25 College Basketball Teams in 25 Days: No. 15 Seton Hall Pirates

Seton Hall’s experience will drive its 2017-18 potential

As a 21-year old, Andrew Wiggins averaged 23.6 points per game for the Minnesota Timberwolves in the NBA. Yet, the former No. 1 pick who turned 22 in February and was once offloaded for Kevin Love has already been denounced as a bust by many.

Their reasoning is pretty simple. The Canadian phenom once dubbed “Maple Jordan” may get buckets, but he doesn’t actually contribute to winning basketball because he doesn’t do much more than get those buckets. In theory, Wiggins should be able to change that, developing his play-making ability, improving his defense and smoothing out his jumper, but the problem is players on a development curve like Wiggins’ don’t tend to improve, especially as they get older.

There are, of course, still those who have faith in Wiggins believing although he may not develop into a true top option on a great team, he can still be a productive NBA player as say a third option next to Jimmy Butler and Karl-Anthony Towns.

That brings us to college basketball’s Seton Hall Pirates.

Seton Hall is old. The Pirates return four senior starters — Khadeen Carrington, Angel Delgado, Desi Rodriguez and Ismael Sanogo — from a squad that won 21 games, finished 51st in KenPom’s adjusted efficiency margin and made an NCAA Tournament appearance last season. For perspective, Wiggins is about about 1.5 years older than Sanogo, three months older than Delgado, one month younger than Rodriguez and six months younger than Carrington.

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In college basketball, unlike in the NBA, being old is generally viewed as a positive. Evidence suggests that returning a high percentage of your team’s minutes tends to improve both your offensive and defensive efficiency. The margin for improvement for any individual team, however, varies with how well the team performed the prior year, which makes sense. If a team was already solid defensively — like Seton Hall was last season — there just isn’t much room to grow. If a team was mediocre on one end — like Seton Hall was on offense last season — there’s plenty of potential.

A few recent examples using KenPom’s adjusted efficiency rankings provide some hope that the Pirates can make a major leap in 2017-18. The Michigan Wolverines jumped from 50th in 2015-16 to 20th last season with largely the same group while the Miami Hurricanes have ushered an experienced roster to big improvements twice in the last five seasons.

Seton Hall’s growth is most likely to come on the offensive end where it ranked 83rd nationally in 2016-17 in terms of adjusted efficiency, per KenPom.

The upswing must start with Carrington, the 6-foot-4 point guard with a smooth handle and a nasty ability to knock down jumpers off the dribble. Without Madison Jones on the roster, Carrington will be tasked with more of the team’s distribution responsibilities. Head coach Kevin Willard needs his senior lead guard to bump up his assist rate from last season’s pretty paltry 18.3 percent.

Carrington has the vision to make the necessary passes, but he’ll have to change the way he plays the game. Rather than pulling up for the jumper, he’ll need to get into the lane and break down the defense before finding an open teammate who can knock down a more efficient look.

Seton Hall finished 307th out of 351 Division I squads last season in team assist rate at 46.3 percent. Only three other top 100 offenses posted a worst mark and none of them play in a major conference. Follow the trendline in the below graph, which compares team assist rate to adjusted offensive efficiency over the last three seasons, and you can see why Willard needs Carrington to lead the way in creating more assisted makes. A higher team assist rate is generally well correlated to a more efficient offense:

The Pirates also need to improve their outside shooting. They made just 33.8 percent of their 3-point attempts as a team last season. At 38.2 percent, Carrington was the only individual shooter to finish well above average for Division I while Rodriguez connected on a solid 35.5 percent of his attempts.

Two things stand out as positive indicators for Seton Hall’s 3-point chances in 2017-18. The first is Carrington’s potential as a facilitator could translate into more efficient looks for his teammates. Rodriguez, in particular, could benefit. Last season, the 6-foot-6 wing often found himself trying to score out of isolation where he averaged 0.987 points per possession, per Synergy. Changing some of those possessions to catch-and-shoot opportunities where he averaged 1.147 points per shot would benefit the Pirates’ offense tremendously.

Improvement could also come from sophomore Myles Powell who figures to take over most of Jones’ minutes. The 6-foot-2 guard made a meager 33.2 percent of his 205 3-point attempts last season, but that’s not nearly a big enough sample size to conclude he’s a poor shooter. Powell entered college with a reputation of having deep range and his 81.7 free throw percentage suggests his jumper is much better than what he showed in 2016-17.

Like the synergistic effect that Carrington’s passing could have on the team’s 3-point shooting, improved outside shooting could also benefit big man Angel Delgado. The 6-foot-10 center was one of the most dominant frontcourt players in all of college basketball last season, averaging 18.5 points and 15.8 rebounds per 40 minutes.

However, Delgado’s lack of vertical pop limited his efficiency last season. He averaged just 0.833 points per possession (59th percentile) on post ups, per Synergy, in part because he doesn’t have the ability to elevate over larger defenders. Having more space to operate as a result of better 3-point shooting could help. It would give Delgado more room to impose his large frame on a defender, giving him better angles to shoot from.

Ultimately, it’s unlikely that Delgado is going to improve his raw numbers in 2017-18 — they were already absurdly good — but he could raise his field goal percentage from the mid-50s into the low 60s with just a bit more accuracy, which spacing could help.

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Earlier this summer, the Timberwolves offered Wiggins a maximum contract extension that he recently signed. However, that contract came with some conditions. Owner Glen Taylor told the Associated Press that the contract wasn’t meant to be an investment into Wiggins as he is today, but a bet on his future potential. Taylor said he wanted a commitment from the star forward to improve his game going forward.

That’s what it feels like rewarding Seton Hall with the No. 15 ranking in our preseason poll. The Pirates have potential, but there’s no guarantee they’ll reach it.

Next: Can Xavier sustain its postseason turnaround?

Certainly, despite being old, Seton Hall still has plenty of room to grow, particularly on the offensive end. Better passing from Carrington, improved 3-point shooting and a more efficient post presence could be enough to turn the Pirates from a rather average squad into one worthy of such a lofty preseason ranking.

Here’s to betting on potential. Cheers!