One week into the 2024-25 season and Providence is 2-0. That’s good. But a look under the hood of that 2 win and 0 loss record leaves some things to be desired. Like…..not turning the ball over on more than 27% of possessions, for example. More on that in a bit. Two games against NEC opponents to start the season seem like just what the doctor ordered but not necessarily for all the reasons everyone may have though when the schedule was initially revealed this summer. A first week with some sub 225 ranked opponents in Kenpom followed by 3 teams currently ranked 313 and worse in Kenpom before heading to the Bahamas for Thanksgiving seems like it was a good idea for this team, but not just because they lost Devin Carter to the NBA lottery and Bryce Hopkins was unlikely to be ready for the start of the season. It turns out there would be many other nicks and bruises up and down the roster that prevented Kim English’s team from spending the quality time in practice that goes a very long way to integrating 9 scholarship players who didn’t play any games in a Providence uniform last season. A few of those guys were in Friartown (Anton Bonke, Justyn Fernandez and Eli DeLaurier) but injured and/or redshirting. The rest played high school basketball or for a different college this time last year. This is the sort of thing that impatient fans will look at as an excuse and they don’t want to hear it. I understand that point of view. The expectations for Providence College men’s basketball have been driving up a mountain the last few years. There have never been this many resources and facilities available to PC basketball than there are right now. The Friars have great on campus facilities — though I’ve noticed English lament a couple times recently that they don’t own the arena where they play and therefore don’t get as much time to practice there on non-gamedays as a result — to go with tremendous financial support both via NIL and direct Athletics fundraising and they have one of the better young coaches with a relentless and unending motor to get better and raise the bar on roster talent. There are a lot of great things going on at Providence today. That brings me back to…turnovers.
27.3% of possessions (346th at Kenpom) through two games have resulted in a turnover. Ugly. Couple that with a less than middling (read: bad) free throw percentage at 66.7% (217th at Kenpom) and you have some idea why Providence’s offense hasn’t looked great despite their 2-0 record. Game 1 against Central Connecticut, a team that went on to upset St. Joe’s on the road in their next game, was even less pretty on offense with just 59 points and 0.94 points per possession. The game against Stonehill on Saturday provided slightly better offensive numbers to the tune of 76 points and 1.06 points per possession. But those pesky turnovers were higher in game 2 (29.2% and 21 turnovers) than in game 1 (25.4 and 16 turnovers). Game 1 also only had 63 possessions while game 2 was a lot higher at 72.
Now that we’ve talked about the ugly turnovers and the bad free throw shooting, let’s end with some of the good through the first two regular season contest of the 2024-25 season. The defense has been good. Obviously the opponent’s capability on offense should be considered, but the Friars have been checking English’s pregame boxes for defensive success like holding the opponent under 40% shooting and allowing less than or equal to seven 3-pointers. Providence held Central Connecticut to 31% shooting on 0 made 3-pointers with 0.87 points per possession and Stonehill shot 32% from the field and made just 6 3-pointers for 0.68 points per possession. For reference, the 0.68 is by far the lowest number for English at Providence and they were only better or close to that 0.87 number 7 times last season with all of those being in the non-conference. The non-conference points per possession last season averaged 0.89 with a low of 0.74 in a shellacking of Wagner, 86-52 on November 28th. The worst points per possession in the non-conference a season ago of 1.03 came in their road loss, 72-51, at Oklahoma on December 5th. Providence’s offensive points per possession in that one was an ugly 0.73 and was far and away their worst offensive performance on a per possession basis in 2023-24.
More good. Everyone is healthy and Bryce Hopkins is “close” according to English in the postgame press conference after the Stonehill game. Hopkins is doing live stuff in practice and even played an impromptu game of 1 on 1 against English last week. Despite the lack of health causing the team to be “3 weeks behind” as English noted on Saturday, you can start to see how some of these pieces will fit once the season starts to hit it’s stride. Depth has been a word associated with this roster and that seems to be an accurate descriptor. It was unclear to me heading into the season just how deep this team would be in terms of actually productive depth pieces versus just having a lot of guys who could maybe play and not fall on their faces. Even with the first game lacking those garbage time minutes Providence has still played 15 guys so far with Eli DeLaurier and walk-ons Nilavan Daniels, Luke Fonts and Kieran O’Haire only seeing 1-2 minutes at the end of Saturday’s 27-point win (and cover!) against Stonehill. But others coming off the bench like Jabri Abdur-Rahim, Rich Barron, Justyn Fernandez and Ryan Mela have shown they can play at this level. The jury is still out on just how ready guys like Fernandez and Mela are for the 2024-25 season, but Barron proved himself to be a solid bench piece as a freshman a season ago and JAR operates like a professional out there (and with the media — really enjoyed his appearance on the Kim English Radio Show last week) and he feels like someone who could be a starter on this team at some point. Wesley Cardet has also shown signs of being very solid with the potential to be a gamechanger as he gets more comfortable both at this level of competition and playing for English with his style of less 1 on 1 (or 1 on 5 in the case of Cardet’s time at Chicago St) and more offense in the flow of the game with reads and taking what the defense gives you. He has already shown very well on the defensive side and could end up being Providence’s stopped along with Corey Floyd. Floyd’s shooting continues to be a challenge (1/9 from 3), but he’s played hard and is a proven and trusted piece at this point for English.
Notice I didn’t mention Christ Essandoko or Oswin Erhunmwunse. Essandoko figures to eventually be the starting center on this team, but as he returns from an injury and seemingly needs to get out of English’s doghouse a bit its been Oswin that has gotten the opening tip off the first two games. Essandoko has had flashes of his talent and monster size but those pesky turnovers (his current Turnover Rate through 2 games is 44.0) and free throws (1/4) have not been pretty. But he’s 7/10 from the field and he’ll likely be helped tremendously by the return of Hopkins as a frontcourt mate. Oswin will play and be productive because his athleticism is off the charts. I also think Essandoko isn’t built for playing the kind of minutes that his predecessor in Josh Oduro was at 30.2 minutes/game. If Essandoko settles into a solid role around 25 minutes/game and the other 15 are a mix of Oswin (maybe Bonke at times) and Hopkins as a small-ball center against certain teams I think that feels like a good place to land.
A player that I got more than 1,000 words into this Monday Mindset post before mentioning (a bad sign or just a bad writer?) is Jayden Pierre. Pierre was again on a minutes restriction against Stonehill after playing a bit more than what he was supposed to do against Central Connecticut as he returns from yet another groin injury (he missed 3, sort of 4 games last season due to a groin injury). Pierre is someone I’ve been outspoken about needing to take that expected leap if this team wants to avoid being bubbly and, even make a run to the second weekend or deeper in the NCAA Tournament. So far it’s been hard to spot that leap, but the groin injury and missing time in October practices leaves me willing to give him more time to get his feat under him. Pierre had a solid finish to last season and the hope was he’d use that to keep the momentum going. Bensley Joseph showed what he’s capable of with his game-high 21 points in game 1 but he also has had a 32.4 Turnover Rate with 5 giveaways coming against Stonehill. This team will be at it’s best when Joseph is a complementary piece who will occasionally explode for a big scoring game. Pierre needs to be the guy with the ball in his hands, certainly until Hopkins is back and ready to take on that mantel.
Two more games this week against poorly rated competition in Hampton (hello Ivan Thomas, the Providence restaurant scene welcomes you back with open arms even if the rest of Friartown isn’t as happy to see you) and Green Bay (Doug Gottlieb, the coach). More style points are needed in these games to not just win but win big AND (something they have yet to manage) efficiently.