Season Recap Part 2 - The Hazell-less era

After two promising victories over Cornell and Alabama, Seton Hall found out that Jeremy Hazell would be out for 4 to 6 weeks with a broken wrist. They had just 12 hours to make a gameplan to face Xavier without Hazell. What us fans would watch, was 40 minutes of the worst offensive basketball ever (or so we thought). Seton Hall came back from a 10 point defecit at halftime to tie the game with about a minute left but than a ridicoulous Tu Holloway 3 Pointer clinched the game. Seton Hall's first game in four years without Hazell was an embarrasing 57-52 loss. This was the beginning of what was to come over the next 2 months. The next game was more of the same. Another embarassing offensive effort led to a 64-58 OT loss to Clemson. The rough times were just getting going. Our next game was a not so easy win against St. Peters. St. Peters hung around for a while because of pathetic offense by SHU but a couple late runs and SHU won 69-49. Our next game was another embarassing one. Herb Pope was benched for the 1st half for missing curfew and not shockingly we got out-rebounded like a billion to 1 in the 1st half. We were down 12 at half time. We made a couple runs in the 2nd half but ultiamtely fell short and lost by 9. The final score was71-62. Things were just getting going. Our next too games were @ UMASS and home vs Longwood and NJIT. Not surprisngly we averaged 83.3 ppg in that span and won all three easily. But that was too be expected. Things were going to take a turn for the worse now. Our next two games were home games vs. Dayton and Richmond. We blew 2nd half leads in both games and lost. In those two games we scored 63ppg. Back to the woeful offense and back to losing. We finished non conference play at 6-6. But things could get better. Hazell was supposed to be back in just 4 games for Syracuse. Well anyways, now conference play was starting with a very winnable home game against South Florida. And Seton Hall delivered. Even though we won the game by 9, perhaps this game was a foreshadowing of things to come. JROB was 1-5 from 3pt and the team shot just 3-13 as a team from 3pt. But we won the game despite scoring just 64 points. The next 3 games would feature perhaps the worst offense of all time. We scored 53, 54, and 56 points in the three games. In those three games we shot 33.3%, 29.0%, and and 31.3%. In the 3rd game, vs. Syracuse, we missed all 17 3pt shots in the 1st half. The only two players on our team that played well in the Syracuse game as JROB and Herb Pope. BTW, we lost all 3 games. This was the worst things could get, right? (also, I chose not to address the embarssment vs. Louisville between the Cincinatti and Syracuse games to avoid having to relive that).

So to recap, we were a woeful 5-8 in the 13 games without Hazell and we averaged 64.9 ppg. It was some of the worst basketball I have ever seen. But there was still reason to hope. Just before the Depaul game, we found out that Hazell would be playing in the game. Look for part 3 tomorrow.