For the first time in 10 years the Providence College Friars are heading to the NCAA Tournament. And it won’t because they had to sweat out Selection Sunday. These Friars were on a mission. 3 games in 3 days. And a Big East Championship is heading back to Friartown for the first and only other time since 1994.
Bryce Cotton won the MVP but didn’t make the All-Tournament team somehow but Henton made the All-Tournament team.
How: Fox Sports 1 (Gus Johnson, Bill Raftery and Erin Andrews) /WEEI 103.7 FM (John Rooke and Joe Hassett)
Game Notes
The Friars and the Blue Jays have obviously never met in the Big East Tournament since this is Creighton’s first year of Big East membership.
LaDontae Henton picked a great time for a season high of 26 points yesterday in the semifinal win over Seton Hall. In 4 career Big East Tournament games, Henton has averaged 16 ppg and 10 rpg.
Bryce Cotton’s 10 assists last night came up just 1 short of the PC record for assists in a Big East Tournament game.
The Friars are 1-3 all time in the Big East Tournament against 2 seeds.
Bryce Cotton joins Friar great Ryan Gomes as the only two Friars to ever be named to the First Team All-Big East more than once.
Providence will be looking for win number 23 tonight. They haven’t won 23 games since they went 24-12 in 1997.
Line opened with Providence as a 7 point underdog. Kenpom sees the final score as 79-72 in favor of the Blue Jays. I’ll have game notes and a preview going up around 2pm today.
How: CBS Sports Network (Brent Stover and Pete Gillen) /WEEI 103.7 FM (John Rooke and Joe Hassett)
Game Notes
The Friars and Blue Jays have met 11 times all time. PC has a 7-4 edge in the series but before this season, the two teams hadn’t played since November 25, 2000.
Bryce Cotton leads the nation in minutes per game with 40.2. He is averaging a mind boggling 42.2 mpg in Big East contests. Anything less than overtime games is now “hurting” his average. Cotton needs 28 minutes tomorrow to break Billy Donovan’s single season record of minutes played (which Cotton already tied once, 1,234 minutes) and only 6 minutes to break the career record for minutes played of 4,128 held by Donnie McGrath. He also has a really good shot at the single season record for minutes played/game held by Jimmy Walker (39.7 mpg during 1966-1967 season). He is 10th in the nation in points per game at 21.7, 11th in the nation in total points scored at 651, T-17th in the nation in assists per game at 5.9 and T-7th in the nation in Free Throws made at 192. Cotton is now in 5th place all time on the PC scoring list with 1,863 career points in a Friar uniform. He surpassed the great Marvin Barnes for 5th all time by hitting a pair of free throws early against Marquette on Tuesday. He also is playing in his 126th game tomorrow which will break Dickey Simpkins record of 125 career games played as a Providence Friar. There are more records he is close to or may break but there just isn’t enough time in the day to list them all here.
Bryce Cotton is 2nd in the Big East in scoring (21.7 ppg) and Doug McDermott is 1st (25.9 ppg).
Bryce Cotton is 1st in the Big East in assists (5.9 apg) and Austin Chapman is 3rd (4.3 apg).
Kadeem Batts is 4th (7.6 rpg) and LaDontae Henton is 5th (7.3 rpg) in the Big East in rebounds while Doug McDermott is 6th (7.2 rpg).
On Tuesday night, Isaiah Briscoe announced that he is adding Providence and Gonzaga to his list which already includes Arizona, Baylor, UConn, Florida, Florida State, Indiana, Miami, Michigan, Ohio State, Pitt, Rutgers, Seton Hall, Syracuse, UCLA, UVA. Did the list give away that this kid is a special talent? He’s currently ranked as the 20th best player in the entire class of 2015 and the 7th best Shooting Guard in the class by ESPN and Briscoe is ranked 17th overall in the class by Rivals. He does have good enough ball skills to play PG at the next level but his primary value is as a scorer. Eric Bossi of Rivals called him “one of the most explosive scorers in the class of 2015.” Briscoe is listed at 6’3 and 200 lbs and ESPN says he “is physically ahead of his peers…already cut and powerful.” It’s interesting that PC is making a run for Briscoe since they are putting their full court press on 2015 SG Donovan Mitchell but a talent like Briscoe is a talent you can’t pass up on. Based on the quotes from Craig Belhumeur’s article, Briscoe doesn’t exactly seem that warm on PC.
Speaking of Craig’s article, the other PC recruit in that game on Wednesday night at St. Peter’s was 2014 PG Tarin Smith. I’ll continue to beat the drum for PC officially offering this kid. Hall of Fame coach, Bob Hurley, said that Smith is #1 in his class and has already been admitted to Penn and Princeton. In watching Smith play on SNY in the SNY Invitational last weekend, I came away thinking that he would be a great depth/prospect recruit to go along with Kris Dunn and maybe another guard or two that PC would look to bring in for the 2014 class.
Jalen Adams (2015) received an offer from Kansas this week after they watched him play at the Hoophall Classic in Springfield. In a recent Scout.com article, Adams said of the offer “I love it and [I’m] pumped that they are recruiting me and I want to get up there and check it out.” When asked which schools were recruiting him the hardest, Adams listed Uconn, Minnesota, Kansas and Creighton. It seems pretty clear PC is putting all their 2015 eggs in the Donovan Mitchell basket at the moment.
PC continues to be on the prowl for 2014 guards and a new name appeared this week in the form of a Canadian point guard – Kadeem Smithen
More on the 2014 guard front, PC watched Floridian combo guard Richard Lee who seems to have more interest than offers at the moment but the interest is from Northwestern, Alabama, George Mason, Murray State and Virginia Tech. He seems like the kind of guy who could solidify his status as the Spring goes on and teams become more desperate for the services of mid-high major type guards.
PC was out watching 2015 Shooting Guard Arkel Ager-Lamar of St. Joseph’s HS (Trumbull, CT) along with UConn. He transferred to St. Joe’s from Shaker Heights, Ohio and was only recently cleared to practice and play with the Cadets. The 6’6 wing plays his AAU ball with Expressions Elite. Ager-Lamar visited PC unofficially on October 23rd and has interest from a few other Big East programs including St. John’s and Creighton. He also attended UConn’s Midnight Madness the week before visiting PC ahead of theirs.
In other news, JaQuan Lyle is taking an official visit to Oregon this weekend. I wonder if he’ll discuss PC with Joe Young and Brandon Austin?
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