Seton Hall, Washington State look to bounce back in Maui 3rd-place game

After successful openers at the Maui Invitational in Lahaina, Hawaii, Seton Hall and Washington State suffered huge disappointing losses in their semifinal games.

Both teams are hoping to avoid more angst and another loss when the Pirates face the Cougars in the third-place game on Wednesday.

After going 7-25 last season, Seton Hall won its first six games, including an 85-74 victory over No. 23 North Carolina State in Monday’s opening round game. Beating the only ranked team in the field set up a showdown with Southern California, which the Pirates lost 83-81 on Tuesday.

Seton Hall led by 13 points in the first half and overcame an eight-point deficit in the final 4:10. The Pirates tied the game on AJ Staton-McCray’s jumper with 1:02 remaining and trailed by one with six seconds remaining, but were never able to regain the lead and were frustrated by a 38–18 disparity in free-throw attempts along with a 28–19 foul disparity.

“Tough, tough way to lose,” Pirates coach Shaheen Holloway said in a postgame radio interview after his team scored 56.1%.

“The guys worked hard, that’s all you can ask for, gave yourself a chance. Learned from it.”

The Pirates are getting a strong performance from Staton-McRae, who followed up his 22-point performance with 17 points in the opener on Tuesday. Adam Clark led Seton Hall with 18 points but the Pirates were outrebounded 35–21 and could not fully take advantage of 16 USC turnovers.

Washington State (3-4) opened the tournament with a 90-85 win over Chaminade on Monday as Ace Glass III scored 26 off the bench. Glass started for the first time on Tuesday and scored a freshman-program-record 40 points, but the Cougars lost 100-94 to Arizona State, allowing them to shoot 58.9% from the field.

Washington State also squandered a double-digit lead as it led by 12 early in the second half and missed 14 of its last 20 shots.

“I thought we definitely improved,” Washington State coach David Riley said. “Our guys showed great spirit for 40 minutes and were competitive and played a little looser than we did. The mistakes we made were offensive ones. The reality is you can’t give up 100 points and win a lot of ballgames, and we’ve got to understand that side a little more.”

–Field Level Media