College Basketball

Hiring high school coach helped Seton Hall land star

Dwayne “Tiny” Morton, coach of Lincoln High School, will join the staff at Seton Hall next year.Paul Martinka

In June, Seton Hall lost out on SMU transfer Blaise Mbargorba, a center who chose Boston University.

On Thursday, the Pirates beat out the likes of St. John’s, Pittsburgh, Indiana and Minnesota for 6-foot-4 shooting guard Isaiah Whitehead, the New York City star out of Lincoln High School, who some project to need just one year of college before jumping to the NBA.

In the span of four months, head coach Kevin Willard and the Pirates went from losing a kid to a Patriot League program to overcoming a group of high major programs for a likely McDonald’s All-American.

The obvious question: How? And the answer is simple.

Willard has built an elite recruiting class — in addition to Whitehead, he has landed Top 50 power forward Angel Delgado of Huntington (W.Va.) Prep, Brooklyn combo guard Khadeen Carrington and New Jersey wing Ismael Sanogo — by rebuilding his coaching staff with people connected to elite players. Not by breaking rules.

Whitehead’s high school coach, Dwayne “Tiny” Morton, is expected to join the Seton Hall staff next season, as The Post first reported on Thursday. Just this week, former St. Raymond head coach and Manhattan College assistant Oliver Antigua was announced as an assistant coach. Antigua is close with Delgado, having coached him with the Dominican Republic national team.

“In this situation, I don’t blame Willard one bit,” Scout.com national recruiting analyst Evan Daniels said.

Willard’s critics, the ones who are saying Seton Hall has compromised its ethics, seem to forget that. By hiring a coach for specific players, is he taking a risk? Sure, but a potential starting five next year of Whitehead, freshman point guard Jaren Sina, Texas transfer guard Sterling Gibbs, Delgado and veteran forward Brandon Mobley, screams resurgence, and the fiery Morton has won eight city titles at Lincoln because of his ability to land top talent and has yearned for such an opportunity.

This has happened before. Kansas hired Mario Chalmers’ father and went on to win a national title. John Calipari did the same with DaJuan Wagner’s father at Memphis.

Willard’s moves make perfect sense. He needed to fill out a staff after Dan McHale took a job at Minnesota, Steve Sauers left for a job at UC Riverside and Chris Pompey joined Cal-State Northridge, and he needed players to re-energize the fan base after last year’s dismal 15-18 campaign.

The addition of Whitehead, a consensus top 15 player in the country, could prove to be a watershed moment for Seton Hall. Great players attract others.

There already is talk of elite point guard Isaiah Briscoe, a junior at Roselle (N.J.) Catholic, joining him. The Pirates also are involved with Christ the King senior center Adonis Delarosa and St. Mary’s of Manhasset junior forward Jessie Govan.

This wasn’t a case of Morton convincing Whitehead to go to Seton Hall, as some have depicted it, sources close to the situation said. The offer was there, for both to be in South Orange next year, and it appealed to the kid who has been close to the coach since coming together in middle school when Morton was his teacher. Plus, Seton Hall thinks it can get the most out of Whitehead by having Morton there. Neither admitted Morton will be on the Seton Hall staff, but when asked how he would feel if his coach was hired, Whitehead smiled broadly and said it would make him more comfortable. Translation: It was important to the kid, a player Daniels said will make an instant impact.

“He gives them an immediate go-to scorer,” Daniels said. “He becomes their best player and best scorer as soon as he steps on campus.”

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