By David Freeman
Sports Information Asst.

Twenty years ago, college basketball fans in New Jersey were pinching themselves. It didn’t seem possible that the men’s basketball team from little Seton Hall University could be front-and-center on the national college basketball stage. It seemed as if the whole state banded together and watched as the Pirates came within one point of winning the 1988-89 NCAA National Championship. Although the 80-79 loss to Michigan was the end of that magical season, it was also the beginning of bigger things to come.

Twenty years later, Saint Peter’s College is one beneficiary of the fruits of that magical season.
Saint Peter’s Director of Athletics Patrick Elliott remembers it well. “It was an unbelievable experience to be a student at that time,” Elliott recently reminisced. Elliott helped out in the Pirates Athletic Department that season, a career-path that has led him to Saint Peter’s twenty years later. “The entire campus community came together as one to support the team.” It’s a memory that he hopes to help re-create at Saint Peter’s in the not-so-distant future.

Elliott was one of 10,000 who were on hand at the Prudential Center in Newark when the Seton Hall community recently honored the 1988-89 team before a Pirates game against Georgetown. Immediately following that game, the Peacocks men’s basketball finished the double-header with a game against Rider. But before the Peacocks took the court, another current member of Peacock Nation made his impact on the day’s festivities.

In 1989, John Morton was the go-to guy for Seton Hall. Arguably the greatest player in Seton Hall history, he scored 35 points in the National Championship game - on his way to a stellar professional basketball career. It’s been twenty years, and nobody has topped his 35-point effort in the finals. It was his three-pointer that turned out to be the last points and the final lead for the Pirates that day, before two Michigan free throws ended the Pirates run. At the twenty-year reunion, Morton would get the last shot – twice. In front of ten thousand fans, Morton was the last person introduced, as he delivered the 1989 Runner-Up Trophy to a halftime standing ovation. And right after the Pirates upset the Hoyas, Morton joined Head Coach John Dunne and the Peacocks basketball team as they played the final game of the day on the Prudential Center Court.

As proud as Morton is of his past, he’s also excited at the prospects of the Saint Peter’s men’s basketball team now. “Twenty years ago, we were the kids that stayed home to play ball,” Morton remembered. “At Saint Peter’s, we’ve all worked hard to recruit the best players from New Jersey to stay here in New Jersey.” And it’s not the only thing he hopes that his Seton Hall team of twenty years ago has in common with the Peacocks of today. “We struggled as a team learning how to win in our freshman and sophomore years. But we put in the work to get better, and stepped up and became leaders in our junior and senior years”. Good advice for this year’s Peacocks - the third youngest college team in the nation.