Game Notes & Preview: (23) Providence (19-7, 7-6) at (8) Xavier (22-3, 10-3) 2/17/16

Where: Cintas Center – Cincinnati, OH

When: 7:00pm EST

How: FS1 (Joe Davis & Steve Lavin)/WEEI 103.7 FM and Friars.com (John Rooke and Joe Hassett)/FriarTV

Game Notes

• Providence and Xavier will meet for the 9th time on Wednesday with the Musketeers leading the series, 5-3. The Friars are 0-4 in games played in Cincinnati. Providence fell to Xavier on January 26th at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center.
• Xavier is 22-3 (10-3) on the season. The Musketeers are led by Chris Mack, who is in his 7th season at the helm of the Xavier program. The Musketeers have swept Butler, DePaul, Marquette and St. John’s. Their 3 league losses were at Villanova, home against Georgetown and at Creighton. The Musketeers are led in scoring by sophomore Trevon Bluiett, who averages 15.0 points/game. Senior James Farr is the leading rebounder, averaging 8.4 rebounds/game.
• The Friars dropped to 23rd in the AP Poll this week and 20th in the USA Today Coaches’ Poll after losing at Marquette in double OT and beating Georgetown at home last week. This is the first time Providence has been ranked in the AP Poll for 12 straight weeks since the 1977-78 season.
• Kris Dunn is closing in on some career milestones. He recently became the 6th Friar to amass 500 career assists. Dunn went over the 1,000 point mark on January 30th against Georgetown on a spectacular finish at the rim. His 1,082 career points ranks 38th all-time at Providence and just 4 points behind Jim Benedict for 37th. Dunn also has 505 assists (6th all-time), 452 rebounds and 199 steals (6th all-time). Should Dunn get to the 1,000 points, 500 assists and 200 steals club, he would become the only player in school history to have accomplished all of those feats. 500 rebounds is also within his grasp. Dunn would have to average 9.6 rebounds/game over the final 5 games to do it in the regular season.
• Opening Line: (23) Providence +9.5 at Xavier 2/17/16

Game Preview

Providence and Xavier met on January 26th and the crowd that night at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center was one of the loudest and most raucous crowds I’ve ever heard. The reported attendance that night of 12,804 is 404 over the stated capacity of 12,400. The fans were lubed up and read to knock heads with 7th-ranked Xavier. The problem was that the players seemingly weren’t. Xavier opened the game on a 7-0 run over the first 2:33 of action. Providence did go on a run of their own to take a 13-7 lead 5:10 into the game, but the slow starting Friars can ill afford another slow start in a similarly raucous environment at the Cintas Center where the fans won’t be cheering after their scores. Providence is most likely an NCAA Tournament team for the third straight season, but there is still a whiff of uneasiness among the Friar faithful after a 2-4 stretch in the team’s last 6 games, including nearly blowing a 26 points lead against Georgetown — the team they beat twice during that 6 game stretch — last Saturday. A win on Wednesday night in Cincinnati would about lock Providence into the field of 68. In fact, all the Friars would have to do after beating Xavier on the road to lock up an RPI under 50* is beat the two worst teams in the league in DePaul — a game at home — and St. John’s — a game at MSG.

*Courtesy of the RPI Wizard at RPIForecast.com

The probable starters according to the game notes and prior box scores are:

Providence

• Kris Dunn – #3 – Junior
• Junior Lomomba – #32 – Junior
• Ryan Fazekas – #35 – Freshman
• Rodney Bullock – #5 – Sophomore
• Ben Bentil – #0 – Sophomore

Xavier

• Edmond Sumner  – #4 – Freshman
• Myles Davis – #15 – Junior
• Remy Abell – #10 – Senior
• Trevon Bluiett – #5 – Sophomore
• Jalen Reynolds – #1 – Junior

The keys to a Providence victory are:

1. Make some 3-pointers
2. Don’t fall in love with the 3-pointer
3. Keep Xavier from offensive rebounds

The first two keys might be a bit confusing. Allow me to explain what I mean. Xavier plays their pesky 1-3-1 defense that they installed last season against Providence and one of the goals of that defense is to force bad shooting teams to jack up 3-pointers. The Friars fell right into that trap last time these teams squared off with a whopping season-high 34 attempts from beyond the arc. Providence connected on just 7 of those attempts for a make percentage 21%.

The 1-3-1 has bothered the Friars and a great way to force Xavier to get out of it is to sink some of those 3-point attempts. The Friars do have to be careful to not jack up 3-pointers like the shot is going out of style, but if they made a few early ones — looking your way Ryan Fazekas — it would go a long way towards forcing Xavier to defend Providence with more normal means where Kris Dunn could flourish.

Providence has been a bit “Jekyll and Hyde” of late in a lot of parts of their game. One area that has stood out has been rebounding. The Friars dominated a bigger Georgetown team at the Verizon Center on the glass and then proceeded to get slaughtered by DePaul their next time out on the boards. Providence and Xavier were pretty even on the glass last time they squared off, but the Musketeers grabbed 12 offensive rebounds against the Friars. That’s way too many second and third chances that Providence will have a hard time offsetting with their lackadaisical offensive firepower. If Providence can repeat their performance of 19 offensive rebounds and keep Xavier in the single-digits in that stat, it will be an advantage for a team that needs all the help it can get on the offensive end.

There is an underlying key to victory that has been beaten to death all season long, especially in Big East play, that I feel the need to overtly mention here instead of having it just be something that everyone should already realize as a key to victory: Rodney Bullock. I know the narrative has been that Providence needs someone besides Kris Dunn and Ben Bentil to step up and I certainly agree. I’m taking it a step further from “someone” and I’m saying it needs to be Rodney Bullock. Bullock’s confidence level in the first half against Georgetown on Saturday was the best he’s showed in some time. If he is able to figure out a way to harness that level of confidence and play with it on a consistent basis, the Friars will be very dangerous as the calendar creeps closer and closer to March.

Prediction: Providence 69 Xavier 77

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Mike Hopkins

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