University of Richmond Athletics
University of Richmond
SETON HALL
Men's Basketball Leads By As Many As 23 In Victory Over Seton Hall
12/02/2005 | Men's Basketball
Dec. 1, 2005
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UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND, Va. - The University of Richmond men's basketball team held Seton Hall to just one point over the first 10:55 of the second half and led by as many as 23 points in a 60-49 victory Thursday night in the Robins Center.
The victory gave Richmond a 5-9 record all-time against Big East teams, including a 3-3 mark in the Robins Center. The Spiders have won both meetings with Seton Hall, having also defeated the Pirates 77-71 in the season opener last season.
"Obviously this was a very good win for us, from being where we are right now and having the opportunity to host a Big East team," Richmond first-year head coach Chris Mooney said. "Our defense was terrific and worked for a really long time. We handled all the ball screens that they do. I think they went about 10 minutes before they scored in the second half, we weren't planning for that, but it was terrific."
Seniors Jermaine Bucknor and Kevin Steenberge each scored 16 points as Richmond (3-1) shot a season-high 43-percent from the field.
Bucknor hit a season-high four 3-pointers in seven attempts and now has hit at least three treys in five of his last six games. He has connected on multiple 3-pointers in seven of his last eight games.
Steenberge, who led the Spiders in scoring last season (12.6 ppg), had struggled through the first three games this year but he looked more comfortable in the Princeton offense Thursday and connected on 7-of-11 shots from the field. He also grabbed eight rebounds and hit his second 3-pointer of his career.
"We saw some progress with our offense," Mooney said. "Our guard play was good. Kevin really played well, I think he is really learning when to be aggressive and how to make the offense work for him, rather than being passive. We're just trying to play and get our best shot. It's very hard for teams to guard us. If we're used to and capable of running our offense for 25 seconds, most defenses aren't prepared to defend for 30-35 seconds."
The Spiders have appeared to become more comfortable with running the Princeton offense the past two games.
"Finally we are getting good enough at it and comfortable enough with it that we are able to run it through," Steenberge said. "We're not panicking. When we get the shot clock down under 10, we're not going to chuck the ball up. We understand that 10 seconds is a long time, we still have plenty of time to score."
"They were pressuring us, really getting in on us and playing hard defense on us," junior guard Peter Thomas said. "As we kept running our offense, eventually they break down after 20-25 seconds and we got some really good looks."
Richmond's defense started off the game strong, holding Seton Hall (3-2) to just two points over the first 6:11 of the game and four points in the opening 7:24. Seton Hall did take their only lead of the game (17-16) on Brian Laing's jumper with 6:57 remaining in the half, but the Pirates missed five of their next seven field goals and had three turnovers as Richmond took a 26-21 halftime lead.
Then the Spiders really shut down Seton Hall to start the second half as Richmond outscored the Pirates 17-1 out of the locker room. Seton Hall managed just one free throw over the first 10:55 of the second half, before Donald Copeland (22 points) made a lay-up with 9:05 remaining in the game. That cut the lead to 43-24, but a 3-pointer and dunk by Steenberge gave Richmond its largest lead of the game at 23 points (48-25).
"It's basically a match-up zone with man principals," Steenberge said of Richmond's match-up zone defense that has held three opponents to 50 points or less and has not allowed a team to score 60 points this season. "It's tough to play against from what we've seen. At first it takes a while to get used to, you kind of have to forget the rules that you learned with man-to-man defense. It ends up looking like a hybrid man-to-man, match-up zone, and at times like a flat-out zone. It seems to be giving teams some trouble."
The Spiders' lead stayed above 20 until a jumper by Copeland with 3:08 left in the game cut the gap to 54-36. With 1:32 remaining, Richmond still led by 18 and Seton Hall scored 13 points over the final 1:31 to make the final outcome look closer than it should have.
Richmond held Seton Hall to 36-percent shooting and only allowed the Pirates to score 21 points in the paint. The Spiders had scored just 34 points in the paint over the first three games, but poured in 28 Thursday night.
The Spiders had a season-high 14 assists with Thomas dishing out a career-high five and sophomore Oumar Sylla handing out four. Richmond also posted a season-low nine turnovers.
Richmond travels to Louisville on Friday evening and will play three games in three days in the Colonial Classic, starting Saturday against Arkansas State at 3:30 p.m. The Spiders play Prairie View A&M on Sunday at 4:30 p.m. and then No. 6 ranked Louisville on Monday at 7 p.m.
