Game Notes & Preview: Providence (11-7, 1-4) vs Seton Hall (12-4, 2-2) 1/14/17

Where: Dunkin’ Donuts Center – Providence, RI

When: 12:00pm EST

How: FSN (Alex Faust & Tarik Turner)/Fox Sports GO (Where Available)/WEEI 103.7 FM and Friars.com (John Rooke and Joe Hassett)/FriarTV

Game Notes

• Providence and Seton Hall will meet for the 100th time ever on Saturday. The Friars lead the all-time series, 51-48. Providence is 26-15 all-time at home against Seton Hall. The Pirates swept the Friars last season. Providence’s last win against Seton Hall was March 4, 2015 at the Prudential Center in Newark.
• Providence returns home following their 5th road loss this season. They are now 0-5 on the road. Providence’s last home game was a loss against Creighton last Saturday and that dropped their home record to 10-1 heading into this game.
• Seton Hall is 12-4 this season, including a 2-2 record in Big East play. The Pirates are 1-2 in road games this season with the lone win coming at Iowa on November 17th as part of the Gavitt Tipoff Games. Seton Hall was picked to finish T-4th in the preseason Big East Coaches’ Poll. The Pirates are led by Kevin Willard, who is in his 7th season at the helm of the Seton Hall program. Junior Khadeen Carrington leads the Pirates in scoring at 18.9 points/game, which ranks him second in the Big East. Junior Angel Delgado leads the team in rebounding, averaging 12.1 rebounds/game, which ranks him first in the Big East.
• Opening Line: Providence +1 vs Seton Hall 1/14/17

Game Preview

Providence returns home off a disappointing loss at DePaul in which they coughed up a lead late to allow the Blue Demons to steal a game the Friars controlled for about 38 of the 40 minutes. With the loss the Friars fell to 1-4 in league play and are now 0-5 on the road. They do sport a 10-1 home record but their lone loss was last time out at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center last Saturday. Jalen Lindsey didn’t play against DePaul and was seen on the bench with a heavy wrap on his left hand, an injury that occurred late in the loss to Creighton. Speaking with the media prior to Thursday’s practice Ed Cooley said he was hoping to have Lindsey practice a bit Thursday but earlier in the day Cooley termed Lindsey a game-time decision. Cooley also said Kyron Cartwright will be a game-time decision. “He’s nowhere near 100%,” Cooley said on Thursday.

This is the middle game of a 3-game road trip for Seton Hall. Their first stop was Milwaukee where they dropped a game to Marquette in overtime on Wednesday night. Next up after their stop in Providence is a trip down to Philadelphia to take on #3 Villanova at the Pavilion. The Pirates are 1-2 on the road this season.

Seton Hall struggles with turnovers and free throw shooting. They turn the ball over 20.2% of the time which is 257th nationally and they only convert on 61.1% of their free throws, which ranks 341st. They make up for these deficiencies by grabbing a huge number of offensive rebounds and getting to the free throw line often enough that they still get good scoring from the charity stripe despite not making a high percentage. Seton Hall is 21st nationally on the overall season with a 36.1% Offensive Rebound %. Through 4 Big East games they are pulling down their misses at an even higher clip of 40.1%, which leads the league. They also rank 48th in Free Throw Rate, though they haven’t been keeping up with this as much in Big East play. The Pirates have made 239 free throws through 16 games compared to Providence’s 245 made free throws in 18 games.

The probable starters according to the game notes are:

Providence

• Kyron Cartwright – #24 – Junior
• Isaiah Jackson – #44 – Sophomore
• Jalen Lindsey – #21 – Junior
• Rodney Bullock – #5 – Junior
• Emmitt Holt – #15 – Junior

Seton Hall

• Madison Jones – #30 – Graduate Student
• Khadeen Carrington – #0 – Junior
• Desi Rodriguez – #20 – Junior
• Ismael Sanogo – #14 – Junior
• Angel Delgado– #31 – Junior

The keys to victory for Providence are not allow Angel Delgado and the rest of Seton Hall to grab offensive rebounds that create second and third scoring opportunities and they just need to make some shots.

As I mentioned above Seton Hall has been ferocious on the offensive glass. Delgado leads the Pirates with 73 offensive rebounds and that number is higher than the total rebounds for every Providence player besides Rodney Bullock and Emmitt Holt. The Providence player with the most offensive rebounds is Kalif Young with 34. You can see just how good Delgado has been at corralling his team’s misses. That inevitably creates second chance points with many likely coming inside the paint. Providence’s defense hasn’t been very good lately and giving an opponent copious second chances each time down the floor isn’t a winning recipe.

The other key is something that seems obvious but it’s something the Friars have not been doing in Big East play. Providence ranks 9th in both 3-point and 2-point field goal % and they are 10th in the Big East in Effective Field Goal %. Getting a healthy Jalen Lindsey back into the lineup would be helpful as he’s shooting 47.6% from beyond the arc in Big East play. With Kyron Cartwright unlikely to be fully healthy even if he plays it may be incumbent on freshmen Maliek White and Alpha Diallo to help facilitate offense and ensure Bullock, Providence’s leading scorer at 17.2 points/game, gets going early and often.

Prediction: Providence 67 Seton Hall 66

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Mike Hopkins

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