Creighton ended the regular season with back-to-back losses and won just one of its final five games.
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Whitehead, Seton Hall’s all-conference guard, scored a game-high 26 points, including 14 in the second half.
But there would be no repeat of 2014-15 in South Orange this season.
Jenkins gave Villanova a 67-64 lead with his fifth trey of the game with 52 seconds left, but Whitehead’s foul shot and three-point play prevented the Wildcats from a second straight conference tournament title. “I think we’re going a great job of it now”.
Villanova and Seton Hall are set to square off on Saturday night, battling for Big East glory in the conference championship game at Madison Square Garden.
Kevin Willard: “Last year we were puppies, and now we’re starting to turn into dogs”. Big East Tournament championship will feature top-seeded Villanova or fourth-seeded Providence versus Xavier or Seton Hall. “He’s the best player in the league”.
“It still hasn’t hit me, to be perfectly honest with you”, Willard said. “Every play was new”. Sitting courtside, you see just how often the Hall outmuscles and outhustles its opponents for 50-50 balls.
Villanova is not Xavier.
CITY LIGHTS: The Empire State Building was lit in red and blue in honor of the Big East Tournament. Both Whitehead and Carrington are capable of initiating offense for others, while also creating shots for themselves and being consistent threats from beyond the arc. Sort of like Aaron Craft, but Arcidiacono’s bigger and has a better shot.
After the game, Seton Hall’s star sophomore guard Isaiah Whitehead was the main storyline.
” This is what we talked about before we even came here, getting Seton Hall back on the map to where it was, ” said Carrington.
NEW YORK (AP) Just a subway ride from home, Isaiah Whitehead and Khadeen Carrington weren’t about to let Seton Hall slip up in its first postseason game of this resurgent season. Last season was a frustrating one in South Orange.
Some say Big East basketball isn’t what it used to be, what with several key members departing.
Over the last five games, Josh Hart and Jenkins have played well for the Wildcats.
“The tough thing about a year ago was, our issues were not inside the locker room, our issues were outside the locker room”, Willard said. Sometimes he goes off. “Teams that overshadow me and don’t recruit me, I take vengeance to them”. “They punked us.” From the opening tip, when Xavier’s prechosen playcall was deflected out of bounds, to the aggressiveness the Pirates showed both on the glass and in the defensive halfcourt (during the first half, SHU grabbed 47 percent of their misses, and forced the Musketeers to commit a giveaway on a whopping third of their possessions), and then answering whichever Xavier surge threatened to topple the upstarts from across the Hudson, the Pirates never lost control.
Gordon, quoted in the Asbury Park Press after Friday night’s win, said of Villanova, “There’s something about them I don’t like”.
It was the first time since 2006 that the Big East tournament didn’t feature the No. 1 seed after No. 18 DePaul fell to the Red Storm Monday. Seton Hall has not played for a Big East title since 1993.
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It started with 10 teams and now we are down to two.
