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Big East Tournament 2024: Providence Advances to Semifinals with Thrilling Win Over Creighton

In what was Providence’s first time playing on Wednesday of the Big East Tournament since a disastrous loss against DePaul in the strange 2020-21 season, the first one since COVID-19 shut down the world as the 2020 Big East Tournament began action. That team went 13-13 overall in a season filled with cancelled and re-scheduled games. This team, Kim English’s first at the helm in Friartown, went 10-10 in Big East play and that eanred them the 7-seed in the Big East Tournament. After a third win over former Friar head coach Ed Cooley and Georgetown in the first round on Wednesday night, Providence faced a talented Creighton team that finished their Big East regular season 14-6 which got them the 2-seed in New York City. The energy inside Madison Square Garden was high. All three sessions of the Big East Tournament between Wednesday and Thursday were officially sellouts with 19,812 announced attendance for each one. The afternoon session saw two games that had tight and exciting first halves only to end in pull away blowouts. That was not the way this game played out between the Friars and Bluejays.

The first 5 or 6 minutes was controlled mainly by Creighton. The early whistles were not friendly to the Friars who were called for 4 fouls in the first 4 minutes which was a fact not lost on, nor ignored by Kim English. English had the largest reaction I’ve ever seen when the league’s Player of the Year, Devin Carter, was called for a foul on a 3-point attempt by Trey Alexander. English, who seemed to be letting a season’s worth of frustration with his star player not getting enough respect from the league’s referees, reacted aggressively and demonstrably to the decision. Initially, veteran official Pat Driscoll came right over to English to let him say his piece and let him know that wasn’t going to fly a second time. That was a professional referee understanding the moment and the magnitude of that moment at the Big East Tournament at MSG. Tony Chiazza was not as willing to give English some space to vent. Chiazza, widely known on college basketball social media as “the dancing ref” due to his over the top charge and block calls, gave English a technical after the first year Friar coach walked to the end of his bench and made another comment, seemingly to himself/his bench. Chiazza didn’t like that.

After Creighton made 5 free throws as a result of the shooting and technical fouls, Providence trailed, 13-6. It may have all been worth it because the Friars turned up the dial on defense and looked inspired by their coach’s passion. Carter got fouled shooting a 3-pointer next time down, made all 3 free throws and then Corey Floyd made the first of 2-straight triples to bring things close to even at 13-12 in favor of Creighton. Garwey Dual’s skying tip-in sparked a 12-0 run for Providence over the next 4 minutes to put Providence ahead, 29-20. Josh Oduro picked up his 2nd foul with 3:54 to go and that changed the momentum as the Bluejays would go on an 8-2 run from there to leave Providence up 3, 33-30, at halftime. Creighton shot a dismal 25.8% from the field in the first half but 11/11 from the free throw line, aided by a foul discrepancy of 9 against Providence vs 4 against the Bluejays, kept them within a possession.

The second half would see Ticket Gaines continue to be hampered by foul trouble, Oduro forced to the bench again due to foul trouble and some exciting offense by both teams. After a combined 21/65 shooting from both teams in the first half, the teams shot 30/63. Creighton did miss some free throws in the second half and finished the game going 23/26 at the line against a perfect 14/14 by the Friars. Providence came out of the locker room regaining the momentum they had before the final 4 minutes of the first half, stretching their lead from 3 to as many as 13 in the first 6 minutes of action. Providence would keep Creighton at arm’s length in the 8-12 range for much of the next 7 or so minutes until Creighton, again taking advantage of Oduro needing to sit with foul trouble, chipped away and took a lead, 64-63, with 5:37 to go. Jayden Pierre scored the next 7 for the Friars, offset by two buckets by Trey Alexander. The Pierre 3-pointer (points 5, 6 and 7 of that personal mini run) sparked a 7-0 run to put Providence back in control. Pierre scored 11 of his 15 points in the second half. He also led the Friars with 7 assists.

They would finish strong on defense, the key to their victory in the end, and close this one out to advance to their first Friday night, the semifinals, of the Big East Tournament since getting run off the floor by Creighton in 2022. This will be Providence’s 6th semifinal appearance since the 2013-14 realignment and they are the first 7-seed to advance to Friday night since Xavier in 2017.

Carter finished with a game-high 22 points and a team-high 11 rebounds for his 13th double-double of the season. Oduro scored 17 points and grabbed 9 rebounds in 30 minutes despite the foul trouble. Rich Barron’s 8 points were all big for momentum. He made a scooping layup on Big East Defensive Player of the Year Ryan Kalkbrenner and buried back-to-back triples during a scoring run. Rafael Castro wasn’t excellent in relief of Oduro, but he did enough to give Oduro some time to sit with the foul issues.

The Friars will play the winner of 3-seed Marquette and 6-seed Villanova being played as the final game of the night on Thursday. That game will be played on FS1 at 8pm ET.

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Mike Hopkins

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