Three games into the college basketball season the Providence Friars have played some excellent defense. Unfortunately, their offense, especially in the last two games, has struggled. Through three games the Friars are only averaging 73 points per game and two of the opponents were ranked outside the top 300 in overall efficiency per KenPom. As of this writing the Friars rank 29th in defensive efficiency but 88th in offensive efficiency in KenPom’s rankings. In two exhibitions against ACC opponents the Friars averaged 94 points per game.
This has caused the online discourse amongst Friar fans to reach panic levels. Even though the Friars have dealt with a slew of injuries that have caused constant lineup shuffling the fans see this as an excuse. Bryan Hodgson isn’t using it as an excuse either. After the Bryant game, he said they were short a few bodies but that it’s no excuse, and the roster has enough talent to absorb some injuries. However, there is one big fact that the fans seem to be neglecting when being concerned about the offense.
The Friars have only gotten 13 minutes out of their centers this year!
In the opener against Maine starting center Arrinten Page suffered a knee sprain limiting him to only six minutes played and has missed the previous two games against Nebraska and Bryant. Backup center Samson Aletan only played seven minutes against Maine and committed four fouls. Against Nebraska Aletan was a DNP-Coach’s Decision and Hodgson admitted that while he didn’t love the matchup against the Cornhuskers he regretted that decision to not at least give him a shot, considering they didn’t get much out of the 5-spot. Then against Bryant Aletan had an illness the day before the game and the team elected him to stay home and rest while the team played the Bulldogs. Jacob Bannarbie has done an admirable job filling in averaging 9.7 ppg (100% FG) and 7 rpg but he isn’t a center.
You may ask yourself if the staff doesn’t use their bigs as back to the basket post-up options why does this matter? The big men matter in the offense because they set screens and create spacing. Arrinten Page is a unique talent, at 6’11”, 245 lbs Page has guard skills in a big man package. He can also shoot the ball. In the exhibition against Pitt Page was 6/10 from the floor and 4/8 from three scoring 14-points. Page is both useful in the pick-and-roll and pick-and-pop situations. Aletan, while maybe not possessing the offensive skillset of Page is another big body who can be useful in pick-and-roll.
Watching the Nebraska game again the screen game was pretty weak to non-existent as most of the screens set were either brush screens or ghost screens. In the postgame press conference Hodgson said they game planned for Nebraska double teaming the ball handler on screens to have short rolls to the basket but for whatever reason that rarely happened. On top of that Nebraska employed a matchup zone during stretches of the game that PC really struggled solving. It would have been helpful to have more size in the lineup to attack that.
Getting their two centers back in the lineup should help them offensively. It will help their vertical spacing and make PC a tougher cover on pick-and-roll and pick-and-pop coverages. Also having Page and Aletan as lob threats should also help for some easy baskets. The offensive struggles aren’t solely on missing your centers however. PC also needs to take better care of the basketball as they turned it over 34 times in their last two games. Also, the adjustment to playing a much faster pace than most of the roster is accustomed to may take some time.
While fan sentiments have a concerning tone regarding if PC’s offense can be good enough to be in the top half of the Big East or earn a tournament berth let’s just see what they look like when they can actually play centers. Hopefully that starts Saturday against Colorado.
Go Friars!
Leave a Reply