Game Notes & Preview: Providence vs. Navy 11/20/14

Where: Dunkin’ Donuts Center – Providence, RI

When: 7:00PM

How: Fox Sports 2 (Rich Ackerman & Vin Parise)/WEEI 103.7 FM and Friars.com (John Rooke and Joe Hassett)/WNAV 1430 AM/ 99.9 FM and WBQH 1050 AM (Pete Medhust – Navy)

Game Notes

• Providence and Navy have only played once with the Friars falling to the Midshipmen 68-65 on December 29, 1981 in Providence as part of the Inbank Classic.
• Navy was 9-21 last season including a 4-14 record in Patriot League conference play. The Midshipmen took top 25 Michigan State to the wire on November 14th in their season opener, falling to the Spartans 64-59 after getting the lead down to 3 with 24 seconds left. Their second game was not as close as they fell to Notre Dame, 92-53, on November 16th to the Fighting Irish. Edward Alade and Brandon Venturini are both averaging 11 ppg which is tied for the team lead. Venturini is also the leading rebounder at 4 rpg. Senior Worth Smith, a returning starter from a season ago and the leading returning scorer from the 2013-14 Navy squad, injured his knee against Michigan State and will be out for about 6 weeks.
• Navy is 51-30 all-time versus teams that are currently in the Big East and are 6-5 all-time against schools from Rhode Island including a 90-80 loss at Bryant last season.
• Navy’s senior team captain Kevin ‘Pookie’ Alter is the shortest player in the country at the Division I level in 2014-15 at just 5’6″. Alter comes from a military family with his grandfather, William Alter, graduating from the Naval Academy in 1954 before serving for over 20 years in the Marine Corps. Alter’s cousin, Lindsey Bellomy, graduated from the Naval Academy in 2004.
• Providence is 71-38 against the Patriot League all time. The last time the Friars played a Patriot League team was November 27, 2012 when they defeated Holy Cross, 61-42.
• Providence takes a 37 game non-conference home winning streak into the action on Saturday. The Friars have won all of their non-conference home games in each of the last four seasons and are 2-0 so far this season. The last home non-conference loss came on December 12, 2009 against Iona, 82-73. The longest non-conference home win streak in school history is 56 games which was from February 13, 1973 to December 27, 1974.
• I have not seen a line for this game as of yet.

Game Preview

With two games in the rear view mirror for Providence and some steady improvement in the play of the freshmen and the entire team as a whole, the Friars welcome the Navy Midshipmen to the Dunk on Thursday night. Navy is coming off a loss to future Friar opponent Notre Dame on Sunday by the score of 92-53. The Midshipmen did take Michigan State, ranked 18th in the country at the time, down to the wire with a 3 point game under 30 seconds left but the Spartans would hang on for the 64-59 win. One big loss from that Michigan State game is senior forward and returning leading scorer Worth Smith who dislocated his knee cap and will be out for at least 6 weeks.

Providence is coming off two games that saw their effort and subsequently their leads in both games seesaw back and forth between positive and negative. With so many new players to integrate Ed Cooley hasn’t quite gotten the hang of this substitution thing as he had a rotation that went 6 deep a season ago. Cooley used 8 different lineups in game 1 by the time the under 12 media timeout came at the 11:49 mark in the first half. He discussed after that game that he wanted to get the freshmen into the mix sooner rather than later but that may have zapped any chance for his starting group to get into a rhythm. LaDontae Henton certainly seemed out of sorts in the Binghamton game Monday night and some of that may be attributable to the fact that he had new on court playing partners every few minutes.

I think Cooley will use this final campus site game of the Hall of Fame Tipoff to figure some things out with the lineups and substitutions before heading to Mohegan Sun for the weekend games against Florida State and Notre Dame. Kris Dunn looked better in game 2 after not converting on any of his 5 field goal attempts in game 1 and Friar fans are hoping Dunn continues to knock off the rust each time he takes the floor.

Navy is undersized and will struggle to handle Providence inside. The Friars will be looking to improve on an 0/9 night behind the 3 point arc in their game against Binghamton but I think they will do most of their damage inside the paint and in front of the rim. Look for Providence to get out to an early lead and keep an eye on how Ed Cooley substitutes during the middle parts of the first half. This may give an indication of his lineups and substitution patterns over the weekend against the better competition.

Prediction: Providence 69 Navy 48

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Mike Hopkins

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