud 1,976

8. Mark Bryant 1,906

9. Andre Barrett 1,861

10. Khadeen Carrington 1,846

Jerry Carino has covered the New Jersey sports scene since 1996 and the college basketball beat since 2003. He is an Associated Press Top 25 voter. Contact him at jcarino@gannettnj.com.