Seton Hall coach Kevin Willard doesn't know what "The Pirate Way" is, even though the slogan was written on the shirt he was wearing after his team's 64-63 buzzer-beating win over Villanova on Thursday in the Big East Tournament.
Seton Hall extending its season by winning the Pirate way
Sterling Gibbs sent the Pirates to the Big East semifinals with a buzzer-beater against Villanova, surprising just about everyone who wasn’t wearing a blue jersey.
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“It’s Adidas,” he said. “The last thing I know about The Pirate Way is probably being on a ship and burying buried treasure.”
His comment drew laughter, but a few moments later, Willard tried describing what The Pirate Way has become.
“I just think it’s the character of these guys,” he said. “They showed up every night. They showed up for the most part every practice and they’ve played extremely hard.”
Those qualities might be expected out of any Division I college basketball team. But it would have been easy for Seton Hall to have quit on the season weeks ago.
The Pirates (17-16) lost 10 games this season by five points or fewer and five games by just one point. They finished the regular season 6-12 in the Big East, even though with a little more luck they could have been near the NCAA Tournament bubble.
On Wednesday night, the Pirates could have mailed it in against Butler in the tournament’s first round. The Bulldogs had already swept the season series and clobbered Seton Hall by 17 just four days earlier. The odds of the Pirates winning four games in four days to make the NCAA Tournament were, and still are, pretty small.
That's not how the Pirates looked at it. They came out and beat Butler on Wednesday, 51-50, then followed that up with a shocker over No. 3 Villanova on Thursday, courtesy of a top-of-the-key jumper from Sterling Gibbs as time expired.
That win earned the Pirates a spot in the Big East Tournament semifinals for the first time since 2001. They’ll face Providence at 7 p.m. Friday.
Against Villanova, it wasn’t simply that the bounces finally went the Pirates’ way. Seton Hall led for the majority of the afternoon and was in control with a 44-31 lead early in the second half.
Road to the Title
Then the Wildcats went on a 16-0 run. Over the span of three minutes, Villanova converted on five layups. Things were coming easily for the Wildcats, and murmurs of “it’s over” were spreading fast through the stands at the Garden.
The murmurs never made their way to the Pirates’ huddle.
“We talked about getting back and getting stops,” Willard said. “These guys have a lot of heart. They have a lot of character and they deserve to win.”
Seton Hall has played great teams close all year and knew it could contend. It would likely come down to one or two big plays in the final minute -- plays they knew they could convert.
And after Gibbs converted, the Pirates made their way back to the locker room happy, but not surprised.
“Sterling made a great shot,” senior center Eugene Teague said. “I thought we could definitely beat Villanova tonight. I wasn’t doubting us.”
Gibbs, who admitted that hitting the game-winner was a “good” feeling, made sure to emphasize that the team’s mission is not over.
“You come into the tournament knowing you have to win four games in four days,” he said. “So to just get one step closer to that is definitely a great feeling.”
It’s a step for Gibbs that some might not have expected him to take with his team.
The point guard was suspended earlier in the year for coming to practice with a poor attitude, according to Willard. Gibbs missed his team’s loss at Creighton on Feb. 23. It was another one-point defeat that, with Gibbs, could have been one of the Big East’s most surprising upsets this season.
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Through Gibbs' suspension and injuries to key players -- Big East defensive player of the year Fuquan Edwin, junior forward Patrik Auda and Teague -- the Pirates have learned how to respond to adversity.
“We knew that if we could work through those things, then being down by three, or by one with 3 seconds left, that’s nothing to us,” Gibbs said. “We’ve been through a whole lot.”
Perhaps no one saw what Gibbs, specifically, went through this year, more than his backcourt mate Jaren Sina. The two are good friends, and spoke highly of each other Thursday afternoon.
“He’s a great teammate, even the problems that have happened, they were minor things,” Sina said of Gibbs. “He’s just continuing to be a great point guard.”
They’ve stuck together, and now the PIrates have extended their season into Friday. Seton Hall is assured of leaving New York with at least a .500 record, so even with a loss to Providence, postseason play is still a possibility.
But the Pirates aren’t counting out a trip to the NCAA Tournament, no matter how long the odds.
That just wouldn’t be The Pirate Way.
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