When PC took the floor against UVM Tuesday night it was certainly an opportunity to have a let down game. They were coming off two high energy games against Texas Tech and URI, with both games having a ton of fans in attendance. A hangover may have been inevitable; however, PC shut the door on those notions right away jumping out to a 11-0 lead to start the game. Despite a tough Catamount team keeping themselves in it throughout,PC won rather comfortably 68-58 to improve to 9-1 on the year. Let’s take a look at how it went down.
1.Battle of the Bigs- Who says the back to the basket big is dead? We had a great battle in this one between Nate Watson and UVM’s Ryan Davis. Watson absolutely domiNATEd in this one. He finished with 24 points on 10/12 from the floor. Watson continues to show insane efficiency for the Friars, and he’s not just taking all his shots around the rim. Watson only totaled 12 points in last week’s two wins, so it was good to see him bounce back. Davis wasn’t so bad himself, scoring 19 and grabbing 5 rebounds for the Catamounts.
2. Reeves Offensive Explosion- AJ Reeves was absolutely on fire from beyond the arc in this one. Reeves went 6/10 from deep en route to tying Watson with a game high 24 points. Reeves also showed his ability to attack the basket as well, scoring off a cut and nice feed from Watson and then scoring a nifty Euro in tradition off of an Al Durham block. In his last 4 games Reeves is averaging 13.5 ppg, if he can keep this up PC is going to be a tough out.
3. Rest of the Team ICE COLD- Nate Watson and AJ Reeves shot a combined to shoot 18/24, but the rest of the team struggled by going 6 of 28. The good news is the other guys did have contributions. Durham had 5 assists. Horchler, despite not scoring a single point, had 4 assists and 10 rebounds. Ed Crosswell and Justin Minaya combined for 11 rebounds and played stout defense. What I like about this team thus far is that it could be anyone with the big night scoring, but the guys who don’t have it going still contribute in other areas.
4. Friars Forcing Turnovers- Vermont is a well disciplined team, and they only turn the ball over 8 times a game. In this one the Friars were able to speed them up and double that number. PC seemed to show active hands throughout the night— getting deflections on many passes and stealing seven of them. It was the turnovers that really kept the Catamounts from ever making this one truly interesting.
On Tap
The Friars close out their non-conference schedule looking to go 10-1 with a matchup Saturday against Central Connecticut at 2pm (FS1). Perhaps they are ranked going into exam week, leading up to the Big East opener against UConn.