#12 Providence College Friars (15-3) 72
Seton Hall Pirates (13-4) 81
That makes three games in a row that the PC Friars have played extremely poor basketball. Slow starts have been a pretty consistent thing this entire year, and something that the Friars need to rectify, but the last three games have been a constant struggle, especially on the offense end.
Over the last three games (Seton Hall, Creighton, & Marquette), Providence has shot a pathetic 32.4% from the field (61-188) and an almost unfathomable 19.4% from three (13-67).
At first glance, their free throw shooting looks respectable at 75.0% over the last three games but that number is almost completely Ben Bentil dependent. He has been the steadying figure in scoring and shooting throughout this downtrodden last few games, making 89.7% of his shots from the line (26-29). If you take out Bentil’s impressive free throw shooting, the rest of the team is shooting 64.1% from the line (25-39).
Here are the last three games and the Friars shooting percentages:
30.1% FG vs. Seton Hall (22-73); 20.0% from three (5-25); 74.2% from the line (23-31) – Bentil 12-13
29.6% FG vs. Creighton (16-54); 16.7% from three (4-24); 73.7% from the line (14-19) – Bentil 4-6
37.7% FG vs. Marquette (23-61); 22.2% from three (4-18); 77.8% from the line (14-18) – Bentil 10-10
The most frustrating part of all of this has been that two of those games came at home at the Dunk. This was supposed to be the part of the Big East conference schedule that gave Providence some momentum heading into their toughest stretch, with consecutive games against Butler, @ Villanova, and Xavier. Three ranked teams who would undoubtedly be at the top of the conference rankings.
This puts more pressure on the Friars to take care of business at home over the next couple of games so that they don’t go into a complete free fall.
As for the Seton Hall game in particular, if the Friars didn’t force the visiting Pirates into 19 turnovers, this game could have gotten a lot uglier than it turned out to be.
Game Notes:
- I’m almost a little tired about piling onto Jalen Lindsey, but the dude just can’t shoot. He was 0-5 from three in this one and at some point, he either has to stop shooting threes and drive to the basket at every opportunity he gets. He shoots by far the most three point shots on the team with 84 attempts on the season, 25 more attempts than anyone else on the team. Besides Ricky Council, in very limited minutes, Lindsey has the very worst three point percentage on the team at 26.2%. Once Fazekas is 100%, Lindsey’s minutes should be only in foul problem situations.
- Seton Hall’s sophomore class seems to be gelling together this season after a tumultuous entire season last year that saw players suspended and some transfers. The team’s sophomores include Khadeen Carrington, Michael Nzei, Ismael Sango, Isaiah Whitehead, Desi Rodriguez, Rashad Anthony, & Angel Delgado. Derrick Gordon is the only senior on the team who gets any time. The rest are all sophomores. So barring any unexpected transfers or injuries, everyone will be back next year and they should be near the top of the conference with that much returning talent.
- The fouls that were called on Kris Dunn were such crap. The fifth one that fouled him out was the worst but the 2 offensive fouls that were called earlier in the game were complete nonsense as well. The last one was with about 3 ½ minutes left and gave the Friars no shot at a comeback after that. Their missed free throws during the potential comeback sure didn’t help either.
- Ben Bentil struggled from the field and was really forcing some bad shots when Dunn was on the bench. He finished a paltry 4-15 from the field but made up for some of it by getting to the line consistently throughout the game, connecting on 12-13 from the line for the game. Bentil also grabbed 9 boards and finished with a team-high 21 points.
- I hate that Seton Hall has PIRATES written across the back of their jerseys. I literally thought that the first guy I saw with its actual last name was Pirates…you know, because I’m an idiot. It was hard to tell who was scoring or pissing me off on the BS charge calls on Dunn so I didn’t know what name to yell at my TV during the game, which I found maddeningly annoying.
- Kyron Cartwright was the only player of the bench that contributed in any way whatsoever in this game. He played well and finished with 10 points and 4 assists. The rest of the bench (Planek, Edwards, Fazekas, Council) were a combined 1-11 from the field.
- I think we can all agree just to forget about this game and hope to heck that this team actually starts off strong against Butler tonight. The Friars were able to come back and create close games with the likes of Marquette, Creighton, and Seton Hall but the next couple of games are against a better class of opponent and if PC struggles like they have been recently, there is going to be at least on blow out in the next week.
The Morning Hangover 