Seton Hall Free Fall Continues With Road Loss at DePaul

Published: Saturday, January 24, 2026

by Ross Vocaturo

CHICAGO, I.L. - The Seton Hall Pirates (14-6, 4-5) suffered their fourth consecutive loss Saturday night with a 67-60 defeat against DePaul (12-8, 4-5) at Wintrust Arena. 

The Pirates were outplayed in yet another first half, and the 30-20 score at the end of the first 20 minutes was too big of a deficit to surmount for Seton Hall. In the midst of as bad of a skid as the Pirates have been in, considering the overall expectation-exceeding aspect of the season so far, the last thing Shaheen Holloway could afford was dropping a fourth straight, now being sub-.500 in conference play.  

Budd Clark and TJ Simpkins split the point column lead with 14, while Clark also had a team-leading five assists and Stephon Payne led the way in rebounds with six. For DePaul, CJ Gunn was one of four Blue Demons in double figures with a team-high 19 points, while Brandon Maclin led the way with four assists and NJ Benson getting into double figures in the rebound column with a DePaul-leading ten. 

It was a wire-to-wire win for DePaul, scoring the game’s first points and not looking back until the final buzzer. It was not necessarily a blowout at any point in the game however, with the longest run had by either team was DePaul’s 8-0 run in the middle of the second half. Neither team turned the ball an outrageous amount as well, and DePaul only had eleven points off turnovers to Seton Hall’s ten. 

Simply put, it was just another inefficient night from the field for the Pirates. 38% from the field, along with 29% from three are not necessarily horrible numbers for the Pirates’ shooting standards, though if anything that is more so a knock on Seton Hall’s offensive reputation to this point in the season. 

Additionally, the lack of consistency from individual players has been a glaring issue as well; for example, while Budd Clark followed up his 0-fer performance at St. John’s on Tuesday with a team-leading 14, a similar cornerstone facilitator in AJ Staton-McCray finished the night with a single made basket. 

It goes without saying that consistent success is hard to come by when your heavily relied on contributors refuse to contribute all on the same night. 

The ship is not sinking just yet, but it is now or never if this team is serious about continuing their season into March. If there is any potential saving grace, the Pirates next two games are at home (Xavier and Marquette) before they have stops on the road in three of four games. 

The Pirates will look to rebound off the loss vs DePaul when they welcome Richard Pitino and the Xavier Musketeers to The Rock on Wednesday. Catch all coverage on 89.5 FM WSOU, starting with pregame coverage at 7:00 p.m. followed by Joe Morales and Ryder Nuesell on the call for a 7:30 p.m. tip. 

Ross Vocaturo can be reached at ross.vocaturo@student.shu.edu.

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