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BY MIKE VORKUNOV
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
QUEENS, NY – Jeremy Hazell sat on the bench, a shooter without a shooting hand. His right hand was heavily bandaged, covering up a laceration almost down to the bone. It must have been an ugly sight if someone might have had a chance to look at it.
But then again, after watching Seton Hall's 59-50 victory over St. John's at Carnesecca Arena last night, how much more could anyone's gag reflex take?
The Pirates pulled out a win that is only pleasing to the win column, which, luckily for them, does not discriminate. And they did it while Hazell was missing for the final 27-plus minutes.
Hazell somehow lacerated the partition between his middle and ring finger on his right hand, unbeknownst to himself, his coach or his teammates. Doctors struggled to stop the bleeding and the injury required eight stitches. Up to that point, he had scored ten of Seton Hall's 16 points and looked primed for another big game."When Jeremy went down I didn't know what happened," said Herb Pope, who finished with eight points and 11 rebounds. "I thought it was my blood because I was bleeding on my fingers so I was hurrying and trying to suck it off and then I see him and his whole shorts are covered in blood. So we come together and we huddle. We've been in that position this year with before our leading scorer, our go-to man down."
When he went out the Pirates had to find a way to pull out a must-win game without him.
They did so with a combination of guile and grit. Which, of course, means that it's not something you want to watch on tape afterward.
The winning mix consisted of efficacious defense and timely offensive rebounding. On the defensive end the Pirates threw out a 2-3 zone that forced the Red Storm to settle for perimeter shots, a weakness.
St. John's (14-11, 4-9), despite having open looks, responded by hitting just 32.8 percent of their shots. They also missed their share of layups and close finishes. It resulted to the fewest amount of points the Pirates had given up all season.
On the other end, Seton Hall (15-9, 6-7) never quite got it going but nine offensive rebounds led to 17 second-chance points and win that was a little sweeter than the rest.
"I mean this sincerely: It's one of my favorite wins of my lifetime," said coach Bobby Gonzalez. "I think back to when we beat Florida in the NCAA Tournament, when we beat Louisville my first time at Seton Hall because coach [Rick] Pitino was a little bit of an idol for me. This one ranks up there for me because we lost at Carnesecca Arena two years in a row. It's a metropolitan-area rivalry game, how much was at stake in terms of the league race."
The win pulled the Pirates into a three-team tie for eighth place in the Big East, with Cincinnati and South Florida, and it was thanks to Jeff Robinson and Robert Mitchell.
Robinson contributed 16 points and nine rebounds, while Mitchell came off the bench to score 15 points. After Hazell went down, they were the main offensive sparks in an otherwise drab game.
Winning a game in which each basket and rebound was fought for tooth and nail, and took more significance than usual, proved something to Pope.
"It makes me feel that we can adapt to the game," he said. "Everybody says we're a run-and-gun team, which we are, but we've been in some battles playing some great defensive teams that we lost to and learned how to win those types of dogfights."
When Hazell went down Pope's mind raced back to Seton Hall's victory over Pittsburgh.
In that one Hazell played only 16 minutes and scored just nine points because of foul trouble. It was proof to him that they could make big runs without the Big East's second leading scorer.
Considering all the circumstances it may have just been the Pirates' best win of the year.
"I would say yeah because we did it without a senior captain and the number two scorer in the Big East," said Jordan Theodore about winning despite Hazell's damaged hand and Eugene Harvey not playing due to a wrist injury.
"It's tough, a lot of teams can't do that. It just goes to show that we still can win without Jeremy or Eugene, no matter who we're missing. We still have guys who can win. The injuries, they were bad, but they really helped us as a team because it helped us come together as a unit."
Despite all that, the win was still without reservation. Once the jubilation of the first Big East road win of the year wears off, Hazell will still be injured with a doctor's appointment already set for Thursday. A road date at West Virginia still awaits them.
And a dire need to win out just to smell the NCAA Tournament is still reality.
So Gonzalez ended his post-game press conference with a sobering truth that put the win in context.
"We played inspired basketball without Jeremy but we can't do that for six more games. You just can't do that."
For more Seton Hall, Rutgers and Big East news, stories and updates follow Mike Vorkunov on Twitter at @Mike_Vorkunov.
