Thoughts from the Road: Gritty Friars Defeat BC Eagles

This Thoughts from the Road: Desk Edition is brought to you from my brand-spanking new home office, complete with my chair that arrived Wednesday just in time for me to be sweating from putting it together at the tip-off. 

• This game harkened some memories of the 2014-15 Friar season. By the end of the game, I was reminded of Providence’s first Big East road win last season at Hinkle Fieldhouse where Ed Cooley relied on the “all-grit team” lineup of Kris Dunn, Ted Bancroft, Junior Lomomba, LaDontae Henton and Paschal Chukwu. Cooley ran 4 of those 5 guys for the entire 20 minute second half, en route to an impressive Providence road win. That was the good part, the ending. The beginning of the second half reminded me of another of Providence’s Big East road contests from last season: Xavier. Right as the second half was getting underway, Cooley walked off the bench and into the locker room. He would be taken to a Cincinnati hosptial and spent the night there. What ensued was ugly basketball from the Friars while Andre LaFleur at the helm. Providence played sloppy, looked totally out of sync and got overrun by the Musketeers, who would win the game by 9 after the Friars took a 5 point lead into the break. That seemed to be exactly what was happening in the beginning of the second half of this game. Providence had twice as many turnovers as points 8 minutes into the half and they looked lost on offense. Boston College failed to take advantage, the Eagles themselves dealing with their own depletion thanks to a norovirus caught at Chipotle over the weekend. The young Friars managed to do enough on defense and feed Rodney Bullock enough to keep the Eagles at arm’s length before pulling back away in the last 5 minutes.

• Bullock was sensational in the second half and he had to be. He led the Friars in scoring for the game with 17 points and scored 15 of them in the second stanza. 11 of those 15 points were Providence’s first of the second half and without Bullock the result may have been different for the Friars. When Bullock wasn’t fed the ball directly he went and got it off the rim, accounting for his 4 offensive rebounds, all in the second half. Bullock was saddled by foul trouble in the first half, playing just 8 minutes and scoring 2 points. Bullock proved again that he is capable of bearing the scoring load for this Providence team when they need it.
• Ben Bentil was on his way to another 20+ point game and likely another double-double before he came down on Dennis Clifford’s ankle around the 2 minute mark of the first half. Bentil coming back out on the bench for the final 7 or so minutes of the game to watch with his teammates was a positive but we’ll see what the x-rays reveal. If it’s just a simple ankle sprain I expect Bentil will be fine in a few days. Providence only has the Bryant game on Saturday between them and an 8 day final exam break. That should go a long way towards getting Bentil healthy for the UMass game, or at least the Big East opener on New Year’s Eve against Butler.
• Normally when an award is named after someone, it’s usually after they have stopped playing — either for that team or in general. I’m going to eschew that traditon and just go ahead and name an award after a current Friar player. So without further adiue, I’d like to announce the Albert “Junior” Lomomba Unsung Hero of the Game Award. I’ll give it out ad hoc, when I feel like it. The first ever recepient of the award will be presented to — drumroll please — Drew Edwards. Congrats to Drew on this prestigious honor. Edwards was excellent in his 18 minutes — 13 in the second half — of action and, even though the box score doesn’t look full, Edwards had a big impact on this game. He made some nice defensive plays, including 2 steals and got his hands and fingertips on passes and rebounds.
• If the report of Ryan Fazekas having mononucleosis is true then the Friar freshman will be out for several weeks. We’ll know more as Saturday’s game approaches. If Fazekas misses more games that means Jalen Lindsey is back in the starting lineup after being a partial starter for stretches of his freshman season. Lindsey hit two 3-pointers late in this game afte starting 0/5 from the field but he was active on the glass, leading the Friars with 9 rebounds on the night. In the games that Lindsey has slid over to the 4 spot, he has looked a lot more comfortable. That makes sense because he played that position for the first 3 years of high school.
• The illness and injury are certainly not good news for Providence, but if there is something good that can be taken from those things occuring now that Providence won the game, I would say getting some of the young players in-game experience that they can learn from by watching on film later will be helpful for the future.
• Cooley called this a culture win. He also said that prior teams would have given up and not been able to win this game. I’m not sure if he’s talking about his early teams at Providence or the Keno Davis coached Friar teams but I think the sentiment that “this is a game Providence would have normally lost” is shared by Friar fans. I’ve definitely heard that same thing mentioned to me after a few games, namely Illinois and Rhode Island. The job Cooley has done to A) change the culture at Providence, B) recruit players that fit him and his style, and (C) win while doing the above has been very impressive. Cooley has clearly shown he can win with most any group of players or lineups, whether it be his “Iron 6” group or the “All-Grit team”.

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Mike Hopkins

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