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.
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.
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