Jeremy Hazell poured in a career-high 35 points on 15-of-26 shooting to lead Seton Hall to a 101-70 rout of in-state rival Fairleigh Dickinson Saturday night at the Prudential Center.
Seton Hall improved to 9-3 in its last non-conference game before beginning Big East play Tuesday at Syracuse.
Robert Mitchell added 24 points and a game-high 10 boards, Eugene Harvey scored 17 points and Jordan Theodore 11.
Sean Baptiste scored 31 for FDU (1-9).
Senior big man John Garcia sat out his third straight game because of problems with his surgically-repaired left knee and Pirates coach Bobby Gonzalez said Garcia was questionable for the Syracuse game.
“It’s a tough call,” Gonzalez said on WABC-770. “We don’t want to risk it and push him if he’s not ready. Not just because I can’t coach in the game [because of a suspension]. The only thing I worry about is I’m not there to monitor him in the game. That doesn’t mean I don’t trust my staff. That’s one thing.
“The other thing is, I’m not going to bring him back too quick if I know we got 18 league wars and you see how valuable he is to us. As we’re waiting to read this Keon Lawrence thing, there’s too many things hanging in the balance. If Heather and the doctors say, ‘Hey, he could use a few more days,’ then that’s what we’re going to give him.”
Gonzalez must sit out the Syracuse tilt because of a one-game school-imposed suspension and he said Dermon Player would run the team in his stead.
“What we’re going to do is I’ll be there to do everything, prepare the team, scouting reports, scouting, walk through practice, in the hotel,” Gonzalez said. “I’ll go through everything like I’m going to coach in the game. ONce the game comes, I can’t coach in the game. What I’ll do is because Dermon is my top guy, but we’ll do it a little bit by committee with Murph [Kevin Murphy] and those guys helping him. But Dermon will basically be the No. 1 guy that will step up and coach and then I’ll have Scott [Adubato] and Murph and those guys kind of help him by committee.
“We’re going to get through it as quick as possible. We don’t want it to be a distraction. I don’t want a lot of attention. To me it’s a blip on the radar screen. We’re going to play it, we’re going to move on and go to the next game.”
After the Syracuse game, things don’t get much easier. The Pirates return home to play West Virginia and No. 18 Villanova before visiting No. 8 Notre Dame and No. 2 UConn.
“The thing is, everybody is going to panic and have all these questions,” Gonzalez said. “You can’t say, ‘Oh my God, John Garcia. We’re too small, we’re this, we’re that.’ You can’t look at it like that. You take one game at a time. Last year we went on a five-game win streak, we were 15-6, everybody thought we were on the bubble for the NCAA. And then all of a sudden Paul Gause gets hurt, John Garcia gets hurt. We don’t close well. We lose seven of our last nine.
“You can’t look at it like that. You just gotta go one game at a time and try to win as many as you can. This league is going to be crazy. There’s also some teams we can beat. I mean, I hear rumors about some teams in the league that aren’t that good. Maybe we could steal some of those games. You don’t know.
“I tell our kids, one game at a time….You know it’s scary. I mean, you look at West Virginia beating Ohio State by 30 today and you say to yourself, ‘My goodness gracious, they’re picked ninth or something like that.’
“You look at it like that, you’ll throw up and you won’t show up for the games, so you gotta go one at a time.”
Peter / December 28, 2008
AZ –
Given Mike Davis and Brandon Walters are getting virtually no playing time against non-conference competition (i.e. 27 minutes combined last night against FDU), do you think there is a better than a 50% chance both will transfer after this year? I can see players sitting behind a superstar for 2 years to learn and develop, but when you are being passed over for a 5 guard offense, clearly there is no light at the end of the tunnel. Personally I would rather SHU win by 15 than 31 and have these guys play 35 minutes each to build confidence and experience. I think BG has failed this non-conference season by not giving these two a chance.
Also, will John Garcia be on the team next year, or will he forgo his final year of eligibility as has been rumored? I do not see Big Mel as the answer for this team. He will be taking over the Walters/Davis 5 minutes a game if they leave, and SHU will be in the exact same situation next year as this year without Garcia, Walters & Davis – 8 or 9 players, only 1 legit big guy (Pope) and KL & Big Daddy taking the Gause minutes.
Finally, do you see Hazell staying 4 years? It looks like he is using this year to build his NBA resume and could potentially jump ship.
I am a huge SHU alum & fan, just need some “tough love” here to get mentally prepared for what may happen next year!
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Adam Zagoria / December 28, 2008
Peter,
These are excellent questions and the big picture answer for all of them is, “We will see.”
As for Garcia, Coach and John are both on record as saying that after the season is done, they will make each make a decision about whether GArcia will stay another year or move on. AT one point, Coach talked about possibly moving John along after this year, but you have to think if they’re short on post players for next year, that will change.
As for Walters and Davis, these guys will have no other choice but to step up, as much as they can, if Garcia is out for any length of time…or if he’s in and out of the lineup for rest of the year. Coach said he wants them to just rebound, play defense and not have to do anything special. But in the meat of the Big East schedule, these guys will have to play some incredibly tough post players — Thabeet, Blair, Harangody, Samuels, etc.
On Jeremy, I wrote an article recently quoting an NBA Draft expert who says Hazell has pro potential. I doubt he could go after this year, but possibly next year or the year after.
All the fun begins Tuesday at Syracuse…we shall see.
Thanks again
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