UNION, N.J. — Seton Hall coach Kevin Willard said he had no choice but to cut senior guards Keon Lawrence and Jamel Jackson Saturday after sources told SNY.tv both players missed curfew Thursday night to attend a party.
“I don’t think there’s any positive in the fact that two guys had to be let go,” Willard, whose teams hosts No. 15 Villanova Tuesday (8 p.m., SNY), said Sunday at the PrimeTime Shootout at Kean University. “There comes a time when the program has to come first.”
Lawrence and Jackson (pictured) were officially dismissed for “a violation of team rules and an ongoing pattern of conduct unbecoming of a representative of Seton Hall athletics.”
Pernell Hosier, Jackson’s former coach at Technical Career Institutes, said both players left their rooms past the 11 p.m. curfew to attend a social event and admitted it Friday morning when confronted by Willard.
“They went to a party,” Hosier said Monday by phone. “Some of the players might have went somewhere else. But this is something that they do all the time.
“This is something that happens at almost every institution. Kids are going to take chances. If you get caught, you’re going to get suspended.”
Still, Hosier defended his former player’s character and said Jackson was a good person.
“This is a kid, his GPA is very good,” Hosier added. “He’s graduating come May. He’s never got into any issues. The coaching staff said he was the best player on the team in terms of his character.”
Hosier said Jackson may serve as a graduate assistant at TCI in the near future and that he had been in touch with former Providence star God Shammgod about having Jackson play professionally in China. Shammgod himself played there.
“He’ll still be in basketball, he’ll still be in coaching,” Hosier said of Jackson. “He’s young. He’s still got a lot of things ahead of him and good things are going to happen for him.”
A source close to Lawrence said he was also working on helping the former Weequahic High star land somewhere in the basketball “minor leagues.”
Hours after the news was announced, Seton Hall beat Rutgers, 69-64, at The RAC behind Jeremy Hazell’s 19 points and Jordan Theodore’s 18.
As they head into Tuesday night’s game against No. 15 Villanova (19-6, 7-5 Big East), the Pirates (11-14, 5-8) must now go forward with just eight players in the rotation.
“It makes it challenging,” Willard said. “It’s challenging because you’ve got to be careful with minutes, got to be careful with fouls. We already do that with Herb [Pope] and Jeff [Robinson] as it is. So now we’re going to have to be really careful with Theo [Theodore] and Hazzy [Hazell].”
In his first year since leaving Iona, Willard had been tested to the limit.
Pope collapsed in April and then underwent heart surgery to correct a birth defect from which he is still finding his way back physically.
Hazell, the team’s leading scorer, broke his wrist in November and missed two months of the season before returning in mid-January.
“To be honest with you, when I watched Hazzy dive on the floor [Saturday] night and see how hard he wanted it, how much he wanted to win, it puts everything in perspective about how much these guys want it,” Willard said.
“At the end of the day, it’s been a difficult year just because of the fact that it hasn’t gone the way a lot of people thought it was going to go.
“So from that standpoint it’s been a difficult year.”
Willard said he would like to play a bigger lineup, using 6-9 freshman Patrik Auda at the four and moving the 6-6 Robinson to the three. Robinson is second on the team in 3-point field goal shooting (34 percent).
“Villanova and Marquette don’t play huge lineups so I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to do that in the next two games,” Willard said.
With only five games left before the Big East tournament and the Pirates three games under .500, Seton Hall’s only hope now is to finish strong and then make a postseason run at Madison Square Garden.
“Well, I mean, I think anything’s possible with this team,” Willard said. “If we can stay focused and stay consistent on and off the court, I think we could have a run.
“But that’s been our issue pretty much all year.”
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