Providence finished the regular season in 4th place and finished the last 10 games of the season 5-5. St. John’s finished the regular season in 5th place and finished 8-2 in their last 10 games of the season. Providence and St. John’s were then scheduled to meet in the Quarterfinals of the Big East Tournament. If this sounds familiar, its because that’s what happened last season.
Continue reading Big East Tournament: Déjà Vu for Friars and Red Storm
St. John’s entered their game at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center 0-3 in the Big East and last in 3-point shooting. Neither of those things were immediately evident as the Red Storm started the game on fire from downtown. Behind an 8/13 (61.5%) performance from beyond the arc in the first 20 minutes St. John’s was able to force Ed Cooley’s team out of their zone defense and take a 42-30 lead into the locker room. Chris Obekpa only played 5 minutes in the first half due to foul trouble but it didn’t matter as Phil Greene IV 4/7 from deep and D’Angelo Harrison went 3/5 from 3-point range.
Continue reading Providence Friars Fall Flat at Home Against St. John’s, 83-70
Where: Dunkin’ Donuts Center – Providence, RI
When: 7:00pm
How: Fox Sports 1/WEEI 103.7 FM
Game Notes
Stat Review
In conference games this season, St. John’s is last in the Big East in FT Rate on offense (29.0) , likely because they seem to shoot so many jumpshots and “tough 2’s”. Also, the Johnnies give up the highest % of offensive rebounds in the conference (33.8%). They are the best at Turnover rate (20.2%), Block % (17.6% – nearly double the national avg), and Steal % (10.8%) though.
On the flipside, in conference games this season, Providence is leading the Big East in FT Rate on offense (47.3). The Friar offense pulls down the highest % of offensive rebounds in the conference (34.8%) and has the best Block rate (6.4%) and FT % (74.9%) in the Big East.
Game Preview
In the last matchup between these two teams on January 16th in Queens, PC got out to a fast start and then let St. John’s back into the game as the first half wore on. Ultimately, this would be a gutty performance by the entire squad but especially the man, the myth, the legend – Bryce Cotton. Cotton played all 50 minutes of that game including sinking the game winner in the 2nd overtime. Kadeem Batts played one of his better games of the year. He and Cotton worked the pick and roll nicely. Batts did most of his work on offense from the free throw line where he went 11/12. Hopefully Batts gets back to being aggressive and taking it hard to the rim because if he has another rough game, PC could very easily let this crucial home win slip away. There isn’t a ton of margin for error at this point in the season. The Friars need to take care of business at home, especially when they are nearly 5 point favorites.
Last game the group of Cotton, Batts, Henton and Harris accounted for 73 of PC’s 84 points or 87% of the scoring. Fortune and Desrosiers were the only other Friars to even score. Fortune’s only bucket, despite playing all 50 minutes, came just over 1 minute into the 1st overtime to tie the game at 72 and Desrosiers scored his 8 points in the first 35 minutes of the game but didn’t play much at all in either overtime session. It will be critical for the Friars to get production from at least 4 guys again tomorrow. I expect Cotton to put up around 20 points and Henton to put up around 15 points. After that, it’s kind of a mystery game to game. Harris played very well against DePaul on Saturday to rebound from a brutal game at Marquette on Thursday night. I think Harris will have another good game tomorrow and put up around 16 points. That gets PC to 51 points between those 3 players. Can Batts deliver 12-15 points? I believe he can and will. Fortune will try to do his best to slow down D’Angelo Harrison again but Harrison is playing much better lately as is the entire SJU team. Harrison led all scorers on Saturday with 27 points against Marquette. Chris Obekpa had 7 blocks against the Golden Eagles as well. This will be a different team than Providence saw less than 3 weeks ago. But it’s still a team coached by Steve Lavin and they haven’t really seemed to be able to get into any kind of rhythm on offense. They dribble the ball way too much and rely on guys like Harrison to create and hit tough shots. Many SJU fans complained about Lavin’s coaching during and after our game at Carnesseca and they had nothing but high praise for Ed Cooley.
The key to this game for the Friars will be to get Kadeem Batts involved early. In Providence’s 6 losses, Batts has averaged 7.5 ppg and only reached double digits once – the blowout loss against Villanova – when he scored 10 points in 27 minutes. In Providence’s 16 wins, Batts has averaged 13.8 ppg.
Prediction: St. John’s 65 Providence 67
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