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.
The first half of Sunday’s game in front of a sellout crowd at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center felt fairly comfortable. The first few minutes of the second half made things even more comfortable as Providence got out to a 24 point lead with 13:15 to go. The game seemed well in hand. Matt Carlino started the comeback by chipping away at that 24 point deficit.
Now it makes sense why other guys started to “withdraw” their names from consideration last night. They were trying to save face because they were likely informed Marquette had made a decision and it wasn’t them. I’m initially happy with this hire because he’s a “name” coach even as an assistant at Duke. But thinking about this long term, I’m a bit concerned he isn’t long for this job. He has widely been known to be the “coach in waiting” at Duke once Coack K decides to call it a career but that might not be for another 5 years according to Coach K himself. Marquette fans have been talking about how they don’t want their coaching position to be a stepping stone. Well they might have just hired a coach who sees this job as jus that.
For Wojciechowski this makes a lot of sense. He will go to a school with huge backing for the basketball program. He’ll get a nice pay increase and he will get some head coaching experience. Obviously there is a risk involved that he could fall flat on his face and then maybe his chances of heading back to Duke in a few years takes a hit but I have a feeling he will be successful. The issue for Marquette will be that they might have to go through another coaching search in 3-5 years if and when the Duke job opens up. But for now, I like this hire and think he will be successful. I also wouldn’t be surprised to see some of the recruits stick around now. To me, this is a better move than a Ben Howland and I’m sure we will see some floor slapping going on at Marquette now.
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