WSOU

Recap: Pirates Fall to the Sooners, 77-64

Date: November 26, 2022

By: Andrew Raccuglia

Kadary Richmond and the Pirates couldn't handle the high powered Sooners in Friday night's loss.

Rich Storry/USA TODAY Sports

Seton Hall’s Men’s Basketball team (4-2) held a good fight with the Oklahoma Sooners (5-1), but they allowed a late surge in the last ten minutes to drop their second game of the year, 77-64.

The Pirates were coming off an incredible buzzer-beater victory against the Memphis Tigers on Thursday night to play in the semifinal round of the ESPN Events Invitational at Walt Disney World’s ESPN Wide World of Sports complex.

They faced an Oklahoma squad picked to finish seventh in the Big 12 this season and had a good back-and-forth contest before the Pirates’ defense withered away down the stretch.

There was a total of nine lead changes and seven ties across the game, as the Pirates started out with the early advantage. Tyrese Samuel, the hero of Thursday’s Memphis game, began with the first two points of the contest on a jumper, as the Sooners took four missed shots in the first 2:30 when KC Ndefo made a jumper himself to put the Pirates up 4-0.

Oklahoma’s Grant Sherfield, the senior guard, gave the Sooners their first two points on a jumper. He made the difference in this game, with a game-high 25 points, as well as three rebounds and three assists, going 52.9% from the field (9-of-17) and 60.0% from distance (3-of-5), now averaging 14.4 points-per-game, 2.8 rebounds per game, and 5.4 assist per game.

The Pirates were out to an early lead, 8-7, when Jalen Hill made the Sooners’ first three-pointer of the night, prompting Shaheen Holloway to call a timeout with 13:54 left in the half, now down 8-10.

From then on, the last 13 minutes were a back-and-forth contest between the two teams, sitting tied at 12 for over two minutes, with no field goals until Oklahoma’s Jacob Groves made another three to put them ahead.

The two teams were tied at 10, 12, 15, and 18 points a-piece until senior guard Al-Amir Dawes made a high long-range jumper from Kadary Richmond. However, they couldn’t keep the lead as Sherfield responded with his own.

He put the Sooners ahead 34-33 as both teams headed back into the locker rooms for halftime.

Down by one point, just like the previous night, the Hall was able to stay in the game, retaking a one-point lead from a three-pointer by Dawes, followed by a layup plus-one on Richmond, and another two made treys from the Newark native, all within a 2:15 span, putting them ahead 47-42.

Of course, Sherfield closed the gap to tie it once again, but The Hall had a 51-49 lead before Tanner Groves, despite foul trouble, made a three with 12:02 left, and that is where the Pirates’ defense began to truly collapse.

A Jalen Hill layup put the Sooners ahead by five, as Holloway decided it was time for another timeout with 9:31 left.

Sherfield made two free throws on a foul on Richmond, putting them up by six, and scored yet another three for the Sooners’ largest lead yet at 66-57. Now with 4:27 left, Holloway called another timeout over the defense’s inability to keep him at bay.

Femi Odukale was sent to the line from a foul on Sherfield and kept them within seven. He then got a steal and took a shot that was clearly blocked by goaltending, but the refs, despite Holloway demanding that they look at the replay, didn’t change the call, and Odukale only made one free throw awarded to him, which arguably killed their momentum.

The Sooners found themselves wide open for two layups and another three pointer by Tanner Groves, now leading by 13 with 1:55 to go, and they never looked back.

Dawes finished with a team-best 12 points, one rebound, three assists, two steals, but four turnovers (11.2 PPG, 3.8 RPG, 2.0 APG). KC Ndefo had 10 points, five rebounds, one assist, and two blocks. Dre Davis had 10 points, three rebounds, and one assist.

While the Sooners did struggle more so with free-throw shooting than the Pirates, everything else went right for them. It was early on that the Pirates had several opportunities for the lead off of good, wide-open passes to the rim, often to Tae Davis (who’s birthday was Friday), but threw them in too hot for him to catch, wasting those perfect opportunities.

It was also how they left so many Sooners players wide open to make their three-point shots, much to Holloway’s dismay, when defense is one of their greatest strengths as a team so far.

What really stood out was Oklahoma’s shooting from the field. It was not so much that the Pirates were bad, but that the Sooners were so good tonight, making 29-of-56 on the field (51.8%) compared to the Pirates’ 23-of-52 (44.2%), and 10-of-20 from distance (50.0%) as opposed to 5-of-13 (38.5%).

No, the officiating did not help, but the Pirates were not lucky tonight, and they are very much a work-in-progress, just like Coach Holloway had been saying since the end of the summer.

They have a lot to work on that can be fixed before Big East play begins on Dec. 17. Besides, they now know the physicality of a Big 12 team before they travel to Lawrence to take on Kansas next Thursday.

Looking ahead, the Pirates will now face the Siena Saints of the MAAC in the 3rd Place game on the ESPN Events Invitational on Sunday at 5 p.m. EST. Jonathan Heite and Joe Matthews will once again by on the call for 89.5 FM WSOU as coverage will begin at 4:45 p.m. on Sunday.

Andrew Raccuglia can be reached at andrew.raccuglia@student.shu.edu.

Posted in: Sports, Men's Basketball

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