Rutgers-Seton Hall basketball banquet brings out the best in the rivalry

NUTLEY — It’s been 32 years since Terry Dehere’s first college basketball road game, and the former Seton Hall All-American remembers every detail. It was at Rutgers, and he was fouled in the final minute of a nail-biter.

Dehere recounted the story Friday night at a banquet hall packed with Seton Hall and Rutgers supporters.

“In the four years I played in college, the RAC was one of the most difficult places to play — for shooters like myself, a really tough place,” he said. “I can remember being fouled and having to go to the free-throw line and I couldn’t even think, it was so loud. I remember thinking, ‘How the heck am I going to make these shots?”

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He took a deep breath, turned away from the crazed student section, and thought of growing up in Jersey City and the fundamentals he learned under legendary St. Anthony High School coach Bob Hurley. Then he sank both free throws and the Hall won.

“I was so excited, I couldn’t sleep that night,” he said. “I got the newspaper first thing in the morning (to read about it). It was insane.”

As he told the story, the guy to his left sat in rapt attention.

If Dehere is the best shooter in the modern era of Jersey college hoops — you can make a strong case — then Rutgers’ Quincy Douby is 1-A.

And Douby told his own Rutgers-Seton Hall story. At the end of the 2005 game at the RAC, he went to the free-throw line with the score tied and no time left. As the building fell silent, he made the second of two shots to lift the Scarlet Knights to victory.

Nearly 17 years later, Douby revealed what exactly helped him zero in and focus on the pressure-packed task.

“I was thinking about Jamar Nutter,” Douby said of an opposing Pirate guard. “How they offered him a scholarship over me.”

Who knew? During his recruitment, Douby crossed Seton Hall off his list after Nutter committed there. Who knew that Dehere, during his recruitment, rebuffed a late scholarship offer from North Carolina’s Dean Smith to remain committed to the Pirates?

Who knew that Phil “The Thrill” Sellers took a recruiting visit to Rutgers with fellow New York hoop legends Lloyd (later World B.) Free and James “Fly” Williams at the behest of some Scarlet Knights assistant coach by the name of Dick Vitale?

Sellers said Vitale sat next to his mother at seemingly every one of his high school games.

"He recruited my mom," Sellers said. "She loved Italian guys."

The stories kept coming at the inaugural RU-SHU Hoops Banquet, which was organized by “The Front Office,” a basketball scouting and events group helmed by young Seton Hall alums Pat Lawless and CJ Nobile.

Staged to celebrate Sunday’s return of the Garden State Hardwood Classic after a COVID year off, it was a runaway success. And not just because of the A-list panelists, although Sellers, Dehere, Douby, Jerry Walker, Isaiah Whitehead, Austin Johnson, Mike Nzei, Myles Mack and CBS’ Jon Rothstein did a bang-up job. What made the night special was the fans, a fair mix of Pirates and Scarlet Knights, who came together and enjoyed each other’s company in an old-school, face-to-face fashion — a stark contrast to the endless, internet-muscles sniping on social media and message boards.

Everywhere inside Mamma Vittoria’s Italian bistro, there was a sense of shared destiny, that it’s better for each program if both are good. It kicks the annual rivalry game into high gear when everyone’s paying attention.

There was plenty of talk about Thursday’s table-setting results: The Hall taking down seventh-ranked Texas a few minutes before Rutgers shocked top-ranked Purdue on a half-court buzzer beater. And you could hear the pride in the former players’ voices about rivalry triumphs of years past. But the overriding sentiment was a reminder of how much fun the series is and, especially after a year off, how much it means to the Jersey hardwood community.

Emcee John Fanta nailed it in his closing remarks.

“On Sunday, New Jersey will be the center of college basketball,” he said. “That is a great thing for Seton Hall University and that is a great thing for Rutgers University. That’s what it’s meant to be.”

Jerry Carino has covered the New Jersey sports scene since 1996 and the college basketball beat since 2003. He is an Associated Press Top 25 voter. Contact him at jcarino@gannettnj.com.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Rutgers-Seton Hall basketball banquet brings out the best in rivalry