Louisville News, Matt Whitfield, Seton Hall News

SETON HALL HOLDS OFF LOUISVILLE FOR KEY WIN

by MATT WHITFIELD

New York natives Bobby Gonzalez and Rick Pitino squared off Thursday night as Seton Hall and Louisville clashed in a Big East conference match-up at the Prudential Center in Newark (NJ). Both teams hit the floor in desperate need of a win.

The Cardinals, 3-2 in the Big East, entered the game coming off back-to-back losses to Villanova, in a game which they led by as many as 17 in the first half, and to Pittsburgh in overtime on Saturday, a game they led by five points with 40 seconds left in regulation.

The Pirates, 1-4 in the Big East and losers of six of eight overall, were coming off a twelve-point loss at Georgetown that has been part of a tough early conference schedule for the Pirates.

“Our schedule has been brutal, just absolutely brutal,” Gonzalez said earlier today during the Big East coaches media session. “Our four losses have been to teams in the top 12 in the country. It’s not an excuse, but our schedule has been a killer.”

With aspirations of earning an NCAA Tournament bid this season, Seton Hall was in a near must-win situation tonight, at least in perception.

“The perception is we’re not doing well, and a lot of that is our schedule,” said Gonzalez. “We’re hoping to turn it around. Everyone in this league goes through the meat grinder and hopefully it will get easier for us.”

The Pirates came out of the gates strong, playing with urgency while taking a 12-4 lead to open things up. Louisville, though, never seemed to be really out of it, as they answered Seton Hall with several of their own runs early in the game as freshman Mike Marra had the hot hand early on.

Jeremy Hazell was efficient offensively all night and one of his three made three-pointers in the game at the 8:47 mark of the first half gave Seton Hall a 28-22 lead.

When Louisville tried to double inside on Seton Hall, the Pirates often threw it to the open man and the three’s for falling early for SHU. Jordan Theodore’s three-pointer gave Seton Hall a 31-23 lead at the 7:40 mark as the Pirates had hit five of their first eight from behind the arc in the games first 12+ minutes.

“Right now we’re just a weak defensive team,” Pitino said afterwards. “We have slow feet, our press is good, but when we get down there to guard we’re always rotating because we’re getting beat.”

John Garcia’s bucket gave Seton Hall it’s first double digit lead, 38-27, as Seton Hall also controlled the paint early. Louisville made very little progress in trimming the lead before half and the score was 46-36 in favor of Seton Hall at the break.

Jeff Robinson and Robert Mitchell celebrate a Pirate run during the 2nd half of Seton Hall's 80-77 win over Louisville Thursday night at the Prudential Center (photo source - Noah K. Murray/ The Star-Ledger)

The Pirates won the battle of the boards in the first half (17-12) and connected on 50% of their three-point attempts while the Cards put it up often, but with little success (33%) from the arc.

Reginald Delk’s three-pointer got Louisville to within seven as the second half started and a Jared Swopshire bucket off of the UL full court pressure cut the lead to four with 14:29 left. However, that would be as close as Louisville would get for some time. The Pirates methodically stretched the lead and then a 7-1 run, punctuated by a Jeff Robinson dunk, electrified the Prudential Center crowd of 7,139 and the Pirates had their largest lead, 72-59, with just 4:18 left in the game.

However, after seeing themselves give up leads that were believed to be safe in their last two losses, Louisville tried to turn the tables. Edgar Sosa gave the Cardinals a chance at one more run as he hit a three-point shot at the 3:25 mark to quiet the crowd. Samardo Samuels followed that up with a follow-up bucket and all of a sudden the Cardinals were only down seven, 74-67.

After a SHU free throw, Herb Pope (10 points, 7 rebounds) committed his fifth foul, sending Marra (10 points) to the line where he would make one of two. After Theodore forced the issue and missed a layup, Preston Knowles scored on a tip-in off of transition and then Sosa stole the ball from Eugene Harvey and scored another bucket and a quick 5-0 run by UL made the score 75-72 with 1:22 left.

Louisville then looked to strike again off another Pirate turnover but Keon Lawrence and Jordan Theodore hustled to prevent a Cardinal score and Theodore found Hazell for a dunk to put the Hall up five with 34.7 seconds to go.

Samardo Samuels would score off a missed Edgar Sosa shot to bring the Cards back within three. Theodore and Lawrence would each make one of two free throws around a missed three-pointer by Marra to seemingly ice the game with 7.9 seconds left. Jerry Smith, however, hit a three point shot, to make it 79-77 with just about a second left and SHU was barely able to inbound the ball to Hazell who was fouled. Hazell would make the second of his two free throw attempts and the Cards were unable to get a desperation attempt off to tie the game before the buzzer as Seton Hall went on to win 80-77.

Jeremy Hazel led all scorers with 25 points in the game, connecting on nine of 12 field goal attempts, as SHU improves to 2-4 in the Big East and 12-6 overall ahead of Sunday’s date with Pittsburgh.

“Obviously it was a great win for us,” Gonzalez said after the game. “I thought we outplayed them and won the game wire-to-wire.”

Pitino was also impressed with the improvement of Seton Hall.

“By the fact that they beat Cornell on the road, and the fact they had West Virginia in overtime I see that their very much improved,” Pitino said. “They do a lot of good things and they’re really good off of the bounce, which makes them very difficult in both zone and man.”

The end of game execution is an area of concern, but after coming close in early games against Syracuse, West Virginia and Connecticut, coach Gonzalez was pleased they could pull it out.

“We didn’t do a great job in special situations at the end of the game and it got a little shaky,” said Gonzalez. “Even though I wasn’t happy it happened, I thought it was pretty good for us because we pulled it out and it was a great win for us.”

Jordan Theodore added 17 and Jeff Robinson scored 12 and grabbed a game-high 8 rebounds for the Hall.

Edgar Sosa led Louisville in a losing effort with 15 as the Cards were denied their 1,600th win in their program’s history for the third straight game.

“The effort is there and our guys are willing to pay the price,” Pitino said of his team following the game. “We can survive offensively with those three guys leaving from last year. Where we miss them is on the boards and on defense.”

With their first three-game losing streak since the 2005-2006 season, the Cardinals host Cincinnati on Sunday afternoon. With the three tough losses, coach Pitino expects his team to be ready for the challenge.

“We’re going to give great effort,” Pitino said. “There’s no carry-over after we played really hard. Were gonna continue to play really hard, it doesn’t mean were gonna beat Cincinnati, but were gonna continue to pay hard.”

The veteran coach also knows that the 12-7 Cards (3-3 in the Big East following the loss) are very much on the bubble for the NCAA Tournament. With a lack of statement wins and tough games ahead, there is work ahead for his young team.

“Hopefully we got hot,” said Pitino. “We got to win eight out of our twelve. That’s our goal and we’ll stay with our goal.”

There first shot comes Sunday…

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