Shipwrecked Pirates

Like the captain of the Titanic, I should've seen the iceberg coming as the Seton Hall University men's basketball team sailed deep into the winter part of its schedule.  But, I didn't.  It seems I never do.

The news of starting guard Jaren Sina's departure from the team is just the latest in a series of black eyes on the face of the school's basketball program over the years.  According to published reports, Sina's exit was the result of friction on the team between some of the established players like Sina, a sophomore, and a group of talented freshmen that includes guard Isaiah Whitehead, arguably Seton Hall's biggest recruit in almost 15 years.

In January, Seton Hall was riding upset wins over Villanova and St. John's to a top 25 national ranking.  Now, after losses in five straight games and eight of their last 10, it will take a miracle for the Pirates to qualify for the NCAA tournament.  The two-game suspension of leading scorer Sterling Gibbs today for elbowing an opponent in the face while he was on the floor during last night's rematch against Villanova is merely salt in the wounds. 

I wasn't yet alive to enjoy the 1953 NIT championship that remains the high point of Seton Hall basketball history.  I was too young to have been aware of the 1961 betting scandal that is the low point of the school's basketball program.  Unfortunately, I can recall too many other lows and too few highs during the past 40-plus years.

I should have known the first time I saw Seton Hall play that my experience as a fan would be a very rocky ride. While in high school during the winter of 1973, a friend and I went to the South Orange campus to see a fellow Bloomfield High School alumnus, Paul Lape, play for the Pirates. As a freshman that season, Lape started 22 of 25 games.  The game I saw, to my huge disappointment, was not one of them.  In fact, for reasons unknown to me, Lape was nowhere to be seen on the court that day.  At least, my first visit to the school was salvaged when Seton Hall beat Iona, 91-90, in double overtime.  It was one of only eight games the Pirates won that season. 

A few years later, as a student at Seton Hall and sportswriter for a daily newspaper, I saw Glenn Mosley, a tall, thin, quick center from neighboring Newark, play numerous times.  He was an instant star after sitting out the beginning of his freshman season for academic eligibility reasons.  A year later, the NCAA ruled that Mosley should have sat out his entire freshman season.  The NCAA punished Seton Hall -- and Mosley -- by making him sit out the end of his sophomore year and start of his junior season.

As a senior, Mosley led the country with a 16.3 rebounds per game average, finishing his Seton Hall career with a 15.2 career RPG average.  I wonder what kind of numbers he would've put up and how much stronger his all-around game would've been if he was able to play at least three full seasons in college for Bill Raftery, not just one.  Mosley went on to a short NBA career before playing overseas.

Oh, did I mention that cross-state rivals Rutgers University enjoyed an undefeated regular season in 1975-76, before losing in the Final Four of the NCAA tournament that spring?  Talk about salt in the wounds!

Loyal to a fault, I was a Seton Hall basketball season ticket holder for the inaugural Big East seasons between 1979-82.  Along with sharpshooting guard Dan Callandrillo, Howard McNeil was one of the stars of those teams.  That is, until he and two other players were declared academically ineligible for the second half of the 1981-82 season.  Before I knew it, the team that left the gate at 9-1 finished 11-16.

After that, life got uglier for McNeil, who shot and killed a friend while in high school.  He did have a stellar career as a professional player in Europe, South America and Israel but, in 1999, back in his home state of Pennsylvania, he was convicted of killing a Norristown crack cocaine dealer and sentenced 35 to 70 years in prison.

Fast forward to 1989.  Led by Coach P.J. Carlesimo, a resurgent Seton Hall squad beat Bobby Knight's Indiana, Jerry Tarkanian's UNLV and Mike Krzyzewski's Duke teams on its way to the NCAA championship game.  Seton Hall came back from a half-time deficit to force an overtime period against Michigan.  Leading by one point with three seconds left, Seton Hall guard Gerald Greene was called for a highly questionable foul by referee John Clougherty.  Michigan sank both free throws and the dreams of Seton Hall as the Pirates lost, 90-89.

During the next five years, Seton Hall made four more NCAA tournament appearances.  The Pirates won 25 games in 1990-91, and 23, 28 and 17 the following three seasons, making it to the Sweet 16 of the NCAAs the first two of those years.  But, some fans wonder if Seton Hall could've been even better if it wasn't for the premature departure of one Marco Lokar.

As a freshman in February of 1990, Lokar scored 41 points in an 86-81 win over Pittsburgh.  A year later, as the Gulf War was winding down, Lokar left the team, citing harassment over his decision not to wear the American flag that was part of everybody's basketball uniform that season.  According to reports, his wife was upset by threatening telephone calls and they decided to return to their hometown in Italy for the duration of her pregnancy.  He never returned.

After a few lean years, things looked promising again at Seton Hall with the arrival of Eddie Griffin in 2000.  The Tommy Amaker-coached team was rated among the country's best in pre-season polls and got off to a 10-2 start.  Then, the Pirates hit the proverbial iceberg.  Griffin got in a fight with teammate Ty Shine and the team underperformed the rest of the way, finishing with a 16-15 record and no invitation to the NCAA dance.

Griffin's story did not end well.  Named Freshman of the Year by The Sporting News, his skills and 17.8 points, 10.7 rebounds and 4.4 blocks per game averages in his one and only Seton Hall season quickly led him to the NBA.  He had a checkered 6-year career with the Houston Rockets and Minnesota Timberwolves, who waived him in March of 2007. That summer, at age 25, he was killed in a car crash in Houston. An autopsy revealed he had more than three times Texas' legal alcohol limit in his system.  

Then there was the Bobby Gonzalez era.  In his fourth season as Seton Hall coach in 2010, "Gonzo" led the Pirates to the NIT.  The day after Seton Hall was eliminated by Texas Tech, 87-69, a game in which Pirates forward Herb Pope was ejected for punching an opponent in the groin, Gonzalez was fired.  According to The Star-Ledger, Seton Hall officials were unhappy with Gonzalez' tendency to berate school administrators, referees, opposing coaches and players. They were also concerned about several incidents involving Gonzalez' players, including a DUI arrest of Pope when he was an underage freshman and the arrest of guard Keon Lawrence for injuring a motorist while allegedly driving the wrong way on a highway in 2009.  

Two other Seton Hall players ran afoul of the law during the Bobby Gonzalez era.  In March of 2010,  forward Robert Mitchell was involved in the gunpoint robbery of eight students in an off-campus house.  His partner in crime?  It was none other than former Seton Hall forward Kelly Whitney, who finished his Pirates career the season before Gonzalez replaced Louis Orr as coach.  Mitchell was sentenced to five years in prison.  In a separate trial earlier in 2011, Whitney pleaded guilty to reduced charges and was sentenced to three years in prison.

Gonzalez?  He was arrested for shoplifting a $1,400 satchel from the Polo Ralph Lauren store at The Mall At Short Hills in the summer of 2010.  Later that year, NBC reported that Gonzalez was accepted into a one-year pretrial intervention program that allowed him to avoid a criminal record, perform 50 hours of community service and pay restitution.

It's now the fifth year of the Kevin Willard era at Seton Hall.  The first four were a welcome respite from the Bobby Gonzalez era.  This season, unfortunately, is not.  But, Seton Hall fans will keep the faith, hoping for better things in the future, perhaps a return to the NCAA tournament before too long.  Heck, we'll settle for a second NIT championship in the short term.  Just, no more icebergs in the middle of winter, please.

Bill Raftery photo from Pinterest.  Kevin Willard photo from ESPN.