Where would Seton Hall be without Davis?

Second-year Seton Hall head coach Shaheen Holloway's program has taken off this season on Dre Davis' development.

No one thought the Seton Hall Pirates were a tournament team at the start of the season.

Seton Hall was picked ninth in this year’s Big East preseason coaches’ poll. This meant coaches thought the Pirates would be bottom feeders after coming off a 17-16 season in Shaheen Holloway’s first season as their coach.

The fans had no expectations.

Holloway hoped someone other than Kadary Richmond would step up for his program to trend in the right direction.

He received that from Dre Davis all season long, which is why the Pirates will likely be a tournament team after he scored 18 points and grabbed seven rebounds in their 66-56 victory over the Villanova Wildcats on Wednesday night at Prudential Center.

The Pirates shooting guard averages 14 points per game.

We can talk about Richmond being the guy for the Pirates, but they wouldn’t have taken a step forward if Davis had not developed into a reliable player for them this season.

Davis was doing it all in this contest against Villanova. We can talk about his shooting, but his defense against Villanova’s shooters played a role in a scoring drought that lasted 13 minutes from the final first half to the start of the second.

Seton Hall got 40 minutes of him.

Davis epitomes everything about Holloway’s coaching with his grit and development.

Holloway’s practices tend to get longer as the season progresses since he wants to know if his players are tough enough. Players talked about practice being intense after recent losses to Creighton and Connecticut.

This makes Davis’ 40 minutes of work stand out. For him to log that many minutes in a game the Pirates had to win shows his character. He revealed his will to win and toughness right there.

Even when Davis struggled at the start of the game, missing two 3-pointers and turning the ball over a couple of times, he did not get down on himself. He kept shooting, and eventually, things went his way after he hit his first 3 of the game in the second half, which resulted in several more jumpers and being in a position for the free-throw line a couple of times.

He scored 13 of his 18 points in the second half.

He also had seven rebounds, four blocks and a steal to complete his night.

When the Pirates need a bucket, Davis delivers.

When the team needs a steal, he comes through.

When it needs a rebound, he’s right there.

It seems he’s gotten stronger as the season has gone along. This is good timing with Seton Hall getting ready to play in the Big East Tournament and NCAA Tournament.

After being a pedestrian player in his first two seasons in Louisville and finding his way as a transfer at Seton Hall last season by scoring nine points per game, Davis has finally had his breakthrough season. It’s a credit to how Holloway has coached him and how he has improved.

He scored double figures for five straight games and has scored in double figures 25 times this season.

His improvement shows there that transfers can benefit from playing for Holloway.

And yes, Davis did put in the work by working on his shooting in the offseason to be in the position he’s in right now.

When the Pirates beat UConn at Newark this season, it became a revelation that they could be better than people think, and that set the stage for their season. In that game, Davis scored 17 points; and that breakout game set the stage for what his season has become.

There’s a correlation between Davis’ success and Seton Hall wins.

In a team with plenty of transfers, it was important that Davis somehow figured it out. There were many unknown transfers out there, and Jaden Bediako certainly contributed this season along with former St. John’s player Dylan Addae-Wusu.

But no one made a more tremendous impact than Davis when elevating the team.

He has made Richmond’s job easy in carrying the scoring load.

Davis has made the most of his senior season. He’s given Seton Hall hope now and even in the future for other transfers that can use the school to fix their game.

He showed this season that development matters for Holloway’s program to bear fruit.