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Thoughts from the Road: Friars Shock Wildcats in Snowy Philadelphia

This Thoughts from the Road: Snowed in Philadelphia Edition is brought to you by Katie cooking great meals that included bacon and Ben coining the phrase “Deep Fryahs”. It’s fueled by the wings at McMenamin’s. 

  • That was a hell of a Big East battle. The game started slow with the teams combining for a 2/10 shooting start and a 2-2 tie with 16:54 left in the first half. One thing that struck me while watching the teams answer each other and seesaw the lead back and forth over the course of 45 minutes of game action was that the refs didn’t seem to be involved. For me to not even notice Tony Chiazza until the second half is telling. Providence was only whistled for 4 team fouls and Villanova 6 in the first 20 minutes of the game. You read that correctly: neither team got into the bonus in the first half. That’s pretty amazing with the way referees are making themselves household names these days.

  • To get into the game in a little more detail, the story from my perspective was players not named Kris Dunn and Ben Bentil making key contributions throughout this thriller. Dunn tied a career high with 14 assists and hit some big time shots down the stretch and Bentil poured in 31 points and grabbed 13 rebounds while playing all 45 minutes. Those two had great games and were obviously critical to the Friar victory. But I would argue that without the contributions from guys like Junior Lomomba and Kyron Cartwright, Providence isn’t in a position to win the game. That also seems like an obvious statement because without the 25 points from those players the final result is a Villanova blowout win. The point I’m trying to make is that Providence can hand with and beat any team in the country if they are going to get these kinds of contributions from guys like Lomomba and Cartwright. Bullock didn’t play phenomenal, but he also chipped in 8 points and 5 rebounds. 4 of his 8 points came in the final five minutes of regulation.

  • Dunn struggled with 6 turnovers and fouled out with 16 seconds left in overtime. He did add 13 points on 5/10 shooting, including 3/4 from beyond the arc, to go with 5 rebounds and 4 steals. He continues to hit clutch shots and do what is required to lead his team to victory. He helped Providence build the 4 point lead they had when he fouled out by assisting on a Lomomba layup, getting a steal that led to two Bentil free throws and a jumper of his own. Dunn certainly needs to be more careful with fouls and he could start a bit faster on offense, but these things all feel like nitpicks when he manages to make clutch plays during winning time.

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  • Seeing Dunn put up an assist number that tied his career high of 14 helpers, it makes you realize how much more successful Providence is as a team when Dunn’s assist numbers are high. If Dunn’s assist total is high, it means his teammates are hitting shots. That was not the case during Providence’s stretch of offensive struggle recently. Dunn’s assist total in those 3 games — vs. Marquette, at Creighton, vs. Seton Hall — 12. That’s nearly half his season average over the course of those 3 games.

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  • Providence made eight 3-pointers on Sunday. They haven’t made that many triples since they made nine against St. John’s back on January 2nd. Their 36.4% conversion rate is much better than the 20.2% they were converting on in their prior 4 games. 36.4% isn’t exactly shooting lights out, but it would be top 100 nationally, according  to Kenpom.com. If Providence shoots that percentage on an average of 20 attempts/game — their current average attempts through 20 games –they will make about seven treys a game and they have yet to lose in the seven games they have made at least seven 3-pointers.
  • Providence won the rebounding battle and killed Villanova with 40 of their 82 points coming in the paint. Bentil’s production has a lot to do with both stats tilting in Providence’s favor, but that is still surprising considering they Wildcats have a taller and beefier frontline than Providence. For Bentil to dominate the way he did and play all 45 minutes is very impressive. His development has been incredible to watch.

  • There were some sensational passes made in this game. I had to do a double take when watching one highlight of a thread-the-needle pass made from the right wing to the left block because I was SHOCKED it didn’t originate from Dunn’s capable hands. That pass to Bentil for a finish at the rim came from Junior Lomomba and Lomomba was so confident his seeing-eye pass would result in a Providence score that he turned and ran back on defense almost immediately after the ball left his fingertips.

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  • Kyron Cartwright scored all 13 of his points in the second half and overtime, but he also had some nifty passes of his own. The most critical may have been the look to Bentil with about 18 seconds left in overtime. That was a classic “NO NO NO”…”YES YES YES” pass. Bentil’s catch and finish put the Friars up by 4 with 17.2 remaining in the overtime.

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  • This game had 8 ties and 17 lead changes. Once Providence settled down and eliminated Villanova’s 11 point lead, the game was back and forth and the lead never ballooned higher than 5. Providence led by 5 at the 12:13 mark of the second half after a sequence of two Cartwright layups, a pair of Lomomba free throws and a Dunn jumper accounted for an 8-0 run. 11 seconds after Dunn’s jumper extended Providence’s lead to 5, Kris Jenkins drilled a 3-pointer to bring the deficit back to 2. The game would go this way, back and forth, the entire 25 minutes of the second half and overtime. The next time anyone would have a lead of 5 would be when Providence led, 79-74, with 9 seconds left in overtime.
  • The game being moved to Sunday may have been a blessing from a TV audience perspective. I haven’t seen the ratings number as of this posting, but I got more random texts and tweets after this game from people I normally don’t hear from after Providence games than any other game this season. This was a game featured two of the Big East’s best teams and it lived up to the hype.

Watch a full game replay, courtesy of FriarTV:

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seFIZSXr1Eo&sns=em]

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Mike Hopkins

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