Madison Square Garden, NY. –Seton Hall played with a chip on their shoulders all season tired of hearing rumblings that there weren’t that good and they might not get out the quarterfinal round of the Big East Tournament.
The Pirates looked calm, poise, and confident in the preliminary shoot arounds. In front of a noisy crowd of 17, 234 #5 seed Seton Hall upended # 4 seed Marquette 82-76 at Madison Square Garden.
Marquette guard Andrew Rowsey started the game on fire and a potential problem for Seton Hall shooting 62.5 percent from the field (5-8) along with 2 boards. Even though the Pirates shot 43.8 percent from the field and 50 percent from beyond the arc in the first half the Pirates didn’t have an answer for Rowsey and Sam Hauser.
Marquette raced out to a 14-9 lead the Golden Eagles had their high-Low post game working and the perimeter shooting started to fall. But even with Golden Eagles runs the Pirates were braced for the challenge.
Seton Hall got rid of the pre-game jitters and started to put ball pressure on the perimeter making it very difficult for Marquette to get open looks. The paint area for the Golden Eagles started to shrink. The light bulb went off for the Pirates they started to slow down the pace got into their offensive sets they wanted. With the hot hands of Seton Hall Myles Powell (3-7) 8 points and Desi Rodriguez (3-7) 6 points, the Pirates were able to go into the half knotted at 35.
“I thought we had I think we had a six minute stretch where they didn’t score in the second half. I thought both teams were sloppy the beginning of the second half. But we were able to really defend. We made them take some tough 2s. We chase Rowsey off the line a little bit. He really hurt us. We were able to chase Howard off the line which really helped us.” Said Seton Hall Coach Kevin Williard.
Seton Hall picked up its first win in three meetings versus Marquette in the Big East Tournament. The Pirates advances to play #1 seed Villanova in the first semifinal. It’ll be the sixth meeting in the Big East Tournament between the programs, with Seton Hall owning a 3-2 edge. The Pirates has the won the last two Big East Tournament meetings, including last year’s 69-67 victory in the Big East Tournament championship game.
The Golden Eagles have advanced to the semifinals twice lost to Pittsburgh in
2007-08 and Georgetown in 2009-10 since joining the conference. Marquette is 10-11 all-time in its 11 previous appearance in the event, but has yet to play in the championship game.
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Seton Hall’s Angel Delgado recorded his 13th straight double double and 26th of the season 12 points, 16 rebounds. Delgado was just one assist shy of the second triple-double in the Big East Tournament history. The other came on March 4, 1998, when Pittsburgh’s Ricardo Greer gad 23 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists in a 96-93 double-overtime loss to Villanova. Delgado’s 16 rebounds are the most for Seton Hall in the Big East Tournament game. |
Marquette’s Andrew Rowsey scored a team-high 23 points in his Big East Tournamentdebut. Marquette has had at least one 20-point scorer in a Big East Tournament game in the last four years.
The Pirates are in the semifinals for the 10th time overall and third time in the last four seasons. Next up for Seton Hall is the # 1 seed of the Big East Tournament the Villanova Wildcats.
