Seton Hall basketball holds off Monmouth as subs save the day
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NEWARK – By benching his starters midway through the first half of Tuesday’s game against Monmouth, Seton Hall basketball coach Shaheen Holloway tried to send a message.
It worked – sort of.
The Pirates’ subs sparked a 17-0 run to take a 16-point lead, but the starters nearly squandered that in the second half before holding on for a 70-61 victory at the Prudential Center.
Freshman wing Isaiah Coleman led the charge off the bench, chalking up 17 points on 7-of-12 shooting and grabbing four rebounds. Those are the most points scored by a Hall freshman since Sandro Mamukelashvili scored 17 in a 12-point loss at Xavier in 2018. Mamukelashvili now plays in the NBA with the San Antonio Spurs.
If anything, Coleman’s bailout of his elder teammates should earn Coleman a starting role going forward.
If Holloway really wants to send a message to his upperclassmen, who are not playing within the team concept, not valuing the ball and not defending particularly well, he’ll start Coleman Sunday at Missouri. As it was, Coleman finished the game in place of senior Dylan Addae-Wusu, who struggled on both ends for 12 minutes.
All told, the Hall’s reserves scored 34 points.
“I thought if we could get into their bench – no disrespect to those kids, but they just haven’t done it every night yet – so I thought that would give us an advantage,” Monmouth coach King Rice said. “And tonight they’re Big East players and they did an incredible job. So I’m happy for those young guys that hit those shots tonight even though that hurt my team. When you see young kids who do very well, you’ve got to take your hat off to them.”
The Pirates are now 6-4 and survived the “buy game” portion of the non-conference schedule without a catastrophic loss. Seton Hall’s last “buy” game loss came in 2013, when FDU and Saint Peter’s both won at the Prudential Center.
Monmouth (5-5) is now 0-14 all-time against the Pirates. Postgrad guard Xander Rice, the son of Hawks head coach King Rice, tallied 20 points, 5 assists and 5 steals over 39 warrior-like minutes.
FIVE TAKEAWAYS
1. More Malachi Brown please
The freshman guard was a surprise sub midway through the first half, checking in to run the point when Kadary Richmond picked up his second foul. And the last player added to the Hall’s 2023-24 roster proved to be its best in the first half.
He chalked up five points, two assists, a steal and no turnovers in nine heady minutes. He played rugged defense, at one point challenging and stripping Monmouth’s 6-foot-9, 250-pound Nikita Konstantinovskyi in the lane. And the offense ran so much better with Brown at the controls – smarter passing, better spacing, more efficiency as the Pirates went on a 17-0 run on his watch.
No one is saying he should supplant Richmond as a starter, but he’s earned a real role in the rotation going forward. It was surprising Holloway didn’t play him in the second half until a late cameo. Seton Hall suffered as a result.
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Read More: Seton Hall basketball holds off Monmouth as subs save the day 2023-12-13 01:52:30