An 11 a.m. start should be more than enough time to wake up and get your day started.
Unfortunately for No. 10 Seton Hall, they slept right through most of the first half against Xavier and ended up losing, 74-62, before a crowd of 12,230 at Prudential Center and a national television audience on Fox. The Musketeers out-hustled, out-shot and out-guarded Seton Hall for much of the game. Xavier dominated on the boards to the tune of 51-22.
The loss was Seton Hall’s first since the Dec. 14 blowout at Rutgers and snapped a 10-game winning streak. That Rutgers loss was seven weeks ago, and in between the Pirates went a perfect 7-0 in January, their first undefeated January since the 1952-53 season. The 10-game win streak was the program’s longest since winning 12 straight during its Big East championship season of 1992-93.
The Pirates may have lost more than a game, too, as senior point guard Quincy McKnight was helped off the floor with 6:02 remaining with a left knee or leg injury of some kind. Losing him for any kind of extended period would be devastating.
But speaking on AM770 after the game, head coach Kevin Willard said “the initial diagnosis looks OK. Nothing in the ACL and all that stuff. Still have to get an MRI. From first diagnosis, not as bad as it looked.”
However in his post-game press conference, Willard tempered his initial reaction. “I’m not doing this with injuries. I have no idea until I get an MRI. I said the preliminary was that most of the structural stuff looked OK but we won’t know until we get an MRI.” As for a projection on how long he might be out, Willard said, “I have no idea, I’m not a doctor.”
Junior forward Sandro Mamukelashvili said McKnight suffered a “bruise” and hopes he can return Wednesday at Georgetown.
“He’s looking good, he’s looking good,” he said. “They said it’s a bruise on his knee. Hopefully, we’re going to have him back for Georgetown so I’m really happy nothing serious happened to him.”
Willard has taken heat for not being completely forthcoming with previous injuries this season to Mamukelashvili and Myles Powell. When pressed more on McKnight’s status, he said: “He could be back tomorrow. He could be out the rest of the year. Don't text me. When we get the MRI results, I'll put them out right away."
According to Seton Hall, McKnight is scheduled to have an MRI on Monday.
With Villanova losing to Creighton, Seton Hall (16-5, 8-1 Big East) still has a one-game lead over the Wildcats (17-4, 7-2). Next week Seton Hall hits the road for two big games at Georgetown on Wednesday and at No. 9 Villanova on Saturday.
“We weren't going undefeated in conference play,” Willard said. “It's great that we started off 8-0 in this league but it's one loss, it's conference play. It's gonna happen."
Atlantic City native Naji Marshall had a big game for Xavier, holding Powell to nine points on 3-of-14 shooting and 1-of-9 defensively while tallying 19 points and 10 rebounds on the offensive end. Teaneck native and former Bergen Catholic star Zach Freemantle added five points and three rebounds before fouling out. Tyrique Jones had a huge game with 19 points and 18 rebounds.
Jared Rhoden (13 points, five rebounds) played well for Seton Hall but did most of his work in the first half.
Romaro Gill, who had been dominating opponents on both ends for much of Big East play, had a quiet game with two points, five rebounds and two blocks.
Xavier entered having lost six of its last eight games, including an 81-73 home loss to Seton Hall on Jan. 8. On Wednesday they lost at home to Marquette, 84-82, in double-overtime after shooting 11-of-25 from the line.
Xavier sprinted out of the gate to leads of 18-2, 22-4 and 30-6 before the Pirates showed signs of life. The Pirates closed the first half on a 17-5 spurt thanks largely to Rhoden to close within 35-23 at the break.
“We got taken to the woodshed,” Willard said. “We got down early and we started scrambling. We’ve been a little shaky on offense for the last three games...I thought we settled early on for too many jump shots.”
Still, as has been their custom recently, Seton Hall came on in the second half, closing to within 60-53 on a steal and driving layup by Mamukelashvili.
But the Pirates weren’t able to get closer than that. After McKnight was helped off, the energy among the Pirates and the crowd dissipated. A 3-pointer by KyKy Tandy (14 points) put Xavier up 67-53 with about four minutes remaining.
The Pirates will now look ahead to a trip to Washington, D.C. to play Patrick Ewing's Hoyas on Wednesday.
“We have to just come in for the Georgetown game ready for another win,” Mamukelashvili said.
Adam Zagoria is a freelance reporter who covers Seton Hall and NJ college basketball for NJ Advance Media.