The last time Seton Hall faced Notre Dame, the Pirates were a team in disarray. Their mild-mannered coach was ripping the refs. Their players were playing sievelike defense. And the team was mired in a nine-game Big East losing streak.
The Pirates came into last night’s tilt at 9-9, having won four of five in the league, drawing on a defensive reserve even they didn’t know they had.
What a difference a little soul-searching can make.
The Seton Hall squad that played host to the Irish (18-3) at the Meadowlands last night was a different team than the one that lost 74-64 at Notre Dame on Jan. 12. Same names, same roster, but different attitude. And they say their turnaround started with that defeat.
“We’re going in to play Notre Dame with a lot more momentum,” forward Marcus Toney-El said. “The last time we played them, we don’t feel we got the calls we should have; but we put ourselves in that situation. We shouldn’t have let the refs decide our fate.
“But we’re a different team than we were then. We didn’t have an identity then. We know who we are now: We’re a defensive team. We’re not always going to shoot the ball well, but we can always play defense. We’re a defensive team, a guts team.”
Truth be told, the Pirates showed little guts going into or during that loss at South Bend, Ind. After collapsing last winter to finish with six straight league losses, they opened this season 0-3, their worst conference start since 1993-94.
That Notre Dame loss was the boiling point, and the turning point. After watching the Irish – who’ve been known to get a call or three at home – shoot 29 free throws to the Hall’s nine, and get whistled for 10 fouls to the Pirates’ 24, devoutly religious coach Louis Orr snapped.
“I’m tired and I’m frustrated for our guys,” Orr said at the time. “I’ve been watching it go on … I don’t know why there’s a disparity, but there is and it’s discouraging our guys. Does it take [winning] 20 games or to be a ranked team to get the same calls? It’s just frustrating.”
Frustration? That was watching the Pirates try to play defense. They were getting shredded worse than documents at Enron headquarters.
In their nine-game Big East slide, the Pirates allowed 74.2 points-per-game. But Orr and the coaching staff broke it down to them after that loss in South Bend: If you won’t defend, you won’t win. Period.
“After Notre Dame we talked to the team. We said we’ve got to play defense if we’re going to have a chance to win,” Orr said. “That game was a big-time for us. We didn’t show poise offensively, didn’t value possessions; we just took shots instead of working for the best shot.”
Since then, they’ve defended with zeal, allowing an average of 65.2 points in regulation (factoring in last week’s overtime win at Georgetown). And they’re doing it against the eighth-toughest schedule in the country, according to the RPI.
“We became consistent [defensively] after the Notre Dame game,” Toney-El said. “Before that, we had our ups and downs, but as far as the effort that goes into it, game-in and game-out, that started against Notre Dame.”