11/6/2026

Seton Hall Pirates Women's Basketball (Big East) @ Walsh Gymnasium (South Orange, NJ)

Seton Hall's main sport at its on-campus home

James Calingo

Tags:
Basketball, Big East, College Basketball, College Sports, First Visit, Indoor Sports, New Jersey, New in 2026, Seton Hall University, Women's Sports

2026: New Venue #32

I've mentioned the Big East before (as this is not my first Seton Hall post), but I've yet to get into its history, so I think that I should do that first (especially as this is the first Big East basketball post I've done).

TECHNICALLY, the conference currently known as the "Big East" was established in 2013. However, it was born from an older conference also called the "Big East", which was founded in 1979. While the two conferences have always been known for their basketball prowess (featuring basketball powers such as Villanova and UConn), the old conference also had football (which it started in 1991) - though most of its schools weren't really national football powerhouses (save for Miami, who won two national titles as a Big East member). However, given the two sports' status in the NCAA landscape, the conference was often split between schools that were members of "Big East football" and those did not sponsor D-I football (i.e. all but two Catholic schools in the Untied States - both of whom were actually Big East basketball members at various points¹).

Due to the dichotomy of the Big East seemingly wanting to focus on basketball in a football-dominated NCAA, the conference kept churning schools in and out until 2013, when the "basketball schools" - seven Catholic institutions - separated from the football schools and made their own conference (insert the Futurama line here yourself because Louisville²). This conference took the Big East name, while the football conference became the American Athletic Conference (and now features only ONE team from the split: the University of South Florida).

As one of the seven Catholic schools during the Big East split, Seton Hall - which has been a member of the Big East since the original conference's founding - is probably best known for its men's basketball team (as I've noted in the past). They haven't won a national championship, but did have a somewhat famous run to the championship game in 1989 (where they lost by ONE POINT), and have won a pair of NIT championships (one of which was two years ago).

However, this post isn't about them, as they've been playing most of their games at Prudential Center in Newark since it opened (and played in the Meadowlands prior to that) for various reasons (namely arena capacity[^3]); instead, it's about the women's team. While the men's team has a famous run to the championship game in 1989, the women aren't quite so fortunate: the furthest they've gotten in the NCAA tournament is the round of 16, and their last appearance was in 2016 (they also haven't won the "alternate" tournaments either). In any case, they play on campus at the arena that hosted the men until they moved out in 1985: Walsh Gymnasium.

Walsh was opened in 1941 as the men's team's first "permanent" home (they played their first game in 1903) and is named after a former president of the university. While it's never truly been "big" (especially by modern standards), it should be noted that due to relatively recent renovations (if the 90s can be considered recent), the building now has less than 1,500 seats.

There are two levels of seating here: floor and balcony seats (which are along the sides only). Both run from end to end along the long sides of the court, and one end of the arena has more balcony seats while the other has a giant banner covering (what I'm pretty sure is) a stage (in other words: Walsh's layout is quite similar to how the Westchester County Center was set up for basketball, but without stage seats). Between the small size of the building and basketball being the sport with the smallest playing surface dimensions (of the sports I've talked about on this blog), this is probably the most intimate sports venue I've covered on this blog. Case in point: I spent part of the game in the front row of the balcony behind the visiting team's bench, and I could hear the coach during game action as well as the huddle during timeouts. I feel like I should also mention that the end seats are a bit...strange: there's no "direct" entrance (you access them from the side sections), and there's a giant overhang above them (with offices), so if you have to go behind them (which is the "quick" way to get around), you have to watch your head if you're tall.

So...here's the thing: I was interested in seeing the men's team here as they have a pair of games scheduled at Walsh - one of which was actually the night before this game. However, tickets were a bit pricier than I would have liked, and the secondary market was suspect at best³, so I ended up going with the women instead. I saw that they had had an exhibition game last week, but could not for the life of me figure out if it was open to the general public (a tweet about the game said it was free, but also implied that it was meant for students⁴).

Tickets to women's games are typically $15 (and the men's games were almost 4 times that), but this one was only $10 as a promotion; kids are off from school because their teachers are at a statewide conference, and this game is meant to give them something to do (which is also why it was a Friday at 11:30 AM). Seton Hall overcome somewhat of a slow start to eventually pull away and beat Indiana State - a fairly small school known for being Larry Bird's alma mater (whose men's team, it should be noted, lost to Seton Hall in the NIT final in 2024).

Finally, I should note that Walsh also hosts the school's volleyball team (singular, as volleyball is primarily a women's sport in the NCAA), and they had a match a few hours after this game that I thought about going to (but ended up not).

MERCH

There's no merch booth at Walsh as the university's bookstore is less than 100 yards away, but there are a few things I noted about this game in particular.

First, I heard heading into the game that there was a blanket giveaway, but I couldn't figure out how to get one - though that may be due to the fact that I arrived a mere FOUR minutes before the game started, which is VERY LATE by my standards (I had something I had to get done before the game).

Second, there was a sponsor table giving away bags and shirts - but there was a bit of a catch. In the words of old school YouTubers, you had to "like, comment, subscribe" to the sponsor's social media feeds to get "swag", which I wasn't exactly interested in doing.

ON DECK

This is actually the start of a "flurry" of new posts for this blog, as I'm QUITE busy this weekend.

Tomorrow: "Decision Day".