NEW YORK – The Jacob Dar game.
That’s what Seton Hall basketball’s 72-61 victory over Creighton in Thursday’s Big East Tournament quarterfinals will be known forever more.
The senior forward, a deep reserve, delivered 16 points and five rebounds in 12 dynamic minutes off the bench to spark a second-half surge and delight a heavily pro-Pirates crowd at Madison Square Garden.
The 6-foot-7 Dar – an Omaha native, as irony would have it – previously had just two high-impact Big East games, both against Xavier. He’s got a year of eligibility left, by the way.
Fourth-seeded Seton Hall (21-11 overall, 11-10 Big East) advance to the Big East semifinals for the first time since 2021. The Pirates will face top-seeded St. John’s Friday (5:30 p.m., Fox).
This was a rubber match with fifth-seeded Creighton (15-17, 9-12) after the first two contests were decided in the finals seconds.
It was just the second Big East Tournament meeting between these programs. The first was also in the 2016 quarterfinals, when the Hall prevailed 81-73 on the way to the title. That was anybody’s game until the final minute, when Isaiah Whitehead grabbed a crucial offensive rebound and the blocked a shot at the other end to seal it.
Seton Hall was the No. 4 seed only twice previously, winning the tourney with that seed in 1991 and losing the quarterfinal to St. John’s in 2024. The Pirates are now 4-1 all-time as the No. 4 seed.
FIVE TAKEAWAYS
1-Defense delivered
The Pirates held Creighton to 32 percent shooting, including 7-of-30 from 3-point range. Good looks were hard to come by for a Bluejays offense that specializes in creating them. The Hall blanketed the 3-point line and the help-and-recover was razor sharp.
2. Ball sharing = balanced scoring
No one will mistake the Pirates for an offensive juggernaut, but when several players are bucket-getting, it helps. Budd Clark set the pace, but AJ Staton-McCray, Elijah Fisher, Mike Williams and Tajuan Simpkins all hit timely shots. These guys shared the ball well and that made a difference. They had 16 assists on 24 buckets.
3. Holloway at the Garden
Shaheen Holloway picked up his first Big East Tournament win as a head coach after opening with losses the past three years and is now 1-5 at Madison Square Garden as the Pirates’ skipper.
4. Sold-out quarterfinal
There’s nothing like playing in Madison Square Garden in March. Where else can you have a sold-out quarterfinal doubleheader starting at noon on a Thursday, with 19,500 people in attendance?
Most of the crowd was clad in red, having just watched St. John’s dispatch Providence, and sat passively during Seton Hall-Creighton. There was a solid contingent of Pirate fans in the house, including Pirate No. 1 – P.J. Carlesimo, who sat on press row with former assistant Bruce Hamburger.
5. Up next
There’s no night on the college basketball calendar quite like semifinal Friday at the Big East Tournament. This is the Pirates’ first trip to the semis since the fan-less COVID year of 2021 (a loss to Georgetown).
Their last semifinal with fans in the building was an infamous classic – an 81-79 win over Marquette in 2019 that was marred by 49 total fouls, 85 free throws, three ejections and four foul-outs. The crew of James Breeding, Jeff Clark and Tim Clougherty immediately became the subject of national outrage, to the point where Breeding took the unusual step of giving a lengthy postgame interview with pool reporter Mike Fitzpatrick of The Associated Press.
This time around it should be a typically physical tug-of-war against St. John’s, which won the first meeting 65-60 at the Garden (after the Pirates led by 15 early in the second half) and the rematch 72-65 in Newark. Both contests were one-possession affairs inside the final minute.
Jerry Carino has covered the New Jersey sports scene since 1996 and the college basketball beat since 2003. Contact him at jcarino@gannettnj.com.
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Seton Hall tops Creighton in Big East Tournament as Jacob Dar delivers