Seton Hall Basketball: Seton Hall 59, Rutgers 54; Pirates, Cosby Turn the Lights on the Rutgers Blackout
by GonzoBallSHU on Feb 9, 2012 12:20 AM EST
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PrintWhen it comes to snapping a six game losing streak, there's no better place to do it than in the house of your hated intrastate rival. That's exactly what Seton Hall (16-8, 5-7) did tonight, defeating Rutgers (12-13, 4-8) 59-54, winning for the fifth consecutive year at the RAC. Jordan Theodore spoke a lot this week about how much the game meant to him, Seton Hall and his teammates. Did he ever back up his words. Finishing his Seton Hall career undefeated at Piscataway, Theodore willed his Pirates to victory, turning in 24 points while taking the game over late in the second half. JT's 3 assists and 3 turnovers don't tell the whole story, he distributed the ball much better than that, but fell victim to quite a few missed shots after finding his teammates with good looks. He was the best player on the floor tonight; with his team's season quickly turning disasterous, he took firm control of the ship's helm and navigated the rocky seas to see another day. Ladies and gentlemen, your Pirates are alive.
For the first time in weeks, Seton Hall didn't get off to a slow start. Believe it or not, they scored 8 points in the first three minutes, it was absolutely refreshing to see. The Pirates controlled most of the first half, however, turnovers did them in late, allowing Rutgers to take a 28-26 lead into the break. Despite outshooting the Scarlet Knights by roughly 15% over the first twenty minutes, the Pirates could not take care of the basketball, turning it over 13 times and essentially, handing Rutgers the halftime momentum. After trading leads throughout the second half, the Pirates held a 48-44 advantage heading into the final media timeout, but of course, this game wouldn't be complete without a little old-fashion extra circular activity.
After a shooting foul was called on Aaron Cosby (9pts, 3-of-5 3pt), Herb Pope (12pts/12reb) and Eli Carter (13pts) traded words before Herb Pope headbutted the Rutgers freshman. You read that correctly, once again, Herb Pope lost his cool. I'm sure I'll touch on this again later, but let me just say, it's inexcusable and ridiculous that we're still seeing this side of Pope.
Carter retaliated with a two handed shove which brought about a HILARIOUS Oscar-worthy flop from Pope. Coaches and assistants worked to separate their players and when the smoke was cleared, Seton Hall was somehow charged for a shooting foul (Cosby) and two technical fouls (Pope, Mobley) while Rutgers was charged with one T (Carter). The end result? Rutgers would get four shots and the ball. Three made free throws and a Dane Miller 3-pointer later, Rutgers led 50-48 and it surely felt like the officials had robbed the Pirates of the game. On Seton Hall's next possession, Herb Pope hit a three from the top of the key, which put his team on top, for good. Rutgers had a chance trailing by two with the ball, but after a missed Eli Carter 3-point attempt, it was Seton Hall frosh, Aaron Cosby who cemented his name in the rivalry's history books. Mobley found Cosby and with his man closing in, he calmly hit a dagger 3-pointer that gave the Pirates a 5 point lead with 42 seconds remaining. During the timeout that followed, Theodore congratulated Cosby on his first (of hopefully many) memorable moment of the series.
Well folks, thats five in a row (at the RAC) and more importantly, five conference wins. The Pirates, have a lot of work left to do, but there's life. The Pirates are next in action, Sunday afternoon at The Rock, taking on a red hot Pittsburgh Panthers team. Five (including BET game) more needed. As always, Let's Go Hall!
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FWIW, Pope is denying head butting Carter in his post game comments.
Comical.
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A win is a win...
This was brutal down the stretch but The Hall came away with a MUCH NEEDED Win! The technicals with less than four minutes and a 4 point lead were devastating. Pope nailing a three on the next possession was huge but I can’t emphasize enough how CLUTCH Cosby’s 3 was at the end!
Also was nice seeing a high free throw percentage for our squad in a volatile arena! Here comes the winning streak for the Hall! Panthers will leave the Rock with a loss on Sunday! Go Hall
by SHU2005 on Feb 9, 2012 1:04 AM EST via mobile reply actions
Road wins are always ulgy. Cool, but ulgy.
The RAC is a million dollar arena with a 10 cent sound system and no imagination when it comes to fan entertainment. It was bush league to introduce the new football coach during a time out after the Pirates slienced the crowd. They did it again with who I thought was Victor Cruz (with my sight line blocked and the cheep sound system I could not tell for sure). When you have to do things like this to get the crowd into THIS GAME, you know there is a problem at the banks of the Raritan.
The RAC should have been sold out and filled with scarlet or at least the student section should have been all blacked out. I never should have been able to hear the RU fan complain that his ticket was in the Seton Hall section. It was nice to see a lot of Seton Hall Blue in the crowd and spread all over the place. Even nicer was that with 48 seconds to go, and RU still in the game, it was all blue shirts as the scarlet (can’t use the word faithful) ran for their cars to beat the traffic. There should not have been 15-20 empty rows behind me. My tickets were purchased 2 weeks ago, I believe direct from RU. This tells me that almost no one purchased tickets since then and, judging by the number of blue shirts in my section, RU fans are only fillng the lower half the arena.
The Pirates are coming out of the slump. Defense was excellent and kept them in the game. They shot the ball better. JT was not only the best player, he was also the only leader on the floor (The latter comment came from Coach Rice). They played with confidence, knowing they would win, even when the refs tried to take the game away from them. They kept the crowd quiet for most of the game. But, there was some hesitation when it came to primiter shooting and they need to move faster when they have the ball in the paint. If Carter was headbutted and if we earned both T’s, then they have started to play without self discipline. Overall they made a lot of progress. We can now all believe the team wil continue to improve, will be in a position to win every game and will make key clutch shots.
Nice Win
The Pirates showed they can still make a Giant like run toward the end of the season. We will need a great fan showing on Sunday. Need to stop Pitt cold!! Even though the technical was ill advised – great to see Pope back playing with passion and desire. And the chemistry betweeen JT and AC is starting to heat up which will give AC more confidence to shoot. Looks like Victor Cruz is our good luck charm!! Go Pirates!!
Small correction
It was actually Mobley who fed AC for the 3. JT deserves credit for driving and drawing the defense, but he fed it out to Mobley who immediately dumped it to AC.
Thanks Rockt!
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by GonzoBallSHU on Feb 9, 2012 11:03 AM EST up reply actions
That's what happens when you're recapping past midnight... : /
Not crazy about 9PM weeknight starts.
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by GonzoBallSHU on Feb 9, 2012 11:03 AM EST up reply actions
Mobley was my x-factor for this game, as I thought he posed matchup problems
Great job by the frosh (he and Cosby, in fact).
I liked the defensive subbing of Karlis on Willards part too. That kid brings fire and intensity. Great to see those three freshman get some time / exposure to this rivalry.
I can’t help by say that, moving forward over the next few years, Rutgers is going to be pretty good if they stay healthy and focused.
GREAT grind-it-out win for our Pirates.
@robertmanganaro
Indeed, despite not having his touch shooting last night, he still impacted the game in a huge way.
10 boards, 2 offensive, and also had a few tip-outs on both ends to either extend possessions or fight for the board defensively. Love what this kid brings every night.
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by GonzoBallSHU on Feb 9, 2012 11:31 AM EST up reply actions
The remaining 6 Seton Hall Basketball games is in Jordon Theodore's hands......
Two plays that occurred during the game last night according to the WABC Radio team describes Seton Hall’s fate for the remainder of the season.
The first play Jordon Theodore brings the ball upcourt and sees that Herb Pope was underneath the basket with three guys surrounding him. Instead of looking for two of his teammates that is open when Rutgers triple teamed Pope, he continued to try and past the ball to Pope which was picked off by one of those three players.
a few plays later Jordon Theordore makes a pass to Mobley who (seeing Aaron Cosby) makes a good pass to Cosby for an important 3 point play.
Those two plays shows what the potential are for Seton Hall. Jordon scored 24 points in this game but being the point guard he has to understand that he also have to get the other players involved in the game and not just go to one because he maybe the Senior of the game. So the rest of the season Theordore will have to understand he either will continue to make bad passes and lose or past to the “OPEN” man and win.
He has to know what is a good play or not.
Though I do agree with what your saying
I pointed out in the recap that Theodore made a number of terrific passes last night that won’t show up in the box scores do to his teammates not doing their part. He EASILY could have had 7-8 assists, instead of 3. I didn’t have an issue with his distribution (in fact, I thought it was terrific), or his shot selection last night. It’s hard to get on him for the number of shots he takes when he can find his teammates all night long, resulting in bricks. There are times when he tries to do too much, but I don’t think that was necessarily the case last night.
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I agree that I disagree...
I thought JT played a spectacular game overall. He had a great pick and roll to Pope who was charged with the charge. The box score doesn’t say how much he did last night. Plus, keep in mine we had 13 (I believe it was 13, at least) turnovers in the FIRST HALF. JT’s passes were often good ones but, like GonzoBall was saying, often times his teammates didn’t handle said passes.
Amazing that he’s 4-0 all-time in his 4 years at the RAC.
@robertmanganaro
Though I do agree with what you're saying.
I pointed out in the recap that Theodore made a number of terrific passes last night that won’t show up in the box scores due to his teammates not doing their part. He EASILY could have had 7-8 assists, instead of 3. I didn’t have an issue with his distribution (in fact, I thought it was terrific), or his shot selection last night. It’s hard to get on him for the number of shots he takes when he can find his teammates all night long, resulting in bricks. There are times when he tries to do too much, but I don’t think that was necessarily the case last night.
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Only think I can say from watching the game 1,100 miles away is
this would have been a blow-out if we could ONLY controlled the ball … almost 20 turnovers is NOT Hall Ball and at least a dozen times we came down and didn’t even get a shot off … shooting close to 50% the first half and on the short end of the score is just acceptable … now having said that I do think we should be able to take Pitt Sunday … USF did a nice job last night holding them to 51 and if we can do the same it should be another notch in the left column 4 ‘da Hall.
So my few basic points we need to continue to do are:
• Control the ball (6-7 TO’s OK, but nothing like last night);
• Don’t pass into a crowd (basic High School teaching);
• Bend your knees when shooting foul shots; and
• Just play basketball w/o thinking (let your skills take over instead of thinking what your gonna do).
It’s gonna be fun watching this ship sail into the BET w/attitude … GO HALL!
Middle of the Game
Jordan played a very good game overall. I agree with everything said on that front. He made big shots and he made the move of the game with the turn-around move around the defender and then floater over the big man. However, he really needs to play a full game. He’s playing 30 great minutes a game and then he struggles for however many minutes he plays after that. Willard made the point to try and get him out a little more to get him a few more resting minutes which is going to be key. He had roughly 3 or 4 lackadaisacal passes again, which ended being a contributing factor to why Seton Hall was down at half time.
The true winning point of that game in my eyes(besides hitting big shots down the stretch) was our rebounding victory, 36-27. Our boys did a great job out-rebounding the Scarlet Knights. We still gave up 11 offensive boards but shored them up so there was few second chance points. During the losing streak, we would have given up that many with 15 points on second chance. We need to keep the offensive teams off the glass, especially when we play such good defense.
Always a good win for the Hall! Keep it up and keep it coming. Go Hall!
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