Providence Friars (14-12) 61

Xavier Musketeers (13-13) 75

Well that sucked.

Just one game after savagely dismantling St. John’s the Friars, at home mind you, were pretty much a no show against Xavier.

In every loss for Providence, the telling stat is the assist to turnover ratio for the team.  If they had more turnovers than assists, then they most likely lost that game.  Not only did they have more turnovers (11) than assists, but they only had 9 assists total as a team.  It’s pretty hard to have single-digit turnovers as an entire team.  The leading assist guy on the team had 2 assists.  Think about that.  Your leading assist guy for the game had just a pair of assists.  That’s not going to cut it.

Xavier on the other hand, doubled the Friars up with 18 assists as a team.

Nate Watson continues to play extremely well and was the only Friar to score in double figures (16).  I’ll continue to say it, but if he’s able to limit his fouls on defense, he is going to rack up points down low all damn day on offense.  Unfortunately, no one else on the Friars really showed up on offense to help him out.

Once again, on the opposite side of the spectrum, Xavier had four of their starters score in double-figures, and all four of them with at least 13 points apiece.

Game Notes:

• We’ll start with the good…and maybe the only good to come out of this game.  Nate Watson played his third straight really good game.  Watson had his third consecutive game with double-digit points and is averaging 17.3 ppg over those last three contests.  He’s also chipping 5 rebounds a game during that stretch which I would like to see at 6 or 7, but I’m not going to be the one to criticize Big Nate over this stretch.
•  After going up against Villanova and St. John’s, teams that usually run with a smaller and more athletic lineup, Watson showed that he could still produce down low against a team in Xavier, who plays with old style bigs and size with their twin towers of Tyrique Jones and Zach Hankins.
• The lone other good offensive showing for the Friars was Drew Edwards of the bench.  Edwards had 8 points in 15 minutes of action and went 3-4 from the field and 2-3 from deep.
• Isaiah Jackson, Alpha Diallo, and David Duke had 7 points each but combined to go 6-20 from the field en route to getting there.
• A.J. Reeves’ minutes went up again to 24 but he still didn’t look totally comfortable out there, going just 1-6 from the floor.
• Kalif Young rebounded well, grabbing a team-high 7 rebounds in just 15 minutes but went scoreless in the game on 0-3 from the field and committing 4 fouls.
• Tyrique Jones did pretty much whatever he wanted, connecting on a ridiculous 9-11 from the field, scoring a game-high 19 points and taking down a game-high 12 rebounds.
• The Musketeers shot 59.2% from the field and 57.1% from three.  Tough for a team to beat that.

Up Next, the Friars can hopefully play the same way against St. John’s again.