Providence Friars (10-5) 61
#13 Butler Bulldogs (12-2) 78
The Friars lost their third straight game on the road to the Butler Bulldogs and stayed winless so far in the Big East Conference. For the second straight game, the Friars were out of it about halfway through the first half. The Bulldogs pulled ahead early in the game and never even had a scare of ever losing it.
Kyron Cartwright was basically the only player that showed up for the Friars, scoring a career-high 26 points on a career-high 22 shots. Rodney Bullock snapped out of a 4-game shooting slump to go 6-11 for 17 points, although this offensive effort was pretty much wasted.
Butler had a very balanced scoring attack with 7 players recording between 8 to 15 points for the Bulldogs squad, led by Junior stud Kelan Martin. In the end, the Friars lost a game on the road to the #13 ranked team in the country, so when you look back at it, it’s actually not that bad, but what is concerning is that Providence hasn’t really even remotely in any game in the second half of the last three contests. Their road woes seem to be for real.
Quick Hits:
- Kyron Cartwright had a fantastic game, shooting 10-22 from the floor, 3-5 from three, grabbed 6 rebounds and handed out a team-high 4 assists.
- With Cartwright taking in such a large portion of the scoring responsibilities and trying to keep the Friars in the game, he did end up turning the ball over 5 times. That’s really to him pushing the Friars offensively and handling the ball more than usual. I think I’d like to see him score a little less and up his assists instead, but no one else was really helping him out in that department, so he did what he could. He’s pretty much the only guy who showed up for the game.
- He hit 3 threes, some midrange jumpers, and drove to the hole with a purpose.
- Emmitt Holt led the Friars with 7 rebounds but only scored 6 points on 2-6 from the floor. Once again, I really wish Emmitt Holt would shot more. He did struggle with some foul trouble in this game but he has scored just 10 points on 10 shots in the last 2 games.
- Rodney Bullock shot 6-11 from the floor, including 2-5 from three but most of those points came when the game was already out of reach. It was nice just to see the ball go in the hoop from Bullock.
- Isaiah Jackson played only 9 minutes in the game, his lowest total since he was inserted into the starting lineup for Ryan Fazekas. Jackson seemed to be getting beat on the defensive end just a bit which may have been Ed Cooley’s reasoning behind the limited playing time.
- Jalen Lindsey scored just 5 points, trying his lowest scoring output in the last ten games, the last time being against UMass. Lindsey had broken out offensively in the those 10 games, averaging 11.9 points over that period, including 7 of those games in double-digits.
- The bench was a complete non-factor for the Friars getting outscored by Butler 29-5.
- Kalif Young, Ryan Fazekas, Alpha Diallo, and Maliek White combined to go 1-10 from the floor in 65 total minutes between the 4 of them.
- Tommy Planek also made the “Ted Bancroft” appearance in the middle of second half when Cooley got too fed up with the effort from the team. I really wish he hit his 1-and-1 opportunity immediately upon entering the game.
- Over the last three games, the Friars have the same amount of assists as they do turnovers…that’s not good. The Friars had only 9 assists, a season-low, compared to 11 turnovers. That is not how they played as a team in the non-conference schedule.
- This was the first game that all 3 Freshmen looked like Freshmen. Usually, at least one of them will play well each game. Kalif Young was not defending well, even though his energy level was high. His defending of the pick-and-roll left guys open on multiple occasions but those defensive responsibilities will get better the more action he sees.
- Alpha Diallo’s shot never looked close to going in all night.
- Maliek White only played 4 minutes so I can’t judge him too harshly here, but the only stat he recorded was a turnover.
- Butler is a tough team, especially when they are playing at Hinkle Fieldhouse, one of the cooler arenas in college basketball, and a place I need to get to at some point.
- I thought Kelan Martin was the best player on Butler last year when they played PC, even with Dunham and Jones on the Bulldogs and he seems to have carried that over to this year.
- I hate the fact that I like a bunch of the coaches in the Big East. I need guys like Jim Boeheim and Mike Brey back in the mix. Chris Holtmann is likeable, I can’t have that.
Next Up, Providence mercifully returns back home to The Dunk to take on Georgetown in a battle of teams that are winless in Big East play. The game is on CBS Sports Network at 7 PM on Wednesday and it better not fucking have Doug Gottlieb announcing.
The Morning Hangover 