The Big East microsite will preview each Big East team in tiers in preparation for the season’s tipoff on Friday. The bottom tier was released yesterday; it can be found here. Today: Seton Hall, Providence and St. John’s make up the middle tier of the conference.
#6: Seton Hall
The Kevin Willard era at Seton Hall has not been a successful one by any stretch of the imagination. After a 21-10 season at Iona in 2010, Willard’s Pirates have continually found themselves outmatched by Big East opponents, producing just one subsequent season above .500 during his tenure. Yet you can’t argue with his recruiting results of late: In 2013, Willard brought in four-star point guard Jaren Sina, a highly-skilled passer and shooter who was coveted coming by many, with offers from the likes of Memphis, Villanova and Pittsburgh. This year Willard brings in a top-tier recruit in shooting guard Isaiah Whitehead, who ranks #2 in the country at his position. Couple him with a 6’8″ four-star power forward in Angel Delgado, a strong rebounder for his size, and four other three-star recruits and Willard’s latest recruiting class was ranked 12th nationally as a result. Whitehead’s impact is expected to be immediate — the 6’4″ shooting guard was a McDonald’s All-American and has shown an ability to score in a number of different ways. It should come as no surprise that the media pegged him as the favorite to win this season’s Big East Freshman of the Year award. His talent, in addition to the return of backcourt mates Sterling Gibbs and Sina, will without question force opponents to play small in order to contest the Hall’s perimeter attack and stop transition buckets. However, the Pirates also lose three senior starters and junior forward Patrick Auda, and their collective loss of leadership will not go unnoticed. Rising senior Brandon Mobley will also need all the frontcourt help he can get from Delgado and redshirt freshman Rashed Anthony. The Pirates are expected to feature some three-guard sets, and should boast one of the best backcourts in the conference — the key will be finding ways to mask their relative lack of size in the paint, which wasn’t as big of a problem with Gene Teague. An NIT berth is certainly not out of the question for this young, talented squad, and it will completely depend on how well the backcourt gels over the course of the season.
#5: Providence
Providence’s first NCAA Tournament berth in 10 years came under the tutelage of senior Bryce Cotton, who averaged 21.8 points and 5.9 assists in an NCAA-leading 39.9 minutes per game. Cotton rarely, if ever, found himself on the bench except in the rare event of foul trouble, and he was instrumental in leading the Friars to their first Big East Tournament championship since 1994. The Friars’ rotation was short, ranking nearly dead-last in the country in bench minutes (350th). It may have worked out last season, but a six-man rotation strategy does nothing to develop players for coming years. With Cotton and starting center Kadeem Batts now gone to graduation along with the transfer of starting shooting guard Josh Fortune, the Friars will need to count on players who were not relied upon as primary scorers. The most notable returnees are senior forward LaDontae Henton and junior Tyler Harris, who averaged 14.0 and 11.8 points per game, respectively. Seven-foot senior center Carson Desrosiers, who played 19.9 minutes per game last season behind Batts, will now be expected to fill the starting role, with top 100 center Paschal Chukwu available to provide relief. Unlike Seton Hall, Providence will have no problem with their frontcourt, seeing as it only loses Batts from a group that ranked 15th in the country in effective height and 44th in offensive rebounding last season. With the departures of Cotton and Fortune, however, the real problem will be in the backcourt. Kris Dunn, a highly-touted point guard in high school, returns for his sophomore season after playing just four games before undergoing shoulder surgery. Freshman forward Jalen Lindsey is expected to join him in the backcourt, leaving the Friars with two starting guards who have played a grand total of 106 combined minutes. Providence’s lineup will feature plenty of length and physical dominance on both ends of the floor, but the biggest questions will be whether Henton and Harris can replace the prodigious scoring output of Cotton and whether Dunn proves effective at running the offense.
#4: St. John’s
St. John’s is perhaps best described as a perennial underperformer. Under Steve Lavin, excellent talent has always been there, and yet, the Red Storm always find ways to shoot themselves in the foot when it comes to marquee, resume-building games. Perhaps this is due to a recurring lack of team chemistry, with players frequently facing various suspensions or leaving school. Or maybe it’s attributable to selfish play as highly-touted recruits join the squad looking for the spotlight and a chance to go pro. Either way, the team has failed to live up to expectations for several years now. Lavin hopes to build on his team’s 20-13 record with the return of fearless shooter D’Angelo Harrison and his backcourt mate, Rysheed Jordan. With the departures of forwards Orlando Sanchez and JaKarr Sampson from the program, the Johnnies will most likely transition to a three-guard lineup featuring Jordan, Harrison, and senior Phil Greene — all three of whom are listed as 6’4″ and under. Despite their size, all three players have also proven to be deadly scorers. Harrison and Greene shot 37 and 40 percent from downtown last season, respectively, with Jordan using his athleticism to beat practically any defender to the rim. This trio will be joined by 6’5″ senior forward Sir’Dominic Pointer and Chris Obekpa, a 6’9″ shot-blocker extraordinaire. The team adds a 6’1″ transfer from FIU and a 6’9″ Bosnian forward to help replace the losses of Sampson and Sanchez, but their impact is unclear given such limited exposure to high-major college basketball. Transfer Keith Thomas, who led the country in rebounds per game at the JuCo level last season, was expected to be a major contributor before being ruled academically ineligible last week, leaving the team fairly thin up front next to Obekpa. Nonetheless, the all-around talent in this program cannot be denied, and fans are hoping for St. John’s to break through with an NCAA Tournament appearance. In order to make that happen, the team will need to leave its off-the-court issues behind them.