Providence Friars 72 (10-2)
#6 Marquette Golden Eagles 57 (9-3)
They don’t say that Providence is where ranked teams go to die for no reason. The AMP (or Dunk if you will) continues to be one of the toughest places to play in the country with the Friars sporting a record of 40-3 at home over the last couple of seasons.
If people were expecting for Kim English to be overwhelmed at all with his first test in the Big East to be the number sixth ranked, defending Big East conference and tournament champion Marquette Golden Eagles, they had another thing coming. This may have been the best the Friars have looked all season with a combination of swarming, connected defense and unselfish offense. This game was never in doubt, even when Marquette came out hot to start the second half, culminating in a 15-point victory for the Friars.
Games Notes:
- There is no question that Devin Carter is playing like a first team All-Big East player so far this season. He continues to play defense at an elite level but his offensive game has taken a leap from last year, especially with how he has been shooting the ball.
- Carter led the Friars with 22 points, the second time he has eclipsed the 20-point mark and the sixth time that he has led the team in points in a game this season. That would be six out of the twelve games so far for you mathematicians out there.
- Carter connected on a career-high 5 of his 9 three-point attempts and has now made 3 or more three-pointers in 7 games this year, including the last 4 in which he has shot 15/30 (50%) from distance. Devin is now hitting from deep at a 39.1% clip this season, showing off how much his work in the off-season has paid off for the Junior guard.
- This sequence blew the damn roof off the arena.
- Carter continues to rebound the hell out of the ball and grabbed 8 rebounds to go along with his 4 assists and a steal. Carter is putting up career highs in points (16.1 ppg), rebounds (7.8 rpg), assists (3.1 apg), & blocks (1.4 bpg). He has bettered his shooting numbers by +6.1% from the field and +9.2% on threes. There is an endless amount of complimentary adjectives that I could throw at him with how unbelievable he’s been playing this season. In doing so, he has worked his way into some NBA mock drafts as of late too.
- When Ticket Gaines is hitting threes, he is HITTING THREES.
- Not to be outdone by Carter, Gaines matched Devin with 5 made threes of his own. He looked to be so in flow and comfortable with the fast pace of the game, right from the get-go. His hands were always in position to catch and shoot and he had no wasted motion between receiving a pass and letting that thing fly. Just like how you want a big to keep a rebound up high around the rim before attempting a put-back, Ticket was lightening quick in his shooting motion doing essentially the same thing.
- Ticket is absolutely capable of doing this in any game this season, he just has to do so a little more consistently this season. He doesn’t have to always hit 5 threes but he can’t go multiple games hitting 0 to 1 on when he’s taking 4.8 threes per game. Between this game and the game against Wagner, Gaines shot 12/20 (60%) from three. In the other 10 games of the season, he has shot 7/37 (18.9%). There’s definitely a middle ground in there that he can settle in on.
- Gaines notched 18 points and provided about a half dozen crowd explosions.
- Outside of Carter and Ticket’s stellar outside shooting (10/19), the rest of the Friars couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn, even with a ton of the looks coming without a single defender near the shooter. The rest of the team shot 1/13 from deep. The majority of the shots were really good looks and would’ve definitely hurt in most other games.
- Garwey Dual showed off his very slick handle and looked like he had the ball on a string the whole game. Dual dropped a career-high 7 assists, matching Marquette’s team total for the game. He did so without committing a single turnover. I’m not totally sure, but I think that’s good.
- Despite the fact that his shooting has slowly deteriorated as the season has progressed, his passing has more than made up for it, especially when there are multiple other guys that can step up on any given night to provide scoring.
- Josh Oduro put to bed almost all of my worries about going up against the big bodies in the Big East. Oso Ighodaro was M.I.A. on the offensive end in the game, shooting his lowest percentage from the floor on the season (33.3% – 2/6).
- I love watching the half court offense run through Oduro because whenever the opposing defense sends a double over to him, he’s such a good passer that it actually works out in Providence’s favor. It’s also a testament to the first player he passes to who makes the next pass as the defense tries to recover and they’ve been doing a great job of it lately.
- Oduro only played 26 minutes, dealing with foul trouble and eventually fouling out, but before doing so, recorded a near double-double with 10 points and 9 rebounds. Oduro has scored in double figures in each of the last 11 games after scoring only 6 points in the season opener against Columbia. He is the epitome of consistency.
- Bryce Hopkins was quiet for a long portion of the night but made plays when they needed him to, almost securing a double-double with 10 points and 9 rebounds.
- Even when he’s quiet, he still puts up a respectable stat line. What I’m more concerned about is the 5/10 from the free throw line.
- Jayden Pierre looked a little out of sorts and missed some open jumpers that he typically would make.
- Before going down with a groin injury, over the first four games, Pierre was 14/24 (58.3%) from the field and 7/12 (58.3%) from three. Since he’s returned to the lineup, over the last 5 games, he has gone 11/33 (33.3%) from the field and 5/18 (27.7%) from three. His assist-to-turnover ratio went from 1.5 to 1 to 0.63 to 1. He went from shooting lights out and taking care of the ball to struggling to hit open threes and producing more turnovers than assists. I don’t think either of these sample sizes are sustainable, but if he’s not shooting well, he needs to distribute well or vice versa. You can’t fail to do either if you’re going to stay on the court.
- Richard Barron came and and did what he does, immediately make a three-pointer.
- He wasn’t able to get all that much run in this one but I fully trust him when he’s out there, which is saying something for a Freshman.
- Although Rafael Castro didn’t play that much, just 6 minutes, he came into the game at a critical time when Josh Oduro went to the bench with foul trouble, and played extremely well when he came in. Although it was only 6 minutes, it was a crucial 6 minutes in the second half, and he held it down while he was on the court.
- Corey Floyd Jr. was alright and was a reliable and needed extra ball handler on the floor against a Marquette defense that averages 9 steals per game. I keep telling you, there is going to be a game where Corey catches fire and single-handedly wins us one. But for now, we wait.
- Tyler Kolek was really good, leading Marquette in points (19), rebounds (9), and assists (5). He just didn’t have a 2nd or 3rd guy step up to help him in this one. He will officially go winless at Providence in his career, which puts a big ole smile on my face.
- The communication and connectedness of the Friars on defense was awesome to watch. Marquette moves the ball really well but Providence was so in sync with their rotations, switches, and help defense that it counteracted the Golden Eagles offense. Marquette had just 7 assists to their 14 turnovers and shot 4/20 from three, which is very unlike this Marquette team. Kolek averages almost 6 assists a game by himself.
- On the other side of things, the Friars assisted on 17 of their 22 made baskets.
- The Friars continue to make me nervous at the free throw line and missed all three of the front ends of their 1-and-1s in the second half. In a closer game, those could have been backbreakers.
- Kim English and the Friars have had some high-level recruits in for visits recently, one of the latest being Collins Chidera Onyejiaka.
- There will be a couple more on campus this weekend for the Butler game as well.
- Post-Game celebration photo goes to Richard Barron with the power stance.
- Post-Game Press Conference…
- This is just awesome, Kim English is doing everything right so far at PC.
Up Next, the Friars stay at home to take on a surprisingly good 10-2 Butler team on Saturday at 12 PM on FS1.
The Morning Hangover 