#23 Providence Friars 57 (11-3)
Seton Hall Pirates 61 (9-5)
If losing to Seton Hall at home for the second time in as many seasons wasn’t enough, the Friars received the devastating news that Bryce Hopkins will miss the remainder of the season with a torn ACL that he suffered early in the second half against the Pirates.
The final 8 minutes of the first half set the stage for the rest of the game with Seton Hall ending the half on a 15-2 run to go into the break with a 29-24 lead. The Friars never looked comfortable on the offensive end once Josh Oduro stop his early tear in the post to start the game. The combination of turnovers, a stagnant half court offense, untimely fouls, and the inability to get stops down the stretch ultimately doomed Providence in a game that seemed to give them as many opportunities as possible to try and win on their home court. Of course, watching your first team All-Big East player go down with an injury screaming in pain definitely didn’t help with anything either.
Game Notes:
- Josh Oduro came out of the gates on fire, dominating the Seton Hall big men in the post with a multitude of spectacular post moves. Oduro hit his first 6 shots from the floor and looked like he was going to go the whole game being unstoppable with the ball in his hands.
- For some reason, after the Friars took a 19-12 lead in the first half and looked to be putting everything together, Kim English decided to with a bench heavy line-up. One without the likes of Josh, Bryce Hopkins, and Devin Carter, the three leading scorers on the team. You need at least one of those guys on the floor at all times or the offense is going to struggle immensely to find points…which it obviously did. Instead of keeping their foot on the gas and potentially putting the game out of reach early, the bench floundered mightily, letting Seton Hall right back in the game.
- Starting at the 11:02 mark in the first half, the lineup of Jayden Pierre, Garwey Dual, Corey Floyd Jr., Ticket Gaines, and Rafael Castro put together the following sequence of plays:
Illegal Screen by Castro; Open Foul Line Jumper Missed By Kadary Richmond & Defensive Rebound by Ticket; Travel by Dual; Al-Amir Dawes Made Jumper; Floyd Jr. drive and turnover on a drive and dish to Castro that went out of bounds; Hopkins back in & immediately makes Dre Davis take a fadeaway jumper and grabs the board off the miss; Hopkins drives and forces the help defense to come to him, makes a perfect bounce pass to a wide open Castro under the hoop who can’t catch the ball and turns it over; Carry and turnover by Dawes; 8:53 mark, Carter and Oduro check back in.
- During that entire time, the Friars didn’t even make a field goal attempt as the turned the ball over 4 straight times. Instead, Hall got more comfortable and confident, slowly making their way back into the ball game. It may not seem like a lot, but those 2+ minutes felt like an eternity.
- In a tale of two halves, with seemingly no desire to go away from their big stud down low, the Friars continue to feed Oduro in the post on basically every possession in their half court offense in the second half. However, this time around, Oduro went just 3/11 over the second 20 minutes of the game.
- Oduro still finished with a great line, scoring a game-high 23 points on 9/21 shooting, going a perfect 5/5 from the line, and adding 3 rebounds and a pair of blocks. Unfortunately, with Devin Carter having an off-night shooting (4/13) and Hopkins going down with a knee injury, the Friars could not create any sort of offense from anywhere else. Hold that thought, Corey Floyd Jr. was the sole Friar to shoot over 50% from the first (3/4) and busted his ass the entire time he was on the floor. He played damn well.
- Let’s get to Corey who is going to need to step up in a big way with Bryce out of the lineup going forward, and showed a bit of what he could be capable of with an increase in minutes.
- Floyd finished with 7 points, 6 rebounds, 2 steals (including a MASSIVE one at the end of regulation to give the Friars a chance to tie or take the lead), and an assist.
- Oh, and he can do stuff like this…
- And this…
- Although Carter couldn’t get his shots to fall, he still made plays for the Friars and ended up notching his fourth double-double of the season with 10 points and 10 rebounds. Carter’s 10 rebounds were a team-high, the 5th time he’s lead the team in rebounding this season, and his 6 assists were also a team-high, the 4th time he’s done that as well.
- Devin Carter being Devin Carter, he also led the team with 3 steals, which is the 4th time he’s had 3 steals in a game this season. And, of course, he also had a block, because that’s just what he does.
- Ticket Gaines was essentially a non-factor on offense as his defender stayed glued to him on the three-point line, no matter what was happening elsewhere. Gaines would run the court, straight to the corner and just hang out with his hands at the ready, waiting for a pass that never came. In Kim English’s post-game press conference, he mentioned that in his 5 years coaching Ticket, he has probably only run maybe 10 plays for him over that time period. Just because that is the case, that doesn’t mean it has to always be the case. The Friars were struggling to score and Oduro was being left alone on an island, exhausted from trying to carry the entire offensive load for the team, and you can’t even run Ticket off a screen or set maybe just have him in a pick-and-pop with Carter…not even once? They’re going to have to switch something up without the luxury of Hopkins as a match-up problem for teams, so I suspect that might change, even if ever so slightly.
- Jayden Pierre has not looked like the same player since he came back from his groin injury that sidelined him earlier in the year.
- Over the last 6 games, Pierre is averaging 5.8 ppg on 30.6% (11/36) shooting from the floor and 33.3% from three (7/21). Even his makes aren’t giving me all that much confidence right now.
- He has committed 16 turnovers (2+ in each game) to just 14 assists and looks like his body is moving too fast for his decision-making to catch up to. On the defensive side, he’s working hard trying to make up for his recent shortcomings on the other end, but in doing so, is playing overly aggressive and ending up fouling or overplaying too often.
- We know he can figure this out and we’ve seen him play with composure before, so here’s to hoping he doesn’t try to put too much of the additional burden left by not having Hopkins on himself and plays within himself.
- On a really good note, Pierre has yet to miss a free throw this year and is a perfect 17 of 17. I can’t believe he only took 10 total free throws last year but he did go 8/10, making his career average a stellar 92.6%. Maybe we an Al Durham/Luwane Pipkins closer on our hands and didn’t even know it.
- Garwey Dual’s handle is sick. At times, he looks like he has the ball on a string. We’ve seen that he’s a great passer, as evidenced by his 4.25 assists & 1.25 turnovers per game over the last 4 contest. He’s a nightmare on defense with his length and athleticism and now we just need his offense to catch up to the rest of his attributes.
- Dual is averaging just 3.8 ppg on 28.3% shooting and is doing so over 21 minutes per game. That is…not good. He appears indecisive at times and almost hesitant when going to the basket but he’s going to have a longer leash with Hopkins out, so he might as well play with some more freedom out there for the rest of the season.
- Rafael Castro’s hands are becoming a problem. I’d like to see if he can open his game in the 4-spot with an outside shot that he appeared to have before getting to Providence and then crash the offensive boards like crazy. When he’s hanging out around the basket, he has trouble holding on to those quick short passes.
- I’m a little bit excited to see some more Richard Barron out there.
- I still don’t like playing against Dylan Addae-Wusu so of course he had a double-double (12 points, 11 rebounds) and iced the game from the line at the end of the second half.
- The Friars have won 46 of their last 50 home games with two of those losses coming at the hands of Seton Hall.
- Post-Game Press Conference:
- Bryce Hopkins posted this heartfelt message on his Instagram and it just makes me feel bad for the guy.
- Here’s to hoping he can keep a positive mindset throughout this process and can come back even stronger from this.
Next Up, the Friars travel to Creighton on Saturday to face the Bluejays at 2 PM on FS1. The Friars opened as a 10.5-point dog on the road without Hopkins.
The Morning Hangover 
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