With six of its 10 teams in the NCAA Tournament, Big East fans have a lot to talk about this week. Big East microsite writers Justin Kundrat and Brian Otskey discuss what’s on their minds heading into Thursday’s action.

Justin Kundrat: Of the six Big East teams, which first round match-up are you most looking forward to?

LaVall Jordan Has a Tough First Round Match-up Against Arkansas (USA Today Images)

Brian Otskey: I think the Butler-Arkansas game will be tremendous. Both teams are fairly experienced (especially the Razorbacks), undersized and have guys who can fill it up, which should make for an aesthetically pleasing up-and-down game. Mike Anderson’s chaotic style of play caused another Big East team (Seton Hall) to lose focus in last year’s First Round on its way to a loss. The good news with Butler is that the Bulldogs are much more likely to stay composed and protect the ball — which could be the deciding factor. LaVall Jordan will need Kamar Baldwin to play at a high level in order to give his team a second scoring threat alongside Kelan Martin. Arkansas will counter with Jaylen Barford and Daryl Macon, who average nearly 35.0 PPG combined. Also keep an eye on the match-up in the paint. Tyler Wideman isn’t the tallest center around, but he’s strong and thick. Arkansas’ center is 6’11” Daniel Gafford, but he’s thinner than Wideman. How that size difference shakes out will be important when determining the outcome of this game.

JK: Which team do you like the most to reach the Final Four?

BO: With Xavier considered the weakest of the top seeds and the rest of the conference on the #8, #9 or #10 seed line, I think the obvious pick is Villanova. The Wildcats won the National Championship only two years ago and have three players on the roster who went on that title run: Jalen Brunson, Mikal Bridges and Phil Booth. Also, the Wildcats won’t have to travel far before the Final Four in San Antonio, playing the opening rounds in Pittsburgh and the regional in Boston. I actually think the biggest threat to Villanova will come in either the Second or Third round. Virginia Tech and Alabama are mercurial yet talented squads on the #8/#9 line, likely followed by West Virginia or Wichita State in the Sweet Sixteen. This Villanova team is incredible offensively and can turn up the defense when it wants to. I am a bit concerned about a cold shooting night derailing the Wildcats’ train, but play-makers like Brunson and Bridges should have enough to overcome that deficiency and lead this group back to the Final Four.

JK: Which team has the toughest First Round match-up?

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Put simply, Seton Hall‘s season to date has been a roller coaster. After opening the season with impressive wins over Texas Tech and Louisville away from home, the Pirates put up a stinker at Rutgers. They then reeled off five straight victories and held full control of first place in the Big East with an early 3-0 mark. What has followed in the ensuing two weeks has been a 1-3 stretch featuring three of the team’s worst offensive performances of the season. To put that into greater context, here are Seton Hall’s per-game performances, measured by offensive efficiency:

While two of the Pirates’ three recent conference losses have come on the road and none were bad by any means (all were to projected NCAA Tournament teams), it was the way in which the Pirates wallowed that was concerning. There are a number of recent issues with the team’s play, from continued reliance on isolation scoring tactics to slow development of freshmen to opposing defenses pushing center Angel Delgado away from the low post. But the most confounding concern for Seton Hall has been the play of pseudo-point guard Khadeen Carrington.

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Picture this: It is March 11, 2015, and Marquette, with a conference record of 4-14, has just laid a 22-point beatdown on Kevin Willard’s Seton Hall team in the #8 vs. #9 game of the Big East Tournament. Marquette would go on to lose to Villanova by 35 points the following afternoon and Seton Hall fans are not happy. Local media and message boards are calling for the head coach’s ouster after five seasons at the helm (without any NCAA Tournament appearances), and Willard even experienced some in-person heckling from Pirate fans the night before. After all, the fans have just witnessed a once promising season that began with a top 15 recruiting class and a 13-3 record crumble to bits in epic fashion as locker room tension destroyed a young and immature team. What would become of that dysfunctional group of freshmen that lost nine of their last 10 games to end the 2014-15 season?

Seton Hall Has Risen From the Ashes of 2015 (USA Today Images)

Exactly 1,000 days later (yes, really), Willard is in the midst of his eighth season in South Orange and those freshmen (minus Isaiah Whitehead, now plying his trade with the Brooklyn Nets) have blossomed into talented seniors. Three of those seniors — Angel Delgado, Desi Rodriguez and Khadeen Carrington — form the only active trio of 1,000-point scorers in college basketball. The Pirates are coming off two consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances and a 2016 Big East Tournament championship run (two feats not seen since the P.J. Carlesimo era of the early 1990s) that included consecutive wins over top-five opponents for the first time in the program’s 114-year history. Willard’s experienced Pirates stand at 7-1 and are ranked 19th nationally following a week in which they won at No. 17 Louisville and defeated No. 22 Texas Tech at the very arena where the program hit rock bottom nearly three years ago. The win at Louisville was Seton Hall’s second true road win against a ranked ACC team in program history, and to date this season, the Pirates are one of only two teams to have recorded four non-conference wins against power conference teams (with three of those coming away from the Prudential Center). The other team? That would be No. 1 Duke.

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RTC will be providing coverage of the NCAA Tournament from start to finish. Brad Jenkins (@bradjenk) is in Greenville this weekend.

Mike Anderson leads Arkansas into the second round. (AP Photo/Sean Rayford)

Three Key Takeaways.

1. Did the tempo get to Seton Hall? Arkansas came into the game as the team most likely to favor an up-and-down contest. With a first half played at 39 possessions, Kevin Willard wisely used his bench to give each starter at least five minutes off the floor before halftime. Halfway through the second half, the Pirates spurted to an eight-point lead, but could not maintain it. Down the stretch, Arkansas looked like the fresher team and Seton Hall made sloppy mistakes that tired teams often make. After halftime, Arkansas turned eight Seton Hall turnovers into 14 points. And the key play of the game was also a mental error–the flagrant foul called on Desi Rodriquez that gave the Razorbacks a huge late advantage.
2. Arkansas is not good at defensive rebounding. For the year, the Razorbacks rank among the worst 30 teams in the nation on the defensive glass and they played true to form today. Seton Hall snagged 21 offensive boards to make up for a poor shooting performance from the floor and keep the game close. Fortunately for Arkansas, the Pirates only turned those rebounds into 14 second chance points. So the positive for the Razorbacks is that their second shot (and sometimes third shot) defense was good.
3. Seton Hall’s shooting tells the tale. The Pirates have not shot well for much of the season and they struggled to put the ball in the basket again today. Seton Hall was ineffective from everywhere – making only 39 percent of its twos, 35 percent of its threes, and just 62 percent from the foul line. Khadeen Carrington was the only Pirate that could make shots for much of the game as he finished with 22 points on 8-of-17 shooting.

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Seton Hall may have put together a dream season in winning the Big East Tournament last season but the Pirates relied upon the playmaking prowess of super sophomore Isaiah Whitehead and a top-10 defense to get there. That team’s Achilles Heel often came on the offensive end of the court, as ball movement sometimes had a tendency to stagnate. The Pirates assisted on just 51 percent of their makes — 203rd in the nation, per KenPom — while relying heavily on the all-Big East guard for the majority of their playmaking. As a result, there were two competing schools of thought about Kevin Willard‘s team coming into this season. One was that the Pirates’ offense would flow better without a ball-stopper — even a gifted one like Whitehead — in the lineup; the other was that they would stagnate even more offensively with their only true playmaker now in the NBA.

Life without Isaiah Whitehead has created new offensive issues at Seton Hall. (USA TODAY Images)

Seton Hall may be 8-2 and in the midst of a four-game winning streak that includes close wins over California and previously-unbeaten South Carolina, but the Pirates have been an even more imbalanced offensive unit through the first month of the season. That troubling assist rate has dropped even further to an incredibly low 39.8 percent (345th nationally) and the Pirates do not boast a single player with an individual assist rate over 20 percent (the only Big East team that can claim that distinction). Still, given the makeup of his current roster, Willard’s focus on isolation leading to one-on-one attacks on the basket may not necessarily be a bad thing. Junior wing Desi Rodriguez and junior guard Khadeen Carrington are particularly adept at getting into the paint and drawing fouls, and Angel Delgado, who currently ranks 21st in the country in offensive rebounding percentage at 15.7 percent, is one of the top glass-eaters in college basketball. The downside of a team that ranks 25th nationally in earning its share of points from driving the ball is that Seton Hall leaves much of its efficiency on the table as one of the worst free throw shooting teams in the country. The Pirates convert just 62.5 percent (311th) of their tries from the charity stripe, with only one regular hitting at 80.0 percent (Myles Powell). Read the rest of this entry »

The Big East microsite will be rolling out previews on all 10 teams this week, sorted into three tiers. Today we review the projected middle tier of teams — Georgetown, Butler, and Seton Hall. RTC’s previous bottom tier preview can be found here.

#6: Georgetown

John Thompson III Needs a Good Season at Georgetown. (USA TODAY Images)

The Hoyas lost leading scorer D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera to graduation but bring back all of their other key pieces from a disappointing 15-18 season. Georgetown has great depth at forward with juniors LJ Peak and Isaac Copeland — both of whom finished strong last season — and Robert Morris transfer Rodney Pryor will see significant minutes on the wing. The team also features a formidable two-pronged attack at center with the return of reliable graduate-senior Bradley Hayes and sophomore Jessie Govan. While Govan had an inconsistent freshman year, he showed flashes of his well-rounded offensive skill set and looks to be a perfect fit in John Thompson III’s Princeton offense.

Georgetown still lacks consistent three-point shooting, but their main question mark coming into this season is at point guard. Junior Tre Campbell underwhelmed for most of last season as the floor general, only scoring in double figures twice. Their only other reasonable option is junior college transfer Rodney Mulmore. While the Allegany College import put up impressive numbers last season, the Maryland Junior College Athletic Conference is a far cry from the rigors of the Big East. The Hoyas will need either Campbell or Mulmore to step up at point guard to have a shot at returning to the NCAA Tournament this season. Read the rest of this entry »

Things took a turn for Seton Hall in the offseason when Isaiah Whitehead, the team’s leader and go-to scorer, opted to remain in the NBA Draft. Over the course of his two-year stint as a Pirate, the 6’4″ guard transformed from a ball-dominant, somewhat careless passer into one of the nation’s best combo guards. His 33.0 percent assist rate ranked 44th nationally and his savvy ability to get into the lane warped opposing defenses, summoning all help attention his way. In the wake of his departure, the prevailing concern is whether Kevin Willard‘s team can recoup its losses and turn in another Top 25 season. That sentiment is valid, but dropping the Pirates to a middle-of-the-pack conference contender and fringe NCAA Tournament team is overkill. There are a number of reasons why.

Isaiah Whitehead is Gone But All is Not Lost at Seton Hall (USA Today Images)

1. The team’s stout interior defense will be largely unchanged from last season as forwards Angel Delgado, Ismael Sanogo and Desi Rodriguez all return. It was easy to appreciate the Pirates’ offensive prowess when Whitehead was improvising and making unfathomable plays — even if the Seton Hall offense was remarkably average from a metrics standpoint. The real backbone of the team, however, was its defense — the 10th-most efficient unit in the country and one of the very best at altering opponents’ shots.

2. Junior forward Delgado is poised for a breakout campaign. While Whitehead was the key cog in last season’s offense, Delgado’s role was also substantial. Not only was he the Pirates’ best rebounder and interior defender, but the Seton Hall offense took a remarkable hit when he wasn’t on the floor (a difference of 0.15 points per possession).

To compensate for its poor outside shooting, Seton Hall generated numerous second chance scoring opportunities from offensive rebounds. Delgado and fellow stretch forward Sanogo were two of the conference’s best at that particular skill, helping the Pirates recover 37.1 percent of its misses (37th nationally). This portion of the offense will remain intact. Without Whitehead, Delgado’s usage rate will climb and it would be wise for Willard to feature his ultra-efficient forward on the offensive end.

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Every team experiences roster turnover and this offseason was no different. What’s interesting this time around, though, is that those personnel moves were particularly harsh to the better half of the conference. Villanova, Xavier, Butler, Seton Hall and Providence – the conference’s five representatives in the NCAA Tournament last season — each lost leading scorers or otherwise critical starters. Some of the bottom half of the league, however – e.g., Creighton and St. John’s — emerged relatively unscathed. There will be some natural upheaval in the standings as teams at the top re-position themselves with different rosters, but the 2016-17 Big East is likely to hinge on a number of key questions and themes below.

What to Make of Seton Hall Without Isaiah Whitehead?

Khadeen Carrington is Poised to Handle Seton Hall’s Attack (Vincent Carchietta-USA TODAY Sports)

The highly touted 6’4” guard lived up to the hype in his sophomore season and used it to sign a four-year contract with the Brooklyn Nets over the summer. By putting the ball in his star’s hands and letting him create, Kevin Willard led the Pirates to their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2006. Whitehead was one of the highest usage players in the country last season, and rightfully so — his ability to get into the lane to score or dish puts immense pressure on opposing help defenders. With Whitehead no longer around, Willard will turn to junior Khadeen Carrington to handle the point guard duties. Carrington is more than capable of running the show, but teams always take a different form after losing a ball-dominant player. Whitehead and departed senior Derrick Gordon accounted for over half of the team’s assists last season, so the biggest question at Seton Hall is whether anyone on the team other than Carrington is capable of propelling the offense. Swingman Desi Rodriguez didn’t show that he could create much off the dribble last season and forward Angel Rodriguez primarily garnered his points off putbacks or dump-offs. Maybe freshman Myles Powell can create something for himself, but that remains a big question mark.

Marquette May Have the Big East’s Most Efficient Offense

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The NCAA Tournament is now behind us and the days of transfers, NBA Draft declarations and coaching moves are upon us. April signals yet another ending, as we tear down everything we knew and build anew. The offseason has a way of inspiring hope that a new season will bring about improvement, that maybe this time things will be different. Consider where the Big East’s very own Villanova was just one year ago this spring. That unknown is why the offseason is such an intriguing time. Below is a list of key questions that each Big East team will attempt to solve over the coming six months. Part One, which included Butler, Creighton, DePaul, Georgetown and Marquette, can be viewed here.

Providence: What happens to Ben Bentil?

Ben Bentil Broke Out Big Time This Year (USAT Sports)

It’s a shortsighted question but the answer plays a large role in Providence’s long-term outlook. If Bentil leaves school this offseason, Ed Cooley will have to replace two players (along with Kris Dunn) who accounted for 51 percent of his team’s scoring, a virtually insurmountable task for this program. Rising junior Kyron Cartwright came into his own as a distributor this season, although his passing figures to be hampered without the All-American around to convert for him. His absence would force one of Providence’s role players to assume greater scoring duties, and the most likely candidate for that role is Rodney Bullock, a 6’8″ forward with a streaky shooting touch. It would be silly to completely write off this team off without Bentil returning, but having him back for his junior season would certainly put the Friars back into NCAA Tournament consideration. Providence fans will undoubtedly be on the edge of their seats for the next month.

Seton Hall: How will the Pirates’ defense fare without Derrick Gordon?

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Three Key Takeaways:

Khadeen Carrington starred in another Seton Hall victory. (Credit: (USA Today Sports Images)

1. Derrick Gordon changed the tide in the first half. Seton Hall’s lone senior created havoc on the defensive end with his deflections and hustle plays all over the floor. He was everywhere and set the tone for the Pirates, who used a 24-12 first half run to take control of the game. Gordon was one of the most important acquisitions on the transfer market this offseason and has provided Seton Hall with the leadership it desperately needed after last season’s collapse. His hustle and will to win were on display again tonight and made a huge difference in the outcome. His experience and selfless play is invaluable to a talented but still quite young group of Pirates.
2. Seton Hall matched Xavier’s toughness and physicality. The Musketeers are known for their relentless, hard-nosed brand of basketball. Tonight they encountered an opponent more than willing to play just as tough and just as physical, and Xavier didn’t react well to that. In particular, the Pirates got under the skin of J.P. Macura and Jalen Reynolds; both players picked up technical fouls and eventually fouled out. The physicality of the game played right into Seton Hall’s hands as it turned up the defense and held Xavier to 34.9 percent shooting for the game. It was an impressive display by a young team that doesn’t seem have fear of any opponent.
3. Seton Hall is a dangerous NCAA Tournament team. The Pirates are clicking on all cylinders right now. Their defense has been strong all year and ranks among the top 15 nationally in adjusted efficiency, but the difference maker has been an improved offense. Seton Hall struggled earlier in the year with stagnancy, but their chemistry and ball movement has improved by leaps and bounds over the course of the last five weeks. That’s due in large part to Isaiah Whitehead‘s stellar play, but also a result of increased contributions from complementary players like Desi Rodriguez and Khadeen Carrington. Seton Hall will win games with its defense and rebounding, but the added offensive punch makes them a legitimate threat to make the NCAA Tournament’s second weekend.

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