NEWARK – This time, Isaiah Coleman had the ball in his hands when it mattered most.
Seton Hall basketball’s star drilled a 3-pointer from the left wing with four seconds left in Wednesday’s game against DePaul, forcing overtime of an eventual 85-80 Pirates victory.
It was a stark departure from the last game at the Prudential Center, against Georgetown, when Dylan Addae-Wusu could not get the rock to Coleman on the final possession and turned it over as the Pirates fell 61-60.
Having learned the hard lesson, Addae-Wusu drove to the left of the arc and flipped the ball back to the sophomore wing, who cut around a screen by Prince Aligbe to give himself just enough space to let it fly.
The designed play was different than the one head coach Shaheen Holloway drew up against Georgetown (that was a dribble handoff), but the point is: They executed this one.
“We didn’t run it 100 percent right, but we ran it right enough and Zay stepped up and made a good shot,” Holloway said. “Prince had a good screen, Dylan did his job by taking his man down, the five man who was guarding Prince kind of helped out a little bit, Prince set the screen and Zay took him right off. He made a big shot, and that’s something that we needed.”
The dramatic sequence capped the Pirates’ rally from 19 points down in the second half as they captured their first Big East triumph and snapped a five-game losing streak.
“I’m happy for them because we needed this game for a lot of different reasons,” Holloway said of his players. “We haven’t won in a minute, and hopefully — winning is contagious like losing is contagious — so now you win this game, and the way we won it, I think it gives them confidence for us to move forward.”
Despite dealing with food poisoning that kept him bedridden Thursday through Sunday, Coleman posted 24 points, six rebounds and five assists. Afterward he could not attend the press conference because he was getting fluids from athletic trainer Tony Testa, as were Addae-Wusu and sophomore wing Scotty Middleton. All three of them logged 36-plus minutes.
So exhausted was the trio, Holloway said, that “I heard some noise in the back (trainer’s room) that I didn’t like.”
Addae-Wusu notched 24 points, seven assists four boards and three steals as the Hall improved to 6-9 overall and 1-3 in the Big East. DePaul (9-7, 0-5) has not won in Newark since 2019. Seton Hall is 26-10 all-time against the Blue Demons and has won 10 of the past 12 meetings.
Most important: The Pirates showed some fight and maybe found something.
“We found grit, inner grit from the five players, whoever came out there (after halftime),” Aligbe said. “It’s about how you fight. I know we have a lot of fighters.”
FIVE TAKEAWAYS
1. Small, short rotation worked
Prior to this game, Seton Hall’s best offensive half of the season took place against Oklahoma State, when the Pirates fell into a huge hole, went small and pressed. Same thing happened here as Holloway after the break sent out a starting five of guards and wings in Addae-Wusu, Chaunce Jenkins, Middleton, Coleman and Aligbe and unleashed full-court pressure.
It worked. DePaul turned it over six times early in the half, energizing the Pirates and the crowd as they chipped away. Credit Aligbe (16 points, 6 rebounds, 3 steals) with holding it down defensively in the paint at just 6-foot-7.
“Me playing that small-ball five…defensively we can do a lot of switching and pressuring because we all can move our feet, we’re all athletic,” Aligbe said. “It showed on both sides of the floor and that’s how we were able to make our run.”
That it came to this is indicative of how little the Pirates are getting from their traditional bigs. But credit Holloway for pushing the right buttons here. After playing 11 guys in the first half — point guard Garwey Dual was a healthy scratch — Holloway subbed minimally in the second half, riding the small lineup even as the constant pressure had his guys gasping for air. In the end it was six guys who played the bulk of the minutes after halftime.
“They gave me everything they got,” Holloway said. “I said, ‘listen, this group is gonna stay in. I’m either gonna call a timeout or we’re gonna do a TV timeout. Four-minute segments, so give me everything you’ve got for four minutes.’ And that’s what they were doing, and we kind of chipped away.”
How much more of this will we see going forward?
“I mean, it’s definitely something I want to do in segments,” Holloway said. “It’s tough, right? We’ve got three guys right now in there getting IVs and cramping, so I know tomorrow’s gonna be a wash and probably Friday, now I gotta go to Providence (Saturday) and try to win a game. But this game was important. We needed this game for a lot of different reasons, and we just kind of deal with what happens from there.”
Holloway prefers to go 10 deep, and he was determined to do that this season after tightrope-walking his way through last winter with a seven-man rotation. But maybe this is the template for this team and, in the longer view, for a program that might be better served marshaling its resources for six or seven core guys instead of 10 or 11.
“I’m okay now playing five or six guys,” Holloway said. “I just want to play hard. And we haven’t been playing hard, and that’s not my team, so it was good to see guys play hard in the second half.”
2. Isaiah Coleman’s explosion
Coleman came in averaging 19.8 points and 6.2 rebounds, yet he took just two first-half shots. He committed a couple of early turnovers and then disappeared from the offense. When things ran through him down the stretch, he scored 15 points in the final 2:15 of regulation and overtime.
“Of course he’s our guy right now,” Aligbe said. “Of course he’s going to be that moving forward. We have to do better to help him – and we did. It was learning from our mistakes from past games and being reactive on the court.”
The game-tying shot was a case-in-point. After Holloway panned Coleman for not going to get the ball at the end of the Georgetown loss, he called for it against DePaul, and Aligbe gave him a heads-up signal as the screen was unfolding.
“I saw that Dylan trying to drive hard left, Zay talked to me, he communicated, and it kind of caught my man off guard when I set a good screen,” Aligbe said. “Zay works a lot on his game and it showed with the shot he hit. We had poise.”
DePaul had no one capable of stopping Coleman, and most other squads don’t, either. He needs to be featured for his entire time on the floor. Notable stat: He is the first Pirate since Myles Powell in 2019-20 to score 15-plus points in each of the first four Big East contests.
The work has to start now, if it hasn’t already, on how to retain this centerpiece player for next season.
After the final buzzer, Seton Hall forward Gus Yalden sprinted onto the court and wrapped his arms around the exhausted star. It was a nice moment that captured how much Coleman means to the program.
3. Sha’s technical foul
Holloway’s lone technical foul of the season, for getting on official Nathan Farrell early in the second half, proved to be a rallying point. His last tech came 11 months ago at St. John’s, and after that his Pirates also stormed back from 19 down to win.
“I was telling Nathan, and I think Nathan’s a good referee, but in a time like this, you understand I’m fighting for my team, it’s not personal,” Holloway said, adding that “I deserved it.”
As a side note: Farrell is the official who Monmouth coach King Rice called “a clown,” which got Rice suspended for this season’s Coastal Athletic Conference opener. Rice and Holloway are good friends.
4. Jahseem Felton helps out again
The freshman guard came off the bench early in the first half and gave the offense an immediate lift with four points. In the second half, he was the first sub off the bench and drilled a 3-pointer. He finished with 7 points on 3-of-3 shooting and made no offensive mistakes in 24 minutes.
“I didn’t like that he gave up offensive rebounds,” Holloway said with a smirk. “He’s just playing hard. You ain’t out there because you’re doing something great, you’re just playing hard, you’re doing what you could do, you could make a shot. And he’s got the confidence to go try to get a shot, and I like that about him.”
Felton can help this season’s anemic offense and even more important – playing him now is a potential investment in next season.
It was telling, and a good sign, that Holloway had him on the floor at the end of regulation and overtime.
5. Small but energized crowd
The crowd of about 3,000 was the smallest for a non-snowstorm Big East game anyone could remember. Only a few dozen students attended (winter break is ongoing) and even Flagman was missing (he has a hamstring injury!). For the second time this season, there was a smattering of boos as the Pirates fell into a huge first-half hole.
To the crowd’s credit, it came through big-time in the second half. Fans rose to their feet as the Pirates climbed out the hole. They made as much noise as 3,000 folks possibly could when Coleman drilled his game-tying triple, providing a huge shot of adrenaline going into overtime.
Aligbe said that carried the exhausted unit across the finish line.
“They do a great job playing off our passion, and I think that really fueled us,” he said. “Coach always says, when you have energy (the ball) finds you, and fatigue doesn’t catch up with you when you’re having fun with the game.”
Jerry Carino has covered the New Jersey sports scene since 1996 and the college basketball beat since 2003. Contact him at jcarino@gannettnj.com.
