By JOHN PAVIA
NEWARK — Seton Hall is in the ditch and the wheels may be coming off.
With their 86-67 home loss to Georgetown on Tuesday night at The Prudential Center, the Pirates have now dropped three straight and six of eight since a 3-1 start in Big East play.
Entering the day, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi had Seton Hall (15-9, 5-7 Big East) as a No. 11 seed in the NCAA Tournament, but they continue to move in the wrong direction.
Following Saturday’s loss to Marquette, Pirates senior forward Brandon Mobley revealed internal tensions by calling out his team, saying, “Winning is not on everybody’s mind right now. Everyone’s focused on things besides winning. It’s up to the guys if they want to play the season out or play with a purpose.”
In response, head coach Kevin Willard closed the locker room to reporters on Tuesday.
When asked if Mobley’s comments or any of the blowback from them had any impact on this game, Willard gave a brief, but succinct answer: “No, we had talked about that before [the game].”
Willard also discussed Mobley’s comments in more detail and spoke about any potential ban from players speaking with the media after the game.
“I think that’s part of living through life is knowing what to say to you guys [the media], what to put on social media,” Willard said. “It’s not easy. It’s hard to ban these guys from what their life is. Brandon tried to say something the other day that was, believe it or not, he tried to say something that was positive and he just kind of ran his mouth in the wrong way which sometimes players do. I mean he didn’t mean it the way it came out, but you know, he’s got to learn. It’s a good learning tool for him.”
“I think I’m still on Twitter,” Willard said when asked about his recently deleted tweet history. “Oh, this great app. It’s Mark Cuban‘s app, Expire. You load it and it deletes everything you’ve ever tweeted or retweeted. It’s phenomenal. I’m not getting paid for that, but it’s nice.”
As Asbury Park Press writer Jerry Carino noted on Twitter, Seton Hall had faltered in 2012 after an excellent 15-2 start to the year and after starting 13-2 this season, they’ve lost seven of the last 10 games. The other common thread between these two seasons? Reported locker room problems.
One would’ve expected Seton Hall to come out of the gates flying at home in an attempt to squash any notion of a lack of chemistry or frustration following this two-game losing streak. While the Pirates did look to be on the same page, they came out very sluggish and took quite a while to get going as the Hoyas jumped on them for a 27-7 lead at one point in the first half.
Seton Hall did show resiliency to tie the game early on in the second half, but their efforts were quickly countered by a 9-0 run behind heralded lead guard D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera and freshman wing Isaac Copeland.
From there, Seton Hall never really found much of an offensive rhythm in the second half and whenever they looked to get going, Georgetown always had an immediate answer. Georgetown pushed the lead to 10 points and it never got below that number for the rest of the game as the Hoyas ran away with the game; Smith-Rivera led Georgetown with 23 points while Copeland finished with 20.
Sterling Gibbs led Seton Hall with 17 points and Angel Delgado scored 12 points and grabbed 15 rebounds.
This marks Seton Hall’s third consecutive Big East loss and has the team reeling as they enter the brutal homestretch of their conference schedule. They will face a tough Providence team on the road on Monday, and then must visit first-place Villanova and St. John’s.
GEICO SportsNite has reaction from Seton Hall head coach Kevin Willard who discusses the Pirates’ 86-67 loss to Georgetown. http://web.sny.tv/media/video.jsp?content_id=37226447
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