Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Wilbut guilty plea is more bad news for Seton Hall

Kevin Willard

Seton Hall head coach Kevin Willard reacts to a call during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against Rutgers, Friday, March 8, 2013, in Newark, N.J. Rutgers won 56-51. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)

AP

Things just will not turn around for Seton Hall. The team that came within one overtime point of a national title under P.J. Carlesimo in 1989 has been on a downward trajectory since.

The Pirates haven’t been to the Big Dance since 2006, and they’ve been through a series of coaches and various combinations of players with various combinations of on- and off-court difficulties since.

This year is no exception. The school looked forward to adding guard Jerron Wilbut to the roster next season, but that hasn’t gone so well. Pioneer Local is reporting that Wilbut was arrested and charged with aggravated robbery - a class 1 felony - in March, and that he pleaded guilty to the charge. The plea deal, somehow, just became public this week.

The long-suffering South Orange Juice blog noted that Wilbut’s plea came hard on the heels of trouble with Tom Maayan and the Israeli Defense Force, which will cost them Maayan’s services. It’s not easy being Orange these days.

It’s hard to believe that the Seton Hall coaching staff would knowingly accept a recruit who plead guilty to aggravated robbery, still a felony, after the close link between Seton Hall basketball and extra curricular activities in the past. See: Robert Mitchell & Kelly Whitney, Herb Pope after he graduated, Jeremy Hazell being shot in Harlem. The list goes on. Perhaps the staff wasn’t fully aware of Jerron’s legal situation. Maybe our information was incorrect.

A few months back, we were all excited about a Wilbut/Aquille Carr backcourt in South Orange. Now Carr may be playing pro in China and Wilbut’s status is in serious doubt.

Kevin Willard must be feeling like Charlie Brown in the Peanuts Halloween Special. “I got a rock.”

But hey, at least they still have Rutgers.

Eric Angevine is the editor of Storming the Floor. He tweets @stfhoops.