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.
This was one of the worst offensive games of the season, if not the worst. The teams combined for 33/120 shooting, good for a woeful 27.5% from the floor.
Kris Dunn hit the game-winner at the buzzer and the non-pretty nature of the shot clanking around the rim before dropping through was a microcosm of the offensive game from both teams. Dunn led all scorers with 20 points on 6/17 shooting. He added 8 rebounds and was 7/8 from the free throw line.
Ben Bentil got off to a slow start and went stretches where he wasn’t involved with the offense, but he had some critical baskets down the stretch and he and Dunn were the key cogs running the offense in the second half.
Drew Edwards is the Albert “Junior” Lomomba Unsung Hero of the night. Edwards only had 6 points and 2 rebounds, but he has some critical loose balls/rebounds that may go overlooked when looking at his box score.
Mo Watson was held largely in check by Dunn and the Friars. He got loose for a few field goals, but finished with just 9 points on 3/16 shooting. The 5’10 point guard did lead Creighton with 9 rebounds, though.
Ed Cooley traveled to Omaha on the team’s charter flight on Monday, but the Friar head coach has the flu. Cooley was so ill that he almost didn’t travel to Nebraska with the team. Friar fans were immediately reminded of February 7, 2015 when Cooley walked off the court at the beginning of the second half at Xavier and wound up spending a night in a Cincinnati hospital.
The Friars return to action on January 16th against Seton Hall at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center at 4:30pm EST. The game will be televised on Fox Sports 1.
This Thoughts from the Road: Standing Around in a Bar Edition is brought to you by Vince asking for the foul situation every few minutes and is fueled by boneless wings at Croxley’s Ale House in Farmingdale.
Providence started slow, clawed back into the game, went on a second half run to open up an 8-point lead and then went cold and allowed Marquette back into the game. That’s a pretty simple summary of the action in Providence’s game against Marquette on January 5th. It was another slow start for Ed Cooley’s group, as the Friars trailed, 7-0, 4+ minutes into the game before they scored their first basket at the 15:40 mark of the first half on a Kris Dunn layup. Prior to that, there were 4 turnovers and 5 missed field goals. Slow starts are going to be a lot harder to overcome in Big East play and with a fairly short rotation it will be asking a lot for Providence’s core players to expend energy every night coming back from early deficits.
This post will serve as the recap and Thoughts from the Road: Church Pew Edition. I attended a wedding during the game and was following the game tracker on my phone, during the mass — sorry I’m not sorry Bridget — and only got a chance to actually watch the game on New Year’s Day. Big thanks to FriarTVfor having the recap available at his site.
Kris Dunn returned to the court against UMass and he didn’t leave any clues that he hadn’t played in a game since December 9th. Dunn stuffed the stat sheet with 14 points, 11 assists and 6 rebounds in 24 minutes of action. Dunn got to the rim with ease, made a pair of 3-pointers and had a few highlight reel plays.
Ben Bentil had a big game as I predicted. Bentil set a new career high with 32 points, while notching his 3rd double-double of the season with 11 rebounds. He also had 2 vicious blocks. Bentil was very efficient shooting from the field and free throw line. He went 11/16 from the field, including 3/5 from 3-point range. He was also 7/9 from the line. Bentil’s 32 matches Dunn’s 32 from the season opener for the season high by a single Friar.
Jalen Lindsey scored the first 6 points of the night on two 3-pointers and would sink another from downtown. He also had another strong rebounding game with 8 boards.
Junior Lomomba had a very nice game with 11 points and 6 assists and he did a pretty god job guarding UMass’ high-scoring guards.
Rodney Bullock struggled with foul trouble and only played 5 minutes in the first half and didn’t score. Bullock did some scoring in the second half but he wasn’t really needed tonight. He finished with 8 points and 6 rebounds.
The Friars finish out the non-conference at 12-1, which is a great start to the season. They have a win over #8 Arizona on their non-conference resume and their only loss is to #1 Michigan State. Not a bad start for Ed Cooley’s bunch.
The 12-1 and 10th ranked Friars return to action next Thursday on the road as they open the Big East schedule at historic Hinkle Fieldhouse to take on the 9th ranked Butler Bulldogs on New Year’s Eve. That game tips at 2:30pm EST and is on CBSSN.
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