Providence is coming off a heartbreaker against Oklahoma, where a series of peculiar events almost led to the Friars stealing a victory at the buzzer against the Sooners. A deep three pointer back rimmed and missed for Pierre and now Providence needs to prepare for a game against Davidson. There is no opportunity to sulk about an opening tournament loss, and the Friars need to quickly bounce back. Providence now needs to go 1-0 today and salvage their Battle 4 Atlantis tournament appearance. A 2-1 finish is still absolutely in the cards.
Davidson was run off the court by a game Arizona squad 104-71. The athletes and size on the Wildcats made their presence felt. Davidson needs to play better or it could be another ugly game.
Below, we preview the keys to the game for Providence.
Prioritize Taking Care of the Basketball – Despite the loss, I thought Providence outplayed Oklahoma for about 30 minutes of the 40 minute game time. I came away from the game more optimistic than pessimistic about the Friars, to be honest. Yes, I’m sure that shocks some readers.
Unfortunately, those 10 other minutes still count, and the loss is squarely on the shoulders of Providence’s inability to take care of the basketball. Jayden Pierre, in particular, needs to tighten up his handle. While Oklahoma is a top tier ball pressure unit, many of Pierre’s turnovers were reckless in nature and not due to the efforts of Oklahoma. A lot of these turnovers led to run outs and easy buckets for Oklahoma. I actually thought PC played great defense, but the loose ball turnovers inflated the offensive output for Oklahoma.
Pierre is a junior and needs to play both better and smarter.
Davidson doesn’t have the defensive capabilities of Oklahoma or the athletes, so I’d imagine the turnovers dip significantly. This needs to be a tighter run operation, and this is something we’ve been saying since the inception of the English tenure at Providence. Let’s hope we see single digits turnovers today. That would be a good sign.
Play Downhill and Attack!
For somebody who has been screaming from the mountaintops to play bully ball, I actually loved our offense in the first half last night. Besides the early turnovers, the ball movement was crisp, and Providence was getting excellent looks from the floor. In the second half, PC deviated away from that plan, which was a bit of a head scratcher. I couldn’t tell if this pivot was due to halftime adjustments by an elite coach in Porter Moser or if we proactively adjusted the strategy. My guess is that it is the former.
Against Davidson, Providence has the athletic advantage and would be minimizing that advantage by playing around the perimeter. This could be another Cardet breakout game as he seems to be finding his niche in using his size and length to finish at the rim.
English should emphasize being the aggressor and taking it to the Davidson defense. Let’s force them to show they can defend us. Against Arizona, they showed they couldn’t. Arizona scored 104 despite only making 11 3’s. The Wildcats scored 56% from the floor as well. Coach Lloyd realized they could win this game handily through penetration and at the rim. Let’s replicate that.
This could be a get right game for the Friars offense.
Rotational Tweaks
We wrote about this briefly in the recap, but I’d like to see English prioritize getting Barron and Mela more burn in this one. JAR is a streaky player it appears, and he is on a cold streak right now. Barron and Mela offer a more complete skillset and should be getting more time. If JAR isn’t burying three’s, I’m not sure what value he is bringing on the court to the Friars.
Does Providence go back to a small ball line-up like we saw at the end of the first half? That’s another thing to watch.
Defense Returns
I think Providence will be an improved defensive unit over Arizona and make life even more difficult for Davidson. Davidson had 12 turnovers last night and average 11 on the season. Let’s see if Providence can play some tight defense and force Davidson to press a bit.
Prediction
BOC: Providence bounces back and wins 75 – 67. A happy Thanksgiving indeed.
BOC, two things that I think are important to talk about, the first is that the Friar’s opponent today was picked 12th in the Atlantic 10 pre-season poll. One position in back of URI. Makes a win today mean little to nothing in moving PC up the charts to where they will need to be. Don’t get me wrong, they pose a threat simply because the Friar’s are inconsistent at this point in the season. The second and most important thing left out of your preview is the elephant in the room. Will we finally see a completely healthy, playing well in practice Bryce Hopkins? Or is it tomorrow or maybe surprise, surprise a home game against BYU?