Seton Hall drops 5th straight in lopsided fashion at Xavier, falls to 0-3 Big East

In an effort to end his team’s losing skid, Seton Hall coach Shaheen Holloway started his seventh different lineup on New Year’s Eve at Xavier — inserting freshman point guard Jahseem Felton into the lineup.

But it was the same old story as the Pirates struggled on offense and lost, 94-72, at the Cintas Center to fall to 5-9, 0-3 Big East. They have lost five in a row and 6-of-7.

Xavier (9-5, 1-2), which shot 30-of-40 from the line and had a 20-9 advantage on fast-break points, snapped a three-game losing streak.

“We couldn’t practice this week,” Holloway said in his post-game radio interview. “This guy was hurt, that guy was hurt.

“We had no preparation because I can’t get five guys to practice because everybody got something wrong with them.”

He added: “We’re not a very good basketball team at this moment.”

Ryan Conwell led six Xavier players in double-figures with 22 points. He was 3-of-7 from deep. Marcus Foster and Dante Maddox Jr. scored 14 apiece.

Isaiah Coleman, coming off a career-high 25 points in the loss to Georgetown, scored 19 points in the loss and Scotty Middleton 12. Chaunce Jenkins scored 11 points on 3-of-10 shooting and Felton scored 9 on 3-of-6 shooting with zero assists.

Yacine Toumi was not with the team.

Asked about his absence, Holloway only said, “We’ll see when we come back.”

Xavier used a 16-0 first-half run to go ahead 16-5.

The Hall got into early foul trouble, allowing Xavier to get into the bonus early. Xavier was 14-of-20 from the line in the first half en route to a 42-31 lead. The Hall was 4-of-4.

Conwell scored 18 in the first half for the Musketeers.

Xavier used an 8-0 run to push it to 52-34 in the second half.

The Hall pressed at points but never went full-tilt in that direction and couldn’t change the tempo of the game.

“I wanted to do it from the beginning of the game,” Holloway said of pressing. “But if you gotta try to coach effort and toughness, you’re not going to win games.”

Xavier continued to play without Teaneck, N.J. native Zach Freemantle. The graduate student forward has been out since Dec. 14 with a lower body injury.

The Hall is now off until they host DePaul Jan. 8.

“I’m still going to coach as hard as I can and keep trying to get the team better and better and better,” Holloway said. “But, you know, these guys got to want it too.”

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Adam Zagoria is a freelance reporter and Basketball Insider for NJ Advance Media. You may follow him on Twitter @AdamZagoria and check out his Website at ZAGSBLOG.com.