That was one of the most frustrating first halfs of basketball I’ve ever watched. 14 points is the worst half output since 2/5/02 when PC only put up 11 points in a half against UConn. It took PC nearly 13 minutes to reach double figures. The Friars also shot just 18% in the first half. As ugly as PC played, Marquette wasn’t exactly playing like a well oiled machine and as PC went on a 13-0 run in the 2nd half to get within 6, I remember looking up and realizing that Marquette had only scored 6 points in the first 9 minutes and change of the 2nd half. But PC just couldn’t get over the hump and come all the way back. The closest they would get was within 3 with 11:37 to go after Henton converted a 3 point play on an And 1. KMac did nail it though. https://twitter.com/KevinMcNamara33/status/429061973620178944   All around, no one on the Providence team played well tonight. Cotton scored 20 but had 5 turnovers and seemed to be rushing at times and also a bit out of control. He was not the only one as Harris only scored 3 points and had 5 turnovers against 0 assists. Henton scored 16 2nd half points after going scoreless in the 1st half. Batts looked out of sync all night. He was also on the ground a lot tonight and seemed very frustrated. This brings me to my next point – what the F were the refs looking at all night? This game had the feel of an old school Big East game where the players were allowed to commit 2nd degree assault on the court without hearing a whistle. It was that way on both ends of the court but it’s very frustrating when the emphasis all year has been on handchecking and allowing the offensive players to move freely with the ball and then you throw a wrench in things and allow the players to be all over each other and not even consider calling a foul. This is a different game if the refs are calling all the bumping and handchecking. One of the concerns I mentioned in my preview was that PC has struggled to shoot on the road and that they couldn’t afford to get down big early like they did at Villanova. Unfortunately that played out tonight and it wasn’t fun to watch. Additionally, PC had their worst free throw shooting game of the season going 10/17 (58%) including a rough 2/6 from Kadeem Batts. I was shocked to see that PC actually won the rebounding battle (40-37) because it seemed like Marquette was killing them on the glass in the 2nd half when PC was playing zone. All in all, the stats in the boxscore are pretty ugly for both teams but Marquette managed to fend off the PC run and do enough to pull out the win at home. PC really needs to rebound on Saturday at DePaul to split this road trip before returning to the Dunk on Tuesday to take on St. John’s who will be coming off a game against these Marquette Golden Eagles at Madison Square Garden on Saturday.