Jared Rhoden described the nature of the loss as getting “punked.” Kevin Willard felt his team was taken to “the woodshed.”
Both adjectives would suffice.
The only positive from Seton Hall’s ugly 74-62 setback to Xavier at the Prudential Center on Saturday was point guard Quincy McKnight’s left knee injury, sustained late in the second half, doesn’t appear to be too serious. Otherwise, this was a nightmarish performance that resulted in the Pirates’ 10-game winning streak — their longest since 1993 — coming to an abrupt end.
The Musketeers built a 24-point first-half lead and never lost control. The Pirates were manhandled inside, out-rebounded 51-22, outscored in the paint, 36-22, and on second-chance points, 18-0. Tyrique Jones owned Seton Hall, notching 19 points and 18 rebounds, and Naji Marshall tallied 19 points and 10 rebounds. Preseason All-American Myles Powell, meanwhile, continued to struggle from the field, scoring just nine points on 3-of-14 shooting and is now 19-for-75 (25.3 percent) from deep in Big East play.
“When you’re giving up that many offensive rebounds in this league, you’re going to get your butt kicked,” Willard said of his team, which remained atop the Big East despite the loss, thanks to Villanova’s home defeat to Creighton. “We played terrible.”
With 6:02 left, McKnight was fouled on a drive, immediately clutched his left knee and was helped off the floor. Afterward, Willard said on 570 AM, “From first diagnosis, not as bad as it looked.” He declined to offer the same details in his postgame press conference, though said there doesn’t appear to be any structural damage. McKnight (15 points), Seton Hall’s best defender and second-leading scorer, will undergo an MRI exam on Monday.
Seton HallBill Kostroun“He’s looking good,” Sandro Mamukelashvili said. “They said it’s a little bruise on his knee. Hopefully we’re going to have him back for Georgetown [on Wednesday].”
Seton Hall (16-5, 8-1 Big East) scored the game’s first basket, on a Myles Cale jumpshot, and everything went wrong from there. Its next points came 6:03 later, on a Mamukelashvili drive. By then, Xavier (14-8, 3-6) was ahead by 14, and it would only get worse. The lead mushroomed to a stunning 30-6 after a Quentin Goodin layup. The building sounded like a library. This wasn’t the team the large crowd of 12,230 had seen all year.
“It was really bad,” Rhoden said. “It’s on us. It’s an early game and we kind of came out lethargic.”
At one point, Seton Hall was 2-of-18 from the field while Xavier made 12 of its first 17 shot attempts and grabbed 18 of the game’s first 21 rebounds. It was utter domination. Willard used three timeouts, shuttled in different players and new lineups, but nothing worked until Rhoden sparked them.
The Pirates closed the half well, awakening over the final 7:23 of the stanza. Behind eight points from the sophomore, they went on a 17-5 run to get within striking distance, at 35-23. They made several mini-runs in the second half, getting as close as seven, but Xavier — in particular Marshall and Jones — always had an answer, finally making Seton Hall pay for a bad start.
Entering the contest, the Pirates had trailed at halftime 10 times, winning seven of those games. They dug too deep of a hole this time.
“We weren’t going undefeated in conference play,” Willard said. “It’s great that we started off 8-0, but if you don’t play well in this league, you’re going to take a loss. It’s one loss. It’s conference play, it’s going to happen.”
