Shaheen Holloway and Seton Hall earned a huge win Sunday night at Butler to keep their NCAA Tournament hopes alive, but the coach immediately ripped the “awful” Big East scheduling after the game.
The Pirates came from behind again to top the Bulldogs, 63-56, at Hinkle Fieldhouse for their second straight win. They are now 18-8, 8-7 in the Big East — with five true road wins — after going 7-25, 2-18 a year ago.
But Holloway was not pleased that his team had to play three games since Feb. 7.
“We got three games in a week in February, which is awful by the Big East,” Holloway said in his post-game radio interview. “I don’t care what anybody say. I don’t care if I get in trouble. I don’t care, it’s awful. You can’t play three games in a week in February. It just can’t happen, right? So now I got to be extra careful with these guys in their legs and practicing and stuff like that.”
In the big picture, Seton Hall remains on the NCAA Tournament bubble and likely needs to beat No. 17 St. John’s and/or No. 6 UConn during the regular season, as well as make some kind of run at the Big East Tournament next month.
In the more immediate future, they need to take care of business against a resurgent DePaul team under Chris Holtmann on Wednesday at Prudential Center. DePaul, coming off a 72-71 win at Creighton last Wednesday, will enter that game coming off a bye.
“Of course they do,” Holloway said.
As for the Butler game, the Bulldogs were without Finley Bizjack, who poured in 25 points in the first game, a 77-66 Butler win on Jan. 17 at Prudential Center. Butler is also playing without their top two point guards due to injury.
AJ Staton-McCray scored 15 of his 19 points in the second half, including one 3-pointer to put the Pirates up 50-49 and another to make it 56-53.
Budd Clark battled foul trouble and had an off night after pouring in 31 points in Wednesday’s win over Providence, but he did finish with seven assists and came up with a huge basket late despite shooting 3-of-10 for 8 points.
After Steph Payne bobbled the ball en route to an open dunk, Staton-McCray recovered the ball and Clark ended up scoring off the window to make it 60-56 with 61 seconds remaining.
“We got AJ some wide down screens and he was able to curl it,” Holloway said. “I thought he was aggressive early, going to the basket.”
Holloway opted to start Tajuan Simpkins after preferring to bring him off the bench for energy, and he finished with 8 points, 7 rebounds and 5 assists. Mike Williams III came off the bench instead.
“He had a better couple days, he had some energy,” Holloway said of Simpkins. “We didn’t have a lot of energy the last couple days, and he had some energy. My thing is, when guys have energy, those are the guys you go with.
The Pirates won despite shooting a woeful 10-of-22 from the line.
Now they will head home and try to extend their winning streak against DePaul.
“We got a quick turnaround,” Holloway said. “But this is a big win, we needed this win and we just got to build from it.”
