It will be a greeting fit for the pope or Elvis, or perhaps a combination of the two, when Shaheen Holloway is introduced Thursday as Seton Hall men’s basketball’s head coach. After the two sides agreed to terms late Wednesday, the university announced a 1:30 pm Thursday news conference.
Beloved as a Seton Hall point guard and later associate head coach under Kevin Willard, Holloway now has national name recognition after guiding Saint Peter’s to the NCAA Tournament’s Elite Eight — the greatest Cinderella run in tourney history.
But the most heartfelt reaction may come from those who have known him from his earliest days as a Pirate.
“It’s going to be huge,” said Ty Shine, Holloway’s backup on the 2000 Sweet 16 team. “Local kids are going to want to play for him. He still has that legendary New York City/New Jersey name. I think the recruiting part is going to be pretty easy for him — being from the area is going to be one of his advantages. ”
Holloway is highly regarded by the metropolitan area’s recruiting power brokers. But to Shine, his return from him is about more than opening recruiting pipelines. It’s about bleeding blue the way only an alum can.
“It’s always good to have somebody in-house that cares about the school and wants to see the school do well,” said Shine. “To go back to your college team, right after the success you just had at a mid-major, it’s a dream. You want to pinch yourself.”
MORE: How Holloway is similar, different from Kevin Willard
Brian Campbell, who played on that 2000 team, echoed the sentiment.
“I don’t think it could be any better,” Campbell said. “He went to the school, he was an assistant coach there for a long time with success, he went to Saint Peter’s, which is not an easy place to win and finished second or third the last three years (in the MAAC).”
That last part is noteworthy. When assessing coaches, much is made of March runs—and Holloway’s was all-time epic—but catching lightning in a bottle is not as predictive of future success as the entire record.
“That’s a league with good coaches and good players,” Campbell said of the MAAC. “So much is made of conference tournaments, but to me, I look at the regular season. If you’re finishing in the top two or three for three years in a row at a place like Saint Peter’s, you know what you’re doing.”
When Willard first arrived at Seton Hall in 2010, he was stunned at the lack of infrastructure—facilities, alumni giving, institutional support. Much of that has progressed over the past 12 years, but Seton Hall may never catch a Marquette or a Creighton in that regard. Campbell thinks no one is better positioned to understand that and maximize the situation than Holloway.
“Seton Hall will have to do more with less (relative to high-major peers), and that’s the same thing with Saint Peter’s,” he said. “That’s the kind of guy we need. We don’t need an assistant from a top program who gets players based on the program name or on facilities or home-court advantage.”
Rob Jackson, a Seton Hall assistant during Holloway’s playing days who is now an NBA scout, has watched his rise through the coaching ranks closely and remained in touch.
“He’s shown that he can coach on any level,” Jackson said. “I’ve had a chance to watch him run practice, coach in games and see him out there with his game preparation and teaching skills from him. In practice, the way he is able to relate to players and motivate them, that certainly is one of his strengths. I really don’t think he’ll miss a beat.”
Jackson said he could tell from early on that Holloway could rise to meet any challenge.
“I was so impressed with Shaheen being a young father, a college basketball player and a college student, and how he was able to fit everything on his plate and get through it the way he did,” he said. “It was not easy, but he did a tremendous job.”
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George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism