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.
Providence got off to a slow start and after coming back to go up by 8 in the second half, couldn’t put Marquette away. The Golden Eagles finished the game on a 15-6 run.
Ben Bentil was Providence’s main scoring cog, doing a lot of his damage at the free throw line where he went 10/10. Bentil finished with 28 points and 9 rebounds.
Kris Dunn played solid but had some critical turnovers and mental errors. He finished with 17 points, 7 assists and 5 rebounds.
Haanif Cheatham led Marquette with 16 points and appeared to be able to get to the rim at will against a Providence defense that clearly showed a lack of rim protection tonight against Marquette’s drives.
Henry Ellenson finished with 13 points and 10 rebounds, a few points shy of his average but right on the nose for rebounds. He had a big block to close things out.
Free throws for everyone not named Bentil were an issue and could have been the difference in the game. Dunn was 3/6 and Bullock was 1/2.
Bullock had a solid rebounding total at 9 boards but never seemed to get into any offensive rythym. He had 8 points on 3/11 from the field.
Duane Wilson hit the game-winner for the Golden Eagles on a tough drive where he finished through some contact from Bullock.
Marquette gets their first Big East win of the season and its on the road against the #8 team in the country.
Providence falls to 2-1 in league play.
The Friars return to action on January 12th against Creighton at the CenturyLink Center in Omaha at 8:30pm EST. The game will be televised on Fox Sports 1.
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