Providence drops to 5-3 and 1-1 in Big East play with an ugly loss to Butler 70-64.
Reactions to Game
Providence Horrendous from 3: Providence went 4-26 from 3. In Providence’s 3 losses, they’ve gone 4-26, 5-23, and 3-17. Bottom line is this team isn’t a three point shooting team. They should know this by now and stop chucking up so many three point attempts.
Lack of Touches for Nate: This may seem like an odd take at first, given Watson scored 19. Look at his attempts and he went 9-12 from the field. He was scoring with ease when he got touches, and you can argue he should have put up about 5-10 more attempts. With the team not being able to hit anything from the perimeter, it is on the guards to get him the ball and frankly on Cooley to mandate Watson gets a touch almost every possession.
No Third Option: Watson and Duke scored 36 points total, but nobody else showed up for the Friars. The three other starters combined for 9 points, with Reeves notably going 1-10 from the field and 0-7 for 3 (sidenote: so much for my prediction that the Seton Hall 3 would ignite Reeves). It’s fine to lean on Duke and Watson to carry most of the load, but somebody else really needs to step up and be that third option. It’s too much to ask of Watson/Duke to put up 40+ combined every night. Contrast that with Butler, who had 5 players score in double figures.
In summary, this is a brutal loss and opportunity missed for the Friars. Butler was without Thompson, and the Friars next two games are against DePaul and this same Butler squad. It had a clear path to start 4-0 in the Big East potentially, but this one slipped away.
Friars play DePaul Sunday 4:30 on FS1.
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