If you asked Providence fans if they’d consider the season success if the only information they were provided is that they’d go 3-0 against Ed Cooley and Georgetown, 99% of fans would say yes.
Providence defeated Georgetown for the third time this year, in a strikingly similar fashion to the other two games. The Friars started fast and maintained a 7-15 point lead throughout the majority of the game before ultimately winning 74-56. Georgetown is a down program right now, which is a conversation for a different day, but winning by double digits at Madison Square Garden against Ed Cooley after already beating his team twice already is no small feat. Just ask Villanova, who needed a game winning 3 to defeat DePaul.
The name of the game is “Survive and Advance”. Providence accomplished Step 1. Step 2 is beating Creighton. A Q1A neutral site win against Creighton, and Providence may place themselves on the right side of the bubble. There are a lot of moving pieces, but Providence still controls its destiny, and that is all you can ask for as a Friar fan.
We detail the Georgetown win and what Providence needs to do to defeat Creighton.
Revisiting Keys to Providence Making a Big East Tournament Run
Devin Carter Needs To Go Nuclear – Devin Carter, by his standards, had a below average game. He scored 19 points, but on 7-16 from the floor and 3-9 from deep. He still was on triple double watch with 9 rebounds and 6 assists. The nice thing is that Georgetown isn’t a great team, so Providence can survive without a stellar game from the Big East Player of the Year.
Carter needs to be more efficient and level up against Creighton if Providence is to have a chance.
Josh Oduro is the Robin to Carter’s Batman – Oduro was fantastic in this one, getting the frontcourt of Georgetown in foul trouble early. He finished with 20 points, 9 rebounds, and 3 assists on an efficient 5-10 from the floor.
If Providence is to defeat Creighton, Oduro needs to have a WHALE of a game against Kalkbrenner. If he can somehow get him in foul trouble early, it changes the entire dynamics. Conversely, he cannot get himself in foul trouble, which he has a habit of doing.
Third Scorer Has to Emerge From the Shadows – This was the most pleasing development from last night, with Ticket Gaines scoring 15 points on 4-7 from deep. While the offense did do its usual slumping, there was balanced scoring all around with the other two starters each scoring 7.
Creighton is so potent on offense that we almost need 4 of the starters to score in double digits. Providence doesn’t win tonight without eclipsing 75 points, in my opinion.
Hot Weekend from Deep – I drew a line in the sand and said Providence needs to go 37-40% from deep all weekend to have a chance. Well, they went 37.5% last night. Let’s see if they can replicate that again.
Find Their Footing on Defense – Holding Georgetown to 56 points was stellar by the Friars. Jayden Epps was terrific in this one, scoring 30 and often times scoring over our best defender in Carter. Providence held the Hoyas to under 30 in both halves.
4th Chance at Win to Get In: Do Friars Capitalize?- If you’ve been following along we’ve had three games down the stretch where we felt a win would get the Friars into the field. Those games were at Marquette and home to Villanova and UConn, PC squandered all three chances. Now they get another chance as a win over Creighton tonight should put them in the field. It would give them their 6th quad 1 win and they’d have 3 wins over teams currently ranked in the top-10 in the country. Oh and two of those will have come without Bryce Hopkins. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of game this one turns out to be. Will the Friars try to win in a track meet? It worked last time but took a Herculean effort from Carter and Oduro (60 points, 23 rebounds, 9 assists) plus an overtime session to do so. The Garden will be rocking with Friar fans, they need to seize the moment.
Enjoyed the read – thanks for sharing.