Angel Delgado added an exclamation point to a dominant junior season, capturing Haggerty Award as best player in metropolitan area. (Photo by the New York Post)
Ho-hum, another award for Angel Delgado.
The Seton Hall forward, already a first team all-Big East Conference selection and Associated Press All-America honorable mention, collected one final recognition to a sensational junior season, winning the Haggerty Award, bestowed upon the best player in the New York area by the Metropolitan Basketball Writers Association.
Delgado is the twelfth Pirate to receive the honor, and second consecutive, as Isaiah Whitehead captured the award last year before beginning his NBA career with the Brooklyn Nets. The 6-foot-10 Dominican joins Walter Dukes, Nick Werkman, Nick Galis, Dan Callandrillo, Mark Bryant, John Morton, Terry Dehere, Arturas Karnisovas, Adrian Griffin, Andre Barrett and Whitehead as Seton Hall's all-time Haggerty winners.
Seton Hall is also the third consecutive program to claim back-to-back Haggerty Award recipients. Following the three-peat by Hofstra's Charles Jenkins from 2009 to 2011, Iona's Scott Machado and Momo Jones captured top billing in 2012 and 2013, respectively, followed by D'Angelo Harrison and Sir'Dominic Pointer of St. John's joining the list of winners in 2014 and 2015.
Delgado's third campaign in South Orange was his strongest to date, scoring 15.2 points per game while leading the nation with an even more impressive 13.1 rebounds per contest. His 27 double-doubles ranked second in the country, just one less than Purdue's Caleb Swanigan, and his 21-point, 20-rebound performance against St. John's on January 22 marked the first time a Seton Hall player amassed 20 points and 20 boards in a Big East Conference game. He followed that up three nights later with 22 rebounds against Butler, becoming the first player in Big East history to record consecutive 20-rebound games in league play.
Seton Hall placed two of Delgado's teammates on the All-Met honors list as well, with Khadeen Carrington joining the big man on the first team, while Desi Rodriguez secured second team honors.
Carrington, the Pirates' leading scorer with an average of 17.1 points per game, ensured The Hall was the only school in the area with multiple first team selections. His 41 points against Creighton on February 15 marked the first 40-point game for the program since Sterling Gibbs in 2014, and was the high water mark for any Big East player this past season. Rodriguez averaged 15.7 points and 5.2 rebounds per contest for Seton Hall, complementing his production by shooting 36 percent from three-point range.
In addition, head coach Kevin Willard received All-Met recognition as well, winning the Peter A. Carlesimo Coach of the Year Award for a second consecutive season after guiding the Pirates back to the NCAA Tournament.
With a 21-12 record on the heels of the third Big East championship in program history, Willard proved that his team's success in 2015-16 was not an aberration, using his patient approach and strong conviction that his team would bounce back after losing six of its first nine conference games to win seven of nine to end the regular season, securing an at-large spot into the field of 68 with a dramatic road win at Butler, a victory that resonated even further given the Bulldogs' penchant for being Seton Hall's kryptonite since joining the Big East in 2013. Willard is only the fourth mentor to win back-to-back All-Met Coach of the Year honors, joining legendary St. John's boss Lou Carnesecca, as well as former Seton Hall head coaches P.J. Carlesimo and Bobby Gonzalez, the latter of whom accomplished the feat while leading Manhattan to consecutive Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference championships and NCAA Tournament appearances in 2003 and 2004.
*CLICK HERE for the full Metropolitan Basketball Writers Association award release*
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