Friar Basketball

Friars Look to Buck Recent History vs. Nova

Screen Shot 2020-02-27 at 2.53.48 PM Associated Press

When things were falling apart for Providence earlier this season and there were questions about Ed Cooley’s coaching acumen, I kept coming back to the fact that the 2018 Big East Championship game was not that long ago. It just didn’t seem likely that Cooley could have forgotten how to coach less than two years removed from an overtime loss to the eventual national champions from Villanova — a group starting four future NBA players, with a fifth coming off of the bench.

The 2018 Big East Tournament may have been the best coaching performance of Cooley’s Providence tenure. The Friars slid by Creighton in overtime in the quarterfinals, came back from 17 down to bounce #3 Xavier in the semis, and were a late stop in regulation away from upsetting a Villanova team that won each of its ensuing NCAA tournament games by double figures. All three of those games went to overtime in the ultimate thrill ride for Friartown.

Friar fans can be excused if they are sick of Villanova at this point. Since the Big East realigned prior to the 2013-14 season, PC is 2-15 against Nova. The Wildcats bounced Providence from the Big East Tournament in 2015, 2016, 2018, and 2019. PC supporters haven’t forgotten about either of these calls from the matchups in the Garden:

 

Both times Providence defeated Villanova in the past seven years Jay Wright’s team was ranked in the top five nationally. They were #4 when Ben Bentil went off for 31 points in a victory in Philly in 2016, and the Cats were #3 when PC picked up a badly-needed February win in 2018 behind a second half outburst from Rodney Bullock.

Wright’s 26 victories over Providence are his most against any opponent.

The Friars could go a long way toward cementing an NCAA tournament bid with a win at Villanova on Saturday afternoon. Nova has won five in a row in the series. In the most recent matchup at the Dunkin Donuts Center in January Villanova squeaked by with a 64-60 victory in a game in which Providence shot 31% from the field and missed 20 of its 23 attempts from 3-point range.

Nate Watson led three Friars in double figures with 18 points (David Duke and Luwane Pipkins each scored 11), as Cooley benched Alpha Diallo for much of the second half. Diallo finished without a point for the only time in the past two seasons.

Villanova’s dominance over the past decade isn’t exclusive to Providence, but seeing as how Nova has ended PC’s Big East Tournament runs in four of the past five seasons, a resume-boosting win at the hands of the Wildcats would hold extra significance.

Villanova is ranked 12th nationally, but doesn’t feel as invincible as Nova teams of the recent past. At 11-4 in the Big East, they sit a game behind Seton Hall for the best record in the conference (Creighton is also 11-4). The Wildcats are riding a five game win streak, first beating Marquette by a point before taking out Temple, DePaul, Xavier, and St. John’s.

Prior to this streak, Nova lost three consecutive conference games for the first time in seemingly forever. Two of those loses (Creighton and Seton Hall) came at home. The Cats hadn’t lost a Big East home game in nearly two years prior to falling to Creighton.

It is a tribute to the success of Villanova over the past decade that a 22-6 team that boasts a win over #1 Kansas seems more vulnerable. They feature two likely All Big East players in sophomore Saddiq Bey and point guard Collin Gillespie. Bey could make a strong case for the most improved player in the league. He is averaging over 16 points per game on 46% shooting from deep.

Center Jeremiah Robinson-Earl (10.5 points, 9.3 rebounds) should be a lock for the Big East’s newcomer of the year award, while Jermaine Samuels is a veteran who seems to save his makes for the biggest moments.

If not for Robinson-Earl, Justin Moore could make a case for the league’s best freshman. He is averaging over 11 points per game, while shooting 40.5% from 3-point range. He’s a crafty scorer who can find his way to the rim, or beat teams from deep. His 3-point shooting percentage jumps to 44% at home.

Providence comes into this one feeling good about themselves after controlling all of their 84-72 win over Marquette on Saturday. The Friars could not be any more squarely on the NCAA tournament bubble. While the widely held belief is that Providence will likely have to finish 2-1 to close out the regular season, then win one in MSG to secure a tournament bid, a road victory over Nova would obviously be a big time boost.

The Friars are winners of three straight, and five of their last seven games. They have also defeated the last four ranked teams they have faced. A win at Villanova would be their best of the season, and biggest since the Big East Tournament run of 2018.

 

3 Comments

  1. Irish Spectre

    February 28, 2020 at 2:22 pm

    The video clips depict EXACTLY what I hate about basketball, the sport that far more than any other major sport is affected by grossly subjective refereeing, including tons of anticipatory, phantom foul calls, and zebras that insist on making themselves part of the game down the stretch.

  2. rayi

    February 28, 2020 at 3:44 pm

    Those two clips, phantom calls. Some of the star players on good teams always get calls like that. I always liked the saying, no harm, no foul.

  3. Friar Realist

    February 29, 2020 at 7:04 am

    Can’t agree more with Irish Spectre. Refs try to balance out the number of fouls called on each team as a way of attempting to be fair. Often times it’s not the number, it’s on whom and when fouls are called that affect the outcome. I fear bad calls at Villanova, particularly against Diallo and Duke.

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