The game started sloppy with both teams turning it over at a pretty high clip. The story early for Providence beyond the turnovers was starting point guard Jayden Pierre having to ask out of the game two separate times early on with what was later described by Kim English in his curt postgame press conference as “groin tightness”. Pierre apparently tweaked his groin during practice on Thursday. His status for Sunday’s game against Georgia is up in the air. Seemingly not up in the air is that freshman Garwey Dual will be suspended for Sunday’s consolation game because the referees deemed his ejection at the end of overtime to be for fighting which carries an automatic one game suspension. As of this writing nothing has been officially announced, but both English and Jerome Tang, who had Dai Dai Ames ejected in the scuffle, indicated the referees told them the ejections were for fighting.
With Pierre out of action for all but 5 early minutes of the first half, Providence struggled mightily to get going on offense. Their defense was keeping them in the game as they held Kansas State to just 29 first half points. The second half was more of the tight back and forth with the teams not separating much from each other. A 9-0 run that put the Friars up, 47-42, with just over 8 minutes to go in regulation looked to give some momentum to Providence, but Kansas State answered that with an 8-0 run of their own spanning 1:40 of game time and fueled largely by back-to-back triples from Tylor Perry — the second one resulting in a 4-point play after Devin Carter fouled Perry. The rest of the way it was never more than a one possession game. No one scored for the final 1:22 after Carter, who led the Friars with 19 points, tied things up at 57 by going 1/2 at the free throw line during a 1 and 1 situation. Carter appeared to be fouled by brief Friar Will McNair in the final seconds of regulation, but no whistles were blown by the zebra crew of Mike Roberts, Jamie Luckie and Darron George.
Kansas State ripped of 5 unanswered points to start overtime and Providence never recovered. The Friars were 4/12 from the field in the extra period, including 0/6 from 3-point range. The Wildcats were 4/5 and iced the game with 7/9 from the free throw line. Perry was 14/14 from the line on the night aiding a team effort of 23/27. Providence made just 17 of their 24 shots from the line which has been an ongoing issue through the first 4 games with their FT% of 66.7% ranking 239th nationally. While Carter’s scoring has been a welcome sight, Hopkins, who struggled to end last season, has yet to get going so far this season posting a season-long shooting performance of 13/49 (27%) with just 3 makes on 19 attempts from deep (16%) and 13 turnovers which is the second most on the team so far behind Carter’s 15. Hopkins and Carter, who are not primary ball handlers, are the only two Friars with double digit turnovers through 4 games of action.
Next Game
Providence faces Georgia on Sunday, November 19th, in the Baha Mar Bahamas Championship consolation game in Nassau, Bahamas on CBS Sports Network at 12pm ET.
