(Photos courtesy Andrew Mills / The Star-Ledger)

PISCATAWAY, N.J. — Ronald Roberts, a 6-foot-8 forward from Jersey City (N.J.) St. Peter’s Prep who has committed to St. John’s, said he was uncertain of his plans now that head coach Norm Roberts’ future is in doubt.

The New York Post on Thursday reported that Roberts would be let go at the end of the season. The team is NIT eligible and the school likely won’t make any official announcement until after Sunday night’s NIT selection process.

“I’m just going to see what happens. I’m really not sure. I’m disappointed, but I just don’t know what to do at this point,” Roberts said after scoring 16 points as St. Peter’s beat Seton Hall Prep, 64-54, to win the New Jersey Non-Public A North title at Rutgers.

Sources close to the St. Peter’s program said several Big East and ACC schools continued to call with inquiries about Roberts even though he has signed with St. John’s.

Roberts would have to be let out of his Letter of Intent to transfer. Sources close to St. Peter’s Prep say there is no “out clause” in his NLI with St. John’s. Devin Ebanks had one at Indiana and ultimately landed at West Virginia after Kelvin Sampson was let go. If there is a coaching change,the administration could opt to let him leave.

Norm Roberts and his staff did not appear at the game because they attended the wake for Dolores Braica, the mother of assistant coach Glenn Braica. The funeral was Friday.

“I’m just focused on winning a state championship with my team right now,” Roberts said.

St. Peter’s faces Camden Catholic in Saturday’s Non-Public A final.

As for the St. John’s situation, multiple outlets are reporting that the school is targeting Virginia Tech coach Seth Greenberg, a Plainview, N.Y. native and Fairleigh Dickinson graduate who has three NCAA tournament appearances on his resume.

The Hokies face Miami in an ACC tournament quarterfinal Friday.

Reached by phone Thursday, Greenberg said, “I can’t visit right now. I’m getting ready to prepare my team for the ACC tournament.”

Greenberg, 53, has also been mentioned in connection with the Rutgers job.

Rutgers athletic director Tim Pernetti has yet to make a public pronouncement on the future of head coach Fred Hill.

One source said he thought Greenberg would prefer Rutgers to St. John’s if both were options.

“It’s a state school. You have greater resources at a state university,” the source said. “With Jersey being the basketball state that it is, I think it would be a more attractive situation for him [at Rutgers].”

That same source said Hofstra coach Tom Pecora would be more likely to land the Fordham job than the St. John’s one.

“It will be hard for him to get the St. John’s job because Hofstra isn’t winning quite to the extent that they were four or five years ago,” the source said.

Fordham interim coach Jared Grasso remains in the mix for the full-time job and has the support of his players.

Robert Morris coach Mike Rice, a Fordham alum, has also been linked to the job.

St. John’s, Rutgers and Fordham will  have to wait to interview several of these candidates.

Robert Morris and Siena, coached by Fran McCaffery, are both in the NCAA tournament with automatic bids.

Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech, coached by Paul Hewitt, could get at-large bids.

McCaffery has been linked to the Rutgers job, and Hewitt to St. John’s.

Hofstra could be headed to the NIT.

ST. ANTHONY DOWNS PATERSON CATHOLIC

This time St. Anthony was the underdog and Paterson Catholic was the favorite.

And for a second straight year, the dogs won.

One year after losing to the Cougars in their own gym in the semifinals of the North Non-Public B bracket, No. 2 St. Anthony hammered No. 1 Paterson Catholic 63-49 in the North Non-Public B final at Rutgers.

St. Bonaventure-bound guard Elijah Carter, born and raised for 12 years in Paterson, killed the Cougars with 28 points and 14 rebounds. Oregon State-bound forward Devon Collier added 14 points.

“It feels good,” Carter said. “I grew up with them playing against them when I was younger so  it feels good to come out and get the win,” Carter said.

“I wasn’t really a factor in the game last year. I worked the whole summer to improve my game and today I came and played a good game,” Carter added.

The previously unbeaten Cougars (28-1) were ranked No. 3 nationally by PrepNation.com and ESPN.com.

The Friars will seek their 25th state title under legendary coach Bob Hurley Saturday against Trenton Catholic.

“I’m ecstatic,” Hurley said. “I don’t know if I’ve ever had a team that has made this much progress during the season.”

St. Anthony has now beaten four teams this season that downed the Friars a year ago.

Seton Hall-bound forward Fuquan Edwin led the Cougars with 22 points and Kyle Anderson scored 10. Junior guard Myles Mack managed just 9 points on 3-for-12 shooting.

St. Anthony stifled PC with a variety of zones and defensive schemes and the Cougars never got within single-digits after trailing 27-16 at the break.

“Just today, I just got to give credit where credit is due,” PC coach Damon Wright said. “They just came out and played a better basketball game than us.”

PC didn’t reach its ultimate goal of winning its first Tournament of Champions title, but they did become the first Paterson team to win the prestigious City of Palms Classic. They captured their third straight Passaic County title. And they won their first 28 games of the season.

The underdog won again this year. But this time the dog was St. Anthony.

NOTES

Among the head coaches on hand were Hill, Grasso, Pecora, Dr. John Giannini of La Salle and Jose Rebimbas of William Paterson. Seton Hall assistant Scott Adubato, Holy Cross assistant Guillermo Sanchez and Quinnipiac assistant Eric Eaton were also on hand, as was the entire Rutgers staff.

For more on Bob and Dan Hurley, read the feature about their recruiting pipeline to the Big East.

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NEW YORK — Dan Hurley

Eugene Harvey and Seton Hall lost to Notre Dame in the second round, but Hurley still has plenty of horses in the race.

Six former Newark (N.J.) St. Benedict’s Prep players are on Big East rosters, and five of them were active for the tournament. Cincinnati junior guard Rashad Bishop was suspended from the tournament by the team for violating team rules.

Read the full story here.

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As expected, Elizabeth (N.J.) St. Patrick was officially banned from the New Jersey state basketball tournament and put on two years probation Friday by its state association.

Head coach Kevin Boyle, found guilty of holding illegal preseason workouts – so his players could be seen by college coaches – was suspended for three games.

Read the full story here.

HURLEY TALKS ST. PAT’S SUSPENSION

Also, these quotes didn’t make the story (because of length), but legendary St. Anthony coach Bob Hurley calls Paterson Catholic the favorite to win the Tournament of Champions.

“I would say Paterson Catholic is probably still the favorite,” said Hurley, whose team has won 10 T of C titles. “I haven’t seen them since the beginning of the season. Early on they looked like a very, very good team. I know we’re happy we’ve improved since the beginning of the season. We still have a bunch of games to play. Everything we’re doing is geared toward being ready for the states.

“From a competition standpoint, we’re 1-2-3 in the state in one section,” Hurley added, referring to St. Patrick, Paterson Catholic and St. Anthony. “Now we’re 2-3 in one section. It’s still a tough section but it’s a little more winnable now.”

Paterson Catholic, which features Seton Hall-bound senior forward Fuquan Edwin and star junior point guard Myles Mack, has lost to St. Patrick six times in the state tournament since 1997. The Cougars advanced to the Tournament of Champions final once, when the Tim Thomas-led team lost in the finals to Orange in 1994.

“There was no guarantee we would’ve played [St. Patrick’s],” PC coach Damon Wright told the Bergen Record. “But our kids know the St. Patrick’s kids. They crushed us last year, and I just think our kids could have made it a better game this year, and it was probably something that they were looking forward to. But right now, we have our eyes set on the [Passaic] County tournament.”

As for the suspension itself, Hurley said he felt bad for the St. Patrick kids.

“It’s a shame,” he said. “The kids are effected by this and I feel bad for them, particularly the kids that are seniors in high school. Everything you do is geared toward playing the state tournament. They were certainly a strong favorite to win a state championship. It’s tough.”

(Photo courtesy Star-Ledger)

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Initially, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to handle covering both the Knicks and Big East basketball for SNY.tv. But aside from being out of the house and away from my family several nights a week, things have worked out pretty well so far.

Except for one thing.

I’ve seen a lot of bad basketball.

During a five-day span this past week, I saw Seton Hall (at Villanova), St. John’s (to West Virginia) and the Knicks (to Milwaukee) all lose.

Then on Saturday things got even worse.

The Knicks and Nets were both in action in the NBA, as were all three local Big East teams:  Rutgers, Seton Hall and St. John’s.

The collective result?

Those five New York-area teams lost by a combined 74 points.

The Nets dropped to 4-46 after a 99-92 loss at Detroit.

That is the worst 50-game start in the history of the four major pro sports.

Let that sink in for a minute.

In Cleveland, LeBron dropped 47 points on the Knicks, who made a valiant comeback from 20 down at the half before falling 113-106.

The Knicks dropped to 19-31, a season-worst 12 games under .500.

New York has now lost 5 of 6 and 7 of 9.

As one of my colleagues pointed out, if you have 30 losses by the NBA All-Star Break, you ain’t makin’ the playoffs.

The Knicks are hoping that LeBron — or Dwyane Wade or Chris Bosh — comes to the Big Apple via free agency next summer, but one free agent after another has come through New York questioning why the others would do that.

There’s a lot of pressure and media attention in New York. The team isn’t winning now. And there’s no guarantee who will even be on the roster next year.

Reggie Miller recently asserted to The New York Times that James definitely wasn’t coming to New York.

When Knicks president Donnie Walsh asked Miller directly if he knew that to be true, Miller backed down and said he didn’t.

I recently had a source tell me that LeBron was shopping for houses in Miami, so who knows?

What seems a near certainty is that the Knicks won’t make the playoffs for the first time since 2004.

Now let’s look at the local Big East teams.

Rutgers (2-9), St. Johns (2-8) and Seton Hall (3-7) are a combined 7-24 in the Big East.

The three locals now reside in 13th (Seton Hall), 14th (St. John’s) and 15th (Rutgers) places in the 16-team Big East.

After raising hopes with a modest two-game winning streak, Rutgers fell by 16 on Saturday at Louisville.

In a game I covered for SNY, St. John’s blew a 15-point second-half lead and lost by 19 to a West Virginia outfit that started five guys from New York and New Jersey, including former Bloomfield Tech star Da’Sean Butler, who dropped a season-high 33 points.  Long Island City’s Devin Ebanks, a likely first-round NBA pick should he elect to go in June, added 12 and 10 and used his length to anchor Bob Huggins’ 1-3-1 zone defense.

That make six games this season that the Johnnies have lost after leading at the half.

Six.

In Pittsburgh, Bobby Gonzalez switched things up by bringing leading scorer Jeremy Hazell off the bench but the Pirates lost by 25 points to the Panthers. Hazell managed just 2 points on 1-for-7 shooting.

As if that weren’t enough, the AP reported that the Pirates had to hike several blocks in knee-deep snow drifts to their hotel after their bus was halted in the snow.

“I guess when it rains, it pours,” Gonzalez said. “Or, like they say, when it snows, it snows.”

At least two of these programs could be ripe for coaching changes after the season, when Rutgers AD Tim Pernetti and St. John’s president Father Donald J. Harrington will have some hard choices to make.

Do they pull the plug and absorb the financial losses associated with buying out a head coach? Can they even afford to do so?

If they elect to do so, who comes in next?

There’s a lot of talk about recycling former Division I head coaches for these jobs, and we’ve all heard the same names over and over.

Fans have gotten creative, mentioning everyone from Bob Knight to Lawrence Frank to Bob Hurley as possibilities. Frank and Hurley both told me directly they weren’t interested in coaching at the college level. It’s NBA or bust for Frank, and St. Anthony or bust for the legendary Hurley.

If, and when, Rutgers and St. John’s, along with Fordham, FDU and others, elect to make changes, they should consider bringing in some fresh young blood.

Mike Rice, 40, has done a great job at Robert Morris and could be a natural candidate for a couple locations, as Tim Sullivan of the New York Post pointed out last week.

And what about Kevin Willard? The Iona coach has done a tremendous job with the Gaels, who are 17-7 with a roster full of guys from New York and New Jersey.

But somebody, if not Fordham itself, should give Fordham interim head coach Jared Grasso a shot.

Despite the Ram’s struggles this year with a young outfit, nobody works harder in this area on recruiting than Grasso, the youngest D-1 head coach in America. Ask Bob Hurley who the hardest working assistant coach he has dealt with in the past few years was..and he won’t hesitate to mention Grasso.

St. Patrick coach Kevin Boyle and St. Benedict’s coach Dan Hurley are also two young guys who deserve a shot at an NEC or MAAC school. With all that they’ve accomplished, why not give them a shot?

Nobody is saying all of these local programs can or will be turned around overnight.

But how much longer can New York go on being virtually irrelevant in the world of basketball?

(Photo courtesy Daily News)

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It never ceases to amaze me how something that starts as a post on a messageboard can graduate into a blog post by someone with a first name only before finally landing as a “rumor’ on a legitimate newspaper blog.

While Boyle told me recently he would be interested in coaching at the college level ”if” a job were to open up, there is no hard evidence that I’m aware of that Knight is a feasible candidate should Rutgers AD Tim Pernetti opt to buy out Fred Hill for $1.8 million after this season.

“They gotta be crazy to bring in Bobby Knight,” one prominent Big East assistant coach told me. “It’s like a fish out of water. It’s like when Eddie Sutton went to San Francisco [after coaching at Creighton, Arkansas, Kentucky and Oklahoma State]. Bob Knight coaches at Indiana and Texas Tech, then he goes to Rutgers?”

The Big East assistant said he had heard the same names that everyone else has heard for Rutgers.

“I’ve heard Fran McCaffery, that’s what I heard,” he said. “I’ve been told Fran Fraschilla would take it. I’ve been told Tim Welsh would take it.” He also threw out Hofstra coach Tom Pecora’s name as a possibility.

The Big East assistant said Rutgers would need a “young and enthusiastic” coach should they opt to replace Hill, who on Saturday won his first conference game of the season with a 74-73 victory over Notre Dame at the RAC. Rutgers is now 10-11 on the season, 1-8 in the Big East. Over the last two seasons, Rutgers is 3-24 in the league.

The Big East coach questioned whether Knight, who turns 70 in October, would have the energy to take over at Rutgers.

“Bob Knight is the greatest coach of all time, but he’s at an age,” the coach said. “”It takes a lot of time and energy to build something. It’s not just about a basketball coach. It’s about being an ambassador. You have to bring in an amazing staff.”

Knight has also never recruited in the Northeast before. And whoever coaches at Rutgers needs to be in tune with the coaches at St. Anthony, St. Patrick, St. Benedict’s, Paterson Catholic, Rice, Lincoln, Christ the King and so on.

“He’s never recruited here in his life,” the coach said of Knight.

The coach said Houston assistant Jerry Hobbie, an Elizabeth, N.J. native who attended St. Patrick and is close with Boyle would be a good potential assistant coach.

As for Boyle himself, I personally think he — and Dan Hurley — would be good fits at an NEC or MAAC school. Then, Boyle, one of the best high school coaches in the nation over the last 20 years, could move up the coaching rungs.

Here’s what he told me for a recent Rivals.com article about his future goals:

“You hear rumors all the time about this job opening, that job opening,” he said. “And obviously if a job in New Jersey opens, of course I’d be very interested in seeing if I could be a candidate for one of those. If they open.

“But obviously you’ve got to wait till something happens and you wish all the guys that are in those places success. And eventually if something opens at one of those schools, then I would love to be considered at that time.”

Bob Hurley Sr., meanwhile, told The Star-Ledger that although he thinks Rutgers should keep Hill as the head coach, both Dan and Bobby Jr. would make for good college coaches.

“It’s very difficult to sit down on a bench and coach before if you haven’t done it, and Danny got the experience of four years as an assistant at Rutgers with Kevin Bannon,” Hurley Sr. told the Ledger. “He also has the international contacts you need from coaching one of the top prep teams in the country. He’s played in the Big East and coached there as an assistant. Bobby would jump at the chance to get back into basketball and he’s still involved in the game working camps. His name in Jersey is very good and he’d be a good set of eyes in regard to recruiting guards.”

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PISCATAWAY, N.J.

Nearly every major program in America wanted the long and lanky 6-foot-5 McDonald’s All-American from Jersey City.

But in a story first reported by ZAGSBLOG.com, Cheek ultimately chose Villanova over Kansas, then the reigning national champion.

Asked the reason why, Cheek said, “Like I said, loyalty. Villanova was great to me.”

Read the full story here.

(Photo courtesy Villanova Athletics)

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But Mickey Walker, Miller’s AAU coach with Upstate Basketball, says he doesn’t see the 6-foot-7, 210-pound Miller going anywhere after his freshman season.

“In terms of transferring that makes no sense,” Walker said. “It’s so obvious that it’s a good situation for him, that that’s never come up.

“If a kid wants to be a pro, what situation is better for him than to play a lot in the Big East?”

Miller scored a game-high 26 points in Rutgers 94-68 loss Wednesday to Villanova at the RAC and spearheaded a second-half comeback.

Heading into Saturday’s game at Georgetown, he is averaging 8.8 points and 5.6 rebounds.

After the Villanova game, a frustrated Miller told a group of reporters that he felt the team had quit, and appeared to single out a few players.

“I feel like during the game, we gave up,” Miller said. “And we can’t get better, we can’t improve, if we give up on games.

“The high school I went to, no matter what the score is you gotta play till the game’s over and I felt like we just gave up at the end.

“Some other guys, Jonathan Mitchell and Hamady [N'Diaye] when he was in the game, were playing hard. We need the whole team to do that. Even if you’re not in the game you’ve still got to be cheering everybody on.

“We have to play with more heart. I don’t care how talented you are. You can’t win games without heart.”

Walker credited Miller with speaking up and taking a leadership role.

“From a character standpoint, that’s facing adversity,” he said.

Despite the frustration, Walker says Miller has improved since the start of the year and he credits the Rutgers coaching staff with his development.

“He’s getting coached, he’s getting better and he’s playing  in the Big East,” Walker said.

As for Rosario, who struggled to score just 3 points on 1-for-8 shooting in the Villanova game, St. Anthony coach Bob Hurley previously told The Star-Ledger that he couldn’t imagine the sophomore transferring because he would have to sit out a year.

“Mike knows himself,” Hurley told The Ledger. “Mike could not sit out a year and not play. I don’t see any quit in Mike. I know him. Mike has been that kind of person since he’s 9 or 10 years old.”

Hurley also told the paper Rutgers needed to add a few more talented players.

“They need Big East difference makers to add to the roster,” Hurley said. “We felt Mike was one. Maybe the kid Dane Miller is going to be one. But they need a couple more bona fide Big East players to compete night in and night out.”

**Here’s some good reporting by Jerry Carino and Keith Sargeant, revealing that Fred Hill is guaranteed $1.8 million by Rutgers.

(Photo courtesy ScarletKnights.com)

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The 6-foot-8 Collier, a senior forward at Jersey City (N.J.) St. Anthony, signed to play at Oregon State, which is coached by Craig Robinson, the President’s brother-in-law.

He attended a Nov. 28 game in Washington, D.C. in which Oregon State beat George Mason and featured President Obama and his family watching from courtside in the half-full Smith Center.

“I never shook the President’s hand so it was exciting for me,” Collier said Thursday by phone. “It means something special because he’s the first black President and I was shaking hands with him. Plus, he’s the 44th president and I’m wearing the No. 44 jersey.”

Read the full story here.

**For more on the Hoophall Classic, read about Mike Gilchrist’s status here.

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Ashton Pankey

“It’s unfortunate but I’m [going] to still show my support for my team and work out my upper body till my leg gets better,” Pankey wrote by text.

St. Anthony will face St. Peter’s Prep Saturday at the Dan Finn Classic before heading up to the Hoophall Classic in Springfield, Mass. to face Los Angeles (Calif.) Westchester Monday on ESPNU.

“They don’t feel that the bone is healing properly so it might be much more of a long-term thing and we feel bad for him,” St. Anthony coach Bob Hurley said of Pankey. “At this point right now it doesn’t look good for his return during the season.”

St. Anthony has played thusfar without both Pankey and 6-8 Oregon State-bound forward Devon Collier, out because of academic issues.

But Collier is due back at practice Friday and is scheduled to play Monday.

A year ago, he also made his debut at the Hoophall Classic, putting up 19 points and 10 rebounds in a 58-50 win over Xavier Henry and Putnam City (Okla.).

“If we get Devon back, we have a third scorer,” Hurley said. “So between [Richmond-bound forward] Derrick [Williams] and [St. Bonaventure-bound guard] Elijah Carter and Devon, all of a sudden we’re much more dangerous offensively and it takes a lot of pressure off of Derrick.”

HURLEY SAYS HE WON’T COACH COLLEGE

I’m working on a big St. Anthony/Hurley story for Rivals but wanted to throw this nugget out there.

Hurley’s name is routinely floated for various college coaching jobs, including several in the area.

Yet he says he’ll never leave St. Anthony. He has 967 wins and needs 33 for 1,000.

“Right now there’s no job in the United States that I would take. The Nets , there’s no job I would take. I’m very happy working with the kids,” he said.

(And he’s still not in the Naismith Hall of Fame? What a joke. To quote Tom Konchalski: “If he’s not in it, it’s a Hall of Shame.”)

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A senior from Brooklyn, Harvey lost his starting job three games ago and was singled out on a Big East conference call by head coach Bobby Gonzalez for his penchant for turnovers.

“It shows a lack of loyalty to make comments like that about a particular player,” said Hurley, who played at Seton Hall. “In intercollegiate athletics, when your team’s losing, you should hold all players accountable. This is not the NBA. If you’re going to choose just one player, I think it’s wrong to single a player out in the media.”

Hurley said he made multiple calls to Gonzalez to discuss the matter but the calls were not returned.

“Bobby Gonzalez and the team are focused on preparing for Louisville Thursday,” Seton Hall spokesman Matt Sweeney said.

Harvey did not start for the third straight game Thursday night in Washington, D.C., when Georgetown beat Seton Hall, 85-73, to fall to 10-6 overall, 1-4 in the Big East. He came off the bench to notch 7 points, 0 rebounds and 0 assists in 16 minutes.

“I was gonna settle on Eugene [starting] tonight but he actually said to me that he felt more comfortable coming off the bench after the Cincinnati game so I put Keon [Lawrence] back in there [as the starter],” Gonzalez told reporters after the game. “And then Keon struggled at first, Eugene went in and turned the ball over. Jordan [Theodore] turned the ball over.

“But I went with Jordan in the first half. One thing about Jordan, when we were down a certain amount of points, one thing about Jordan is you know you’re going to go down swinging. He’s gonna fight. He’s gonna go down kamikaze, just running around, playing hard and that’ what I thought we needed at the time. In the second half I went back to Eugene because I think he realized he hadn’t played well and he came and gave us a lift. But I think at times Keon is going to go to the two a little bit and it’s going to be Eugene as the starter and Jordan kind of more of the way it was.”

Hurley played behind Bryan Caver during his time at Seton Hall and said it was difficult for Caver when he was subbed out after a mistake.

“I saw Bryan Caver, who had NBA ability, struggle mentally because he wasn’t allowed to play through mistakes. He was pulled in and out of games. Point guards need to play through some mistakes,” Hurley said.

Harvey is averaging 8.6 points, a team-best 4.9 assists per game (fifth in the Big East) and an assist-to-turnover ratio of 2.0. Theodore is averaging 7.9 points, 3.0 assists and has an assist-to-turnover ratio of 2.4. Lawrence averages 4.4 points, 2.3 assists and has the team’s best assist-to-turnover ratio (4.5).

“Eugene is shooting over 50 percent from the field. He makes free throws and has a 2-to 1 assist-to-turnover ratio. I’m not sure what else he’s supposed to do,” Hurley said.

Hurley insisted that he’s not trying to tell Gonzalez how to coach, simply that he’s “disappointed” in the comments he made about Harvey.

In an effort to jumpstart the offense, Gonzalez started Lawrence in the team’s Jan. 6 loss at UConn and then again in the Jan. 9 victory over Cincinnati. Harvey had started 12 of the previous 13 games.

“He has to take care of the basketball,” Gonzalez said of Harvey on last week’s Big East conference call. “I feel like he’s turning the ball over at the most inopportune times in games and it’s really costing us. Obviously, he’s a senior and I’ve stuck by him and I’ve been loyal and I’ve been behind him.

“I’m not going to give up on him. I think he’s still got a lot of ability and he’s still the same kid who scored 1,000 points, 500 assists, a lot of great things for us. But at the same time, in the Virginia Tech game, he helped bring us back with 17 points in the second half but turned the ball over three straight times at the beginning of overtime.”

For his part, Harvey said he’s OK with Gonzalez’s decision.

“At the end of the day, it’s coach’s decision,” Harvey said after the Cincinnati game. “I’m a positive guy. I’m not selfish. It’s bigger than me. I stay positive. I cheer my team on. The guys that was in, I was cheering for them. I was rooting for them. The only thing I want to do is win.”

Seton Hall has three players who can play the point in Harvey, Lawrence and Theodore, and Harvey admitted that it can be “tough” rotating minutes.

“Sometimes it’s tough because all three of us want to play. We all want to be out there when the game is on the line. But unfortunately, maybe one of us or two of us can be out there. It gets tough at times…but I just put my faith in coach because at the end of the day he’s going to make the best decision for the team and he’s going to put who’s playing best at that time on the floor.”

Theodore also said he’s OK with the team utilizing three point guards.

“It’s great, three point guards,” Theodore said. “It’s kind of fun because if guys know their role, then it makes everything better. I know my role coming off the bench. I’m supposed to bring the energy, play defense, score when I have to, lead the team. And I believe that I’ve been doing that, so if I’m doing that every game and everybody else is doing their role, then we have no problems.”

Hurley said Harvey deserved credit for his play in the games the team lost.

“In the Temple game Eugene played very well and they lost,” Hurley said. “If he didn’t play such a great second half against Virginia Tech, they would never have even made it to overtime.”

Harvey was benched for part of the first game against Georgetown before coming back during the second half, when the team made a run.

“It’s a credit to Eugene that in the second half he responded the way he responded after being benched again in the first half,” Hurley said. “In the second half when you’re down 20, you bring him back in the game. He plays his butt off and you cut it to 7 or 8, that showed the character of him. A lot of players would’ve just gone out there and gone through the motions so I’m proud of the way he handled himself.”

(Mike Vorkunov contributed reporting; Photo courtesy Seton Hall Athletics)

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