This Thoughts from the Road: Home Command Center Edition is brought to you by my shiny new home office and is fueled by the bacon and eggs I cooked up for dinner.

• While the headline doesn’t tell the entire story, it gets across the true takeaway from this game. Yes, it was ugly. Yes, Providence played poorly. But when the NCAA Selection Committee looks at Providence at the end of the year, this game at Creighton will be a road win. That’s it. A road win that helps Providence’s RPI because it counts as 1.4 wins. It’s really as simple as that.

• Kris Dunn hit the game-winning shot and led all scorers with 20 points. He did what was needed for Providence to win down the stretch, but he arguably played his worst career game before that. The only other game I can think of that was worse was the game at Kentucky last season when he had 10 turnovers, but even that game he was playing on a bum ankle that wasn’t 100%. Dunn’s game-winning shot plugging the back of the rim before rolling around a bit and dropping as time expired was a microcosm of the entire game last night. It was ugly. On the other side of the floor, Dunn was suffocating. Mo Watson had been playing excellent basketball for Creighton and Dunn’s size, length and quickness dominated the 5’10 point guard from Philadelphia. Ed Cooley also has to be happy that Dunn got over that free throw shooting slump that had been plaguing Dunn lately. He finished 7/8 at the free throw line on the night after being 13/24 at the stripe in Big East play entering the game.

• For both teams to shoot as horribly as they did was even more baffling when you go back and watch how many WIDE OPEN shots each team missed. I saw people on Twitter and even on TV saying how good the defenses were playing. I tend to disagree. It was bad offense last night that was the reason the team’s combined for 33/120 shooting.

• Ben Bentil had one of his more pedestrian games of the season. He finished with 13 points and 8 rebounds, which are solid numbers in a game where the winning team only scores 50 points. However, Bentil wasn’t nearly as involved in the offense as Providence needs. Bentil can’t go stretche without getting touches on offense and he certainly shouldn’t have to rely on grabbing offensive rebounds as his best source for getting an offensive touch.

• Bentil’s final line is the kind of line the Friars need to get from Rodney Bullock. Bullock managed 0 points on 1 rebound and was dealing with foul trouble after picking up 3 first half fouls. One issue for Bullock is that he doesn’t matchup well with Creighton’s frontline. That was also the case against Marquette. Bullock has proven he can be a solid scorer and grab rebounds, but, like Bentil, his best games come as a result of a beneficial offensive matchup. It feels like a long time ago that Bullock scored 25 points and grabbed 10 rebounds on the road at Butler, but he hasn’t lost that ability. Butler was a better matchup. Cooley and the coaching staff need to do a better job finding spots for Bullock to get involved. He has looked out of rhythm and out of sync lately and never seems to get into the game. Providence can’t afford that to happen if they have high hopes for this season.
• Drew Edwards was his usual scrappy self last night. The Friar freshmen was awarded with the Alber “Junior” Lomomba Unsung Hero of the Game Award after his gritty performance. Those key rebounds — one where he skyed above everyone in the middle of the lane to get Providence another offensive possession and the other where he was basically on ground and got up to be first to the ball — showed the kind of hard-nosed and smart player that Edwards already is as a freshman. His role should expand.

• Jalen Lindsey had a few nice plays last night that he deserves credit for. He finished with 5 points and 7 rebounds and it was 1 of those rebounds an 2 of those points that should be noted. Lindsey went up on the offensive glass and came down with a man’s rebound and a putback against Geoffrey Groselle was a key basket in Providence’s 12-5 run to tie the game at 43 with 4:29 remaining on a Bentil 3-pointer.

• Providence needs to figure out a way to discontinue these slow starts to games. Maybe the answer lies in a lineup change by inserting Ryan Fazekas — who played 14 minutes last night and looked much better than he did against Marquette — or even going back to the starting lineup that includes Dunn and Kyron Cartwright being out there together. Whatever the answer is, Ed Cooley needs to find it fast because Providence has a very tough stretch of their league schedule on the approaching horizon.

• If you want to torture your eyeballs and rip some more hair out, here is the full game replay, courtesy of FriarTV:

Follow me on Twitter @pcbb1917