Seton Hall basketball misses golden opportunity vs. Creighton

NEWARK – Sometimes a press conference with losing college basketball players can be awkward, with long silences and short answers.

This was not the case with Tyrese Samuel and Al-Amir Dawes after Seton Hall's 75-62 defeat to 23rd-ranked Creighton Wednesday night. They knew exactly what went wrong after a spirited 34 minutes and weren't afraid to spell it out for reporters.

“We got undisciplined at the end, we had mental lapses down the stretch when it was really important," Samuel said.

"They’re a good team," Dawes added. "I don’t think we were in the right head space the last seven minutes.”

The Pirates trailed by just one and the under-8 timeout and by four with five minutes left in the second half. Then Creighton finished out with a 14-5 run, silencing a raucous Prudential Center crowd of 8,000.

"We played well for 34 minutes; I thought the last six minutes we just lost our minds, not playing disciplined," Hall coach Shaheen Holloway said. "We didn’t play disciplined and it cost us. It’s frustrating because it’s a game that I thought we had, a game that we needed at home, and I thought the crowd was great."

Creighton (16-8 overall, 10-3 Big East) has won seven straight and completed a season sweep of the Pirates (15-10, 8-6), who saw their three-game winning streak halted despite committing just five turnovers -- the program's fewest in three years -- and forcing 19 of them. The Bluejays shot a blistering 61 percent from the floor, including 12-of-20 from 3-point range, and locked down defensively around the rim. This is why they were the runaway favorite to win the Big East -- and why they might well make a Final Four run in March.

FIVE TAKEAWAYS

1. Missed opportunity; more coming

Up six points early in the second half, with its building on fire, the Hall could not capitalize with a Quad 1 victory that would put them in the projected NCAA Tournament field.

"We had an unbelievable chance to get a big win at home and we kind of let it slip away," Holloway said.

The problems started on offense.

"We went from being up six to being down one because of some questionable shots and not really understanding who’s who on defense, not locking in," Holloway said. "And that’s not being tired. Guys want to play, and guys have been playing these (major) minutes, but that’s not an excuse. We just lost focus.”

Dawes, who tallied 19 points, indicated the players focused too much on the whistles and let certain calls, or no-calls, get to them.

“Once we get our heads straight and keep it on basketball, we’ll be a pretty good team," he said.

Fortunately for the Pirates, they have more chances to bolster the resume. With six regular-season games remaining, they’ll need to go 4-2 to lock up a bid before Selection Sunday. They have Georgetown and 13th-ranked Xavier at home, 21st-ranked UConn and 20th-ranked Providence on the road, and Villanova home-and-away. A 3-3 record in those contests, including a win over resume-denting Georgetown, would leave them on the bubble with work to do at the Big East Tournament.

"This is an important stretch for us," Samuel said. "It’s destiny that we have all these ranked opponents. We can change our whole season completely.”

2. Richmond vs. Kalkbrenner

It wasn’t a straight matchup, of course, between the Pirates’ point guard and the Bluejays’ center – the two best players on the court. But they wound up face to face plenty of times. The 7-foot-1 Kalkbrenner is a shot-blocking machine whose presence altered the hard-to-the-tin drives that Richmond and the Pirates have feasted on all season.

Richmond got into the lane at will, but Kalkbrenner made it tough to finish – and the Pirates didn’t draw nearly as many fouls as they usually do. With each miss, Richmond seemed to get more and more frustrated. Eventually the Hall's offense ground to a halt.

Richmond finished with 10 points on 4-of-15 shooting and just two assists.

“He’s a big guy who is good at standing his ground and altering shots," Samuel said of Kalkbrenner. "A lot of teams second-guess coming into the paint.”

On the other end, Kalkbrenner was a foul-drawing machine that put Holloway into a foul-management pickle from nearly the start. Samuel, who got dinged with two quick ones, finished with 11 points but managed just 20 minutes.

"It’s pretty hard trying to sustain playing well when you keep going in and out of the game,” Samuel said.

3. Dre Davis back soon?

Sixth man Dre Davis (9.1 ppg, 3.6 rpg) missed a third straight contest with an ankle sprain, but the junior forward wasn’t wearing a walking boot. That bodes well for his return soon

This was a night when the Pirates really missed his scoring, not to mention the extra body as the fouls piled up on Samuel and fellow bigs KC Ndefo and Tray Jackson.

Davis' return, Dawes said, “will make a huge difference. We need his energy. We need everybody.”

4. Crowd was ready

It was a late-arriving crowd due to the 6:30 p.m. tip, but by the 15-minute mark of the first half the Rock was rocking, and it stayed that way until Creighton dropped the hammer down the stretch. The noise was approaching UConn-game levels, but credit Creighton for silencing things with their red-hot finish.

“Appreciate them," Samuel said of the fans. "It was the (result) we wanted or you guys (fans) wanted, but continue to support us.”

5. Road warriors?

The Pirates have a chance to pick up a Quad 2 road win Saturday against Villanova (10-13, 4-8) at the Wells Fargo Center (8 p.m., Fox Sports 1). Seton Hall’s won just once at Villanova since 1994. That was in 2020. Things are much different for the Cats without Jay Wright, of course, but the Wildcats are more dangerous since the return of star guard Justin Moore from an Achilles rupture that sidelined him for almost a year.

The key for Seton Hall will be refocusing and turning the page after pouring a lot of emotion into the Creighton game.

“We have to have a short-term memory," Samuel said. “The end of the game (focus) is the most important. We have to fix that.”

The Pirates already sport a strong road record of 5-4. Only three teams from the six high-major conferences own more road wins – Alabama, Purdue and Pittsburgh. That’s a key metric for Big Dance selection.

“We’re still in a good spot," Samuel said "It has to begin Saturday.”

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: Seton Hall basketball misses golden opportunity vs. Creighton