Thoughts from the Road: Butler Ruins Senior Day

Thoughts from the road as I traveled down 95 South Sunday afternoon…

• I felt pretty confident heading into Saturday’s season finale against Butler that Providence could not lose on Senior Day. I put that confidence in writing both here and on Scout Friars. The last thing I expected to happen on a day when emotions would be running high and the team would be amped up was for Providence to have a slow start. Welp.

• I have to admit that I felt bad for Henton that he had one of his lesser games of the season in his final time playing at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center. It was also the first time Henton’s parents were able to make the trip and watch their son, a PC legend, play in front of his home fans. That has to pull on the heart strings a little.
• In terms of some thoughts from the actual action on the court I thought Tyler Harris had his best game in a Friar uniform. He scored 17 points and was fairly efficient doing so with a 7/12 shooting performance from the field. The thing that stood out to me was Harris’ intensity and aggression on the defensive end. He has made a few key plays this season at the end of games but in this game Harris was seemingly making key play after key play. He stripped a player, took a charge, got a deflection that led to a steal, grabbed a rebound. This is Tyler Harris. It kind of sounds like Kadeem Batts. Harris needs to continue that same intensity, aggression and senior sense of urgency that he played with on senior day and keep it rolling for the rest of March.
• Ben Bentil is a freshman. That’s a sentence that needs to be kept in mind. However, he’s a freshman who has now played in 31 games and started the final 20 games of this season. Bentil needs to try to find some consistency during the postseason or he will find himself playing 13 minutes (or less) like he did against Butler despite 33 minutes, 21 points and 10 rebounds in the prior game against Seton Hall.
• Kris Dunn was absolutely dominant in the second half again. As I said after the Seton Hall game Dunn’s game will go to the next level and the national recognition will start to come more broadly once he adds some consistency to his game. I’m not saying he needs to be consistently dominant for 40 minutes a night – though I think he has that potential. I’m just saying be more consistently aggressive and look to take games over sooner if it looks like that’s what needs to happen.
• It’s a disappointment for Providence to have the 2 seed in their hands and then drop all the way to the 4 seed because of this loss. It makes the Friars’ road to defending their Big East Tournament title much more difficult as they now have to play St. John’s in the quarterfinals and they won’t be able to avoid Villanova until the finals, which would have been the case had the Friars secured the 2 seed. However, looking at things from a more big picture perspective its amazing how far the program has come that its at a point where fans can now be concerned with seeding for both the Big East Tournament and NCAA Tournament as the final weeks of the season unfold instead of whether a win or loss will make or break their postseason hopes. Kudos to Ed Cooley and his staff for the turnaround over these last 4 years. I’m not sure we will ever see the same faces on the bench again after this season ends.

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Mike Hopkins

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