March Madness 2020: How Seton Hall beat out UConn for Myles Powell, now the Big East Player of the Year

Growing up in Trenton, N.J., Myles Powell had a favorite Big East program, but it wasn’t Seton Hall.

Powell was a big UConn supporter and when he received an offer from the Huskies on July 30, 2015 after a strong showing at the Nike Global Challenge in Chicago, he Tweeted, “UCONN OFFER. BLESSED.”

“At the time UConn was my dream school and I had got the offer when I was at USA Global,” Powell told NJ Advance Media in a recent interview. “I made first-team there and that’s kind of when I blew up. I got a lot of offers. UConn was my dream school and I had told [NJ Playaz coach] Jim [Salmon] that I wanted to go to UConn right as soon as I got the offer.”

The 6-foot-2 Powell, of course, ultimately landed at Seton Hall where he has enjoyed a stellar four-year career. He was named Wednesday the Big East Player of the Year after averaging 21.0 points. 4.3 rebounds and 2.9 assists for the Pirates (21-9, 13-5 Big East), who open the Big East Tournament Thursday at 9:30 p.m. against Marquette. Powell was also named first-team All-America by Sporting News.

But with coach Dan Hurley and UConn poised to re-join the Big East next year after Powell graduates, it is worth revisiting how the recruiting battle went down.

The 2015 Nike Global Challenge took place July 15-18 at Whitney Young High School in Chicago. The eight-team, 14-game tournament featured the four USA Teams (Midwest, East, West, South) comprised of the Top 40 national high school players, competing against teams from Canada, China, the Dominican Republic and Pan Africa.

The event featured several players currently in the NBA, including Trae Young, Jayson Tatum, Miles Bridges, Malik Monk and De’Aaron Fox.

Playing for the USA East squad, Powell scored 24 points in one game and 30 in another, including 6-of-9 from deep. Earlier that summer, Powell had averaged 18.5 points, 4 rebounds and 1.9 assists per game in 20 games with the NY Playaz on the Nike EYBL circuit. He also shot 44 percent from the field and 37 percent from 3-point range.

Numerous college coaches were in attendance in Chicago, including the staffs from both Seton Hall and UConn.

“Chicago is where he caught my eye,” said Karl Hobbs, then a UConn assistant under Kevin Ollie and now the associate head coach at Rutgers. “He just had such a knack for scoring and there was a lot of terrific players at that Nike event in Chicago.”

Shaheen Holloway, then the associate head coach under Kevin Willard at Seton Hall, was similarly impressed.

“What I remember is he played at another level out there,” Holloway said. “I was like, ‘Oh, damn, it’s going to be a dog fight to get him.’ That was his coming-out party.”

UConn offered Powell later that month, but Seton Hall had already offered him as a sophomore, and Willard and Holloway had already built a strong relationship with Powell, who was also familiar with the Seton Hall players.

“I was up here all the time hanging out [on campus] with Desi [Rodriguez] and with Angel [Delgado] and Isaiah Whitehead,” Powell recalled. “They played for the Playaz a little bit the summer before they came to school, so I was already familiar with them. I was always up here working out and stuff, hanging out with the guys.”

Pittsburgh, Georgetown, DePaul, VCU, Georgia Tech and St. Joe’s also were in the mix for Powell.

“I thought he was recruited by the right schools at that time considering he was a fat, pudgy kid,” Salmon recalled.

After taking several other visits, Powell scheduled his official visit for Seton Hall for the weekend of Sept. 18, 2015, and was supposed to visit UConn the following weekend.

“We were very interested,” Hobbs said of UConn. “We were trying to get him to visit.”

Still, Salmon, who remains close with Powell and walked out on court with Powell’s parents on Senior Night at Seton Hall, counseled him at the time that UConn was not prioritizing him.

“I got inside scoop over there and you’re one of the last people that they want,” Powell recalled Salmon telling him at the time.

UConn’s Ollie may have overlooked Powell because of his physical appearance. He was chubby at the time.

“I don’t blame Kevin Ollie,” Salmon said in a recent interview. “Nobody knew that he was going to transform himself that quickly in one year and become the player that he is right now.

“Anyone who said that they knew that was going to happen is lying, especially with the body transformation.”

After breaking his foot during his senior season at South Kent, Powell ballooned up to 240 pounds, but was down to 195 by the fall of 2016 thanks to a changed diet and work with Seton Hall trainer Jason Nehring

Back in the fall of 2015, Powell ended up taking his official visit to Seton Hall with Bryce Aiken, the former Patrick School guard now at Harvard who will become a grad transfer after this season and could choose to come back home to Seton Hall.

He committed on his visit on Sept. 19.

“I pretty much knew in the summertime,” Powell said recently. “It just felt home, it just felt right ... I already kind of knew it was family, so there was college coaches calling me and I just stopped answering the phone and stuff like that.”

The decision left Hobbs stunned as he thought he could still get Powell on a visit.

“I just know we wanted him to visit Connecticut very badly and he didn’t visit Connecticut and he committed to Seton Hall,” Hobbs recalled. “I just think Seton Hall did a heck of a job recruiting him. He was a local kid and they did a great job of recruiting him.”

Asked what Willard and Holloway saw in him that the other schools didn’t, Powell said: “Honestly, I’m not really sure. I guess people just really didn’t see what Coach Sha and Coach Willard seen in me and whatever they seen in me first, they were the first people to offer me a scholarship and the love stayed the same throughout the whole recruiting process and I just went with my heart.

“Sometimes guys try to follow the big name and stuff like that and that’s why you always see kids transferring here and transferring there. I mean when you know it’s right for you, you feel it. And if I had to say a message for the rest of the guys coming into college, I would just tell them to follow your heart.”

Who knows how history might’ve played out differently for UConn had Powell committed to his “dream school” instead of Seton Hall? Maybe he would’ve evolved into the player he is now — a candidate for the Naismith and Wooden Awards — and maybe he wouldn’t have.


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Maybe Seton Hall wouldn’t be headed to their sixth straight NCAA Tournament under Willard.

And maybe Ollie would still be the coach at UConn.

Instead, when Seton Hall faces UConn twice next season without Powell, Hurley will be at the helm.

For his part, Hobbs doesn’t want to think about what ifs.

“I can’t speculate on that,” he said. “That makes no sense to me. I mean he’s obviously a very good player. If he would’ve went anywhere, he would’ve changed their program.

“He’s as good a player as any guard in the country and you could probably have a pretty good argument that he’s probably the best scoring guard in the country.”

Adam Zagoria is a freelance reporter who covers Seton Hall and NJ college basketball for NJ Advance Media.

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