Big East Roundup: Seton Hall Trying to Avoid Conference Basement

This is one in a series of stories covering roster changes around the Big East heading into the 2025-26 college basketball season.

After finishing last in the Big East with a miserable 7-25 record (2-18 in conference), Seton Hall lost 11 players to graduation or the transfer portal, including their top seven players in points scored. Fourth year head coach Shaheen Holloway has his work cut out for him as he tries to stay off the hot seat.

The Pirates return their seventh man, 6-foot-5 guard Jahseem Felton, who appeared for 16.8 minutes per game as a true freshman. They also brought back rising sophomore Godswill Erheriene, a 6-foot-9 center out of Nigeria who started 23 games but appeared for an average of just 14.1 minutes. 

Senior guard David Gabriel appeared in six games and 7-foot-2, 190 pound center Assane Mbaye took a redshirt year, rounding out the returning group of Pirates. Holloway and his staff brought in one recruit, 6-foot-10 four-star center Najai Hines, then turned to the transfer portal to fill out the other ten spots on their roster.

Of those ten spots, six are guards, three are senior forwards and one, 6-foot-7 Jacob Dar, can play the 2 or the 3. After two seasons at Emory & Henry (D-II) to begin his college career, Dar put up 7.5 points and 3.7 rebounds per game at Rice last season.

Turning to the Transfer Portal

Guard Trey Parker came off the bench in 27 games with NC State during his true freshman season, appearing for an average of 11.9 minutes and scoring 4.6 points in that time. 

Elijah Fisher played at Pacific after spending one season apiece at Texas Tech and DePaul. An athletic guard at 6-foot-6, he scored 15.7 points and grabbed 4.8 rebounds per game last season, but also managed to put up double figures during his time at DePaul. 6-foot-5 redshirt senior AJ Staton-McCray bounced in and out of the starting lineup at Miami, scoring 7.3 points per game and junior Mike Williams came off the bench at LSU.

Seton Hall’s other transfer guards, juniors Tajuan Simpkins and Adam “Budd” Clark hail from the lower levels of Division I, playing for Elon and Merrimack, respectively. Simpkins averaged 14.8 points per game despite often coming off the bench; Clark, a Philadelphia native who went to West Catholic, lit up the scoresheet for 19.8 points, 6.0 assists and 2.7 steals per game, the latter the fifth-best mark in the country.

Reloading at forward, Seton Hall brought in 6-foot-8 Patrick Suemnick, who came off the bench for Oklahoma State; Stephon Payne put up 8.4 points and 6.3 rebounds per game at Jacksonville, notching five double-doubles, and Josh Rivera contributed 10.7 points per game as the sixth man at Fordham.

For a terrible team last season, Seton Hall did an excellent job finding talent at the lower levels of Division I, but only time will tell if those hidden gems can replicate their performance in the Big East. Replacing 11 of 15 roster spots will add to the challenge Holloway and his staff face.