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Monday Mindset: The Bryce is Right
Bryce Hopkins…come on down! After a trip to the Bahamas it looked like Providence needed a vacation from the vacation as they came out in their one game last week on Friday against Lehigh as sluggish and lacking the intensity we’ve seen through their first 5 games. Maybe it was a day after Thanksgiving sluggishness, or maybe they didn’t get up for the Mountain Hawks after playing 3 straight against high major opponents. Whatever the reason for the effort being somewhat lacking, there was a big time positive with a breakout game from Bryce Hopkins. An offensive rating of 143 is the best such number for Hopkins in a Providence uniform. He had two games higher than that while at Kentucky, but they were both in short spurts off the bench totaling 25 minutes and 4/7 shooting. In the Lehigh game, Hopkins came out aggressively and, in addition to having an entry for the dunk of the year so far, he took the ball to the basket knowing that was a big advantage against the Patriot League squad. A final stat line of 10/16 shooting, 4/6 from the line to go with 14 rebounds was a dominant performance. Friar fans have to hope that gets Hopkins going as the schedule turns another team that is 250+ in Kenpom when Wagner comes to Friartown on Tuesday and looking ahead to closing out the week with the annual in-state rivalry game with URI on Saturday.
BRYCE HOPKINS🤯 pic.twitter.com/IgGBHMCxyt
— Providence MBB (@PCFriarsmbb) November 25, 2023
The other star of the Lehigh game was Josh Oduro. Oduro also had a size and strength advantage against the Mountain Hawks and took advantage early and often. Oduro has now scored in double figures in the last 5 games after only scoring 6 points in 21 minutes in the season opener. Oduro missed time this summer and in the preseason with an ankle injury. 29 points led the way for the Friars against Lehigh on 13/18 from the field and 2/2 from the free throw line. Providence needs Oduro to keep up this excellent play as Rafael Castro has been very up and down as Oduro’s backup. The Friars are thin in the front court and while Hopkins at the 5 is fun in theory and can be a thing in spurts, once league play arrives it will need to be mainly Oduro manning that spot and getting almost all of those minutes unless Castro can show some more consistency over the next few weeks.
Oduro lays it in, giving him 20 points on the evening pic.twitter.com/WAS5uzVw0b
— Providence MBB (@PCFriarsmbb) November 25, 2023
Garwey Dual returned from his one game suspension for a fighting ejection against Kansas State in the Bahamas and was right back in the starting lineup with Jayden Pierre still out with a hamstring injury. After Hopkins and Oduro, no one else really played very well. Dual is a freshman, so he can be forgiven if he doesn’t have great games every time out, but Devin Carter had one of his worst games in a Friar uniform. While Carter has gotten off to a fast start scoring the ball, his turnover numbers are alarming with 4 in this game to add to his season total that now sits at 22 through 6 games, or 3.7 per game.
While the 5-1 record is certainly welcome among fans, there is another side to the coin these days in a world full of analytics that go into things like the NCAA’s new metric, the NET rating. Providence beat Lehigh handily and it never felt like the game was in doubt. Per Kenpom, the minimum win probability for Providence was 95.2% when they were down, 13-12, with 12:29 to go in the first half. But these games against likely Tier 3/4 type teams require absolute blowouts to boost the metrics that go in to making a team’s NET rating better. While the NCAA Selection Committee hasn’t taken the NET as a gospel for who gets into the NCAA Tournament and who doesn’t like some may have viewed the prior metric, the RPI, they have been using the NET as a sorting tool and every team wants to be as close to the top of the sorting list as possible for seeding purposes come the second week of March. You may see more about analytics on this site from another contributor this week. He’s far better suited (and much more passionate) to explain all of that in depth than I am, so keep an eye out for that.
Wagner already played and lost to URI, 69-53, at the Ryan Center a couple weeks ago and the Seahawks were handled with ease by Seton Hall at the Prudential Center later that week. The Friars should physically overpower Wagner in Tuesday’s game and I’ll be looking more for collective team energy, intensity and seeing if they can cut down on turnovers. The weekend matchup with URI is always an interesting one because it often doesn’t matter if one team is good or bad as a rivalry game manages to find a way to have intensity and a close margin much of the time. The Fighting Archie Miller’s are off to a 5-2 start on the 275th toughest non-conference schedule with one of those 5 wins coming against a team with a Kenpom rating of 85 (Yale) and losses on a neutral court to Northwestern (60) and Washington State (58) in their recent MTE the weekend before Thanksgiving. Also, one of their wins came against Division 3 Johnson & Wales last week. The other wins are against Central Connecticut (330), Fairfield (298) and Wagner (296). The matchup with Providence will be URI’s first road game of the season.
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