Tough Loss to St. John’s in Big East Semi Doesn’t Diminish Outstanding Regular Season
When the final buzzer sounded at Madison Square Garden in the Big East tournament semifinal on Friday night, Seton Hall’s regular season ended with a 68-78 loss to top-seeded St. John’s. The Pirates never led and despite a valiant effort to cut a 19 point lead to six with 4:41 remaining, but they never got closer.
However, despite the tough loss, it has still be an outstanding season. Coming off a seven-win season in 2024-25, this year’s team with 11 transfers was forced to mesh early. Junior guard Tajuan Simpkins spoke to the team’s ability to jell together saying, “Just being with each other every day the connection that we got fighting for each other on and off the court made it a great collective of guys.”
Seton Hall started the season by winning 11 of their first 12 games and climbing into the AP Top 25 for the first time since 2022. A huge part of this hot start was the emergence of freshman center Najai Hines, who became a fan favorite and was nicknamed “Baby Shaq.” Hines continued his outstanding play throughout non-conference schedule, including scoring double digit points off the bench against NC State, Kansas State and Rutgers.
“This season was just about family,” said Hines. “These are my brothers and I never want to be somewhere else at the end of the day.”
The Pirates were very streaky throughout Big East play going on a three game win streak through the end of December and into early January. However, four straight losses to UConn, Butler, St. John’s and DePaul stung.
The Pirates then rebounded with their most impressive offensive game to date, defeating Xavier 86-68 thanks to star point guard Budd Clark, who had a then-season-high 24 points and 7 rebounds and was named Big East Player of the Week.
After beating Creighton and then losing to St. John’s in the Big East tournament, the postseason remains uncertain, but that doesn’t take away from a heck of a regular season. Transfers Clark, Simpkins, AJ Staton-McCray and Stephon Payne made this one of the most exciting Seton Hall teams in recent years.
”I’ve played on some good teams in the past but this is definitely one of the best ones I’ve been on,” said Simpkins about this year’s team. “You saw Jacob Dar had 16 last night. The amount of guys we got that could go on any given night was special.”
Big East Coach of the Year Shaheen Holloway also spoke about how memorable this team was saying, “This group was really fun to coach. For me as a coach they did give me everything I asked for, that you could ask for, nothing more than that. They carried themselves well on and off the court.”
A lot of this had to do with the team’s never give up attitude that was on full display with gritty play and comebacks. The Pirates led the country in combined blocks and steals along with top 30 in defensive efficiency and top 12 in points allowed per game. Holloway constantly had this team playing physically; it made the Pirates one of the tougher teams to play against. St. John’s coach Rick Pitino praised Holloway and and the Pirates saying, “Defensively, offensively, he runs really good sets. So he’s tremendous. He’s a terrific coach. Seton Hall’s very, very lucky to have him.”