Sandro Mamukelashvili gave his father a special present for their reunion.
The 6-foot-11 Seton Hall junior hadn’t seen his father, Zubar, since last May in their native Republic of Georgia. But his father picked the right night to see his son play basketball in the U.S.
Mamukelashvili gave No. 16 Seton Hall a thrilling 74-72 victory over No. 21 Butler with a bucket off a pass under the basket from Quincy McKnight as time expired at Prudential Center.
In the moments after the thrilling win, the son and the father embraced. Zubar, a Hodgkin's Lymphoma survivor, happened to return for Seton Hall vs. Cancer Night.
“It means a lot, it’s a big day for him,” said Sandro Mamukelashvili, who finished with 15 points and six rebounds in the win. “It just felt amazing to be the one but without [my teammates] I’d be nothing. ... It’s a Cancer Day and my father’s a cancer survivor, so it’s just great.”
Mamukelashvili said his father is “good now” and battled cancer “a couple years ago.”
“I think it’s huge,” Pirates coach Kevin Willard said. “I know his father was happy. He came over and gave me a hug.
“All these other guys get to see their families every night so when you have a chance to play in front of your family, it’s a little more special.”
Willard said he installed the play “about a month ago” after watching the Sacramento Kings use it effectively in a game.
“I put it in because it’s a good play to try to get him an easy bucket, to try to get us an bucket at times,” Willard said.
After a timeout with .6 seconds on the clock and the game tied at 72, Willard told Mamukelashvili in the huddle that the play was going to him and that star Myles Powell would be the decoy. It was a difficult shot that gave him just an instant to catch the pass and then throw up a shot over 6-foot-10 Butler big man John-Michael Mulloy, who had just entered the game.
“We ran that play a couple of days ago in practice and I feel like it worked out really good,” Mamukelashvili said. “And I feel like it was in the back of coach’s mind and my mind that if we do it right it will work out so Quincy threw a great pass, it was right on point so I just caught it and just threw it up.”
Powell had 16 points, six rebounds and five assists, McKnight tallied 18 points with three assists and two rebounds, including a key go-ahead 3-pointer late, and Romaro Gill had 15 points and seven rebounds.
The win means that Seton Hall (19-7, 11-3) preserved its narrow one-game lead on Creighton (21-6, 10-4) atop the Big East Conference. A loss would’ve put the two teams into a tie. Villanova was two back heading into a late game at DePaul.
The victory also extended the 26-game Seton Hall winning streak for FS1 announcer Brian Custer.
Butler (19-8, 7-7) has now lost 4-of-6. Seton Hall improved to 4-3 this season against ranked opponents.
“It’s the end of February and we’re in first place in the Big East,” Willard said. “I don’t have to worry about [a letdown Sunday vs. St. John’s]. Every game right now is too important."
Seton Hall, which was picked to win the Big East-regular season title, will still spend its remaining four games battling tooth-and-nail to to win the crown. Three of their four remaining games are against ranked opponents. After hosting St. John’s on Sunday, the Pirates visit No. 19 Marquette, host No. 12 Villanova on Senior Night and then close out the regular-season at No. 15 Creighton.
After saying Saturday night on the radio following the Providence loss that some of his players were “guys with bad attitudes right now,” Willard did not trim his rotation to six or seven as he hinted that night.
Instead, he played 10 players in the game.
Willard brought in reserves Myles Cale, Tyrese Samuel, Shavar Reynolds, Anthony Nelson, and Ike Obiagu in the first half. Cale played more than 19 minutes, Reynolds almost 11. Obiagu played less than a minute.
Willard said he lit into his staff and his players after the Providence game, but the team met three times following the game to straighten things out.
“My anger and my frustration was more everybody got it, it wasn’t one person,” Willard said. “I started with Powell, McKnight, Gill and then I went to the juniors. The only guy who didn’t get it was Tyrese because he’s a freshman.
“But everybody got it. The staff got it, I got it, I yelled at myself. I was just not happy.”
Now they’re back on the winning track and have Mamukelashvili to thank for it.
“I just shot it, so at that moment all I wanted to do was just score the basket so probably it is a difficult shot,” he said. “But Quincy threw it so good, it just made it look easy.”
Adam Zagoria is a freelance reporter who covers Seton Hall and NJ college basketball for NJ Advance Media.