Different venue, same result for Friars
PC can't take advantage of 16-hour reprieve, as Pirates earn Big East win
PROVIDENCE — The home stretch of the regular season is here. Instead of surging, the Providence Friars are now straddling that bubble line.
Translation: Ed Cooley’s crew still has some work to do to feel completely safe about their NCAA Tournament prospects.
A two-day, two-venue Big East clash end- ed with the Friars failing to protect home court once again as Seton Hall grabbed an 89-77 victory at Alumni Hall on Thursday afternoon. The Pirates (19-9, 8-7 Big East) enjoyed a nine-point lead when the game resumed at high noon and succeeded in holding off a Providence squad that as expected fed off the energy of playing in its practice facility.
Now losers of two straight and three of the past four, the Friars closed to within one (59-58) after Kyron Cartwright drained a three-pointer with 8:50 left. From there, Khadeen Carrington and his Seton Hall mates took over and made all sorts of winning plays down the stretch. Providence’s inability to prevent Carrington from getting to the rim was glaring as the senior finished with 25 points on 8-of13 shooting and 8-of-8 at the foul line.
“The better team won today,” said a clearly disappointed Cooley. “You’ve got to tip your hat to Seton Hall. They did what they had to in order to get a win on the road.”
The loss is the second in three home games for the Friars, who like the Pirates are now 8-7 in league play. Seton Hall owns the head-to-head tiebreaker thanks to sweeping the season series. Wednesday-into-Thursday’s outcome means there’s now a huge logjam – three Big East teams with eight conference wins and seven losses with Creighton representing the third.
“It puts us in a tough spot and we’ve earned it. Any time you are home, you’ve got to try and control your home court and we haven’t done that in two of the past three home games. We’ve got to try and steal a couple on the road to try and become a NCAA team,” said Cooley. “It’s not the end of the season. There’s still another game on the schedule. I think the Big East is deserving of 5-6 [NCAA] bids and just we want to be one of those teams considered.”
Besides failing to come up with stops down the stretch, the Friars missed an alarmingly high number of free throws (10). Cartwright finished with 25 points and netted his 1,000th career point. Despite battling foul trouble that cost him seven minutes in the first half, the senior point guard was the only Providence player who was steady throughout. Rodney Bullock added 13 points while Alpha Diallo had 10 points and eight rebounds.
“He came out with a lot of purpose,” Cooley said about Cartwright. “He had a senior moment, but we needed more help defensively to get over the hump.”
Cooley stuck his neck out there when he bestowed Seton Hall with a first-place vote in the Big East Coaches’ Preseason Poll. He was the lone coach to show that much faith in Kevin Willard’s Pirates as everyone else awarded their vote to perennial power Villanova.
Despite losing senior Desi Rodriguez to ankle injury that proved to be one of the flash points in halting Wednesday’s game at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center, the Pirates persevered to shoot 54.7 percent for the game and 58.3 percent in the second stanza. The Friars have now allowed opponents to shoot 50 percent or better in three of the past four games.
Seton Hall looked the part of a NCAA team after the Friars’ 11-2 run brought the home team to within a single point and had the matinee Alumni Hall crowd thrusting for more. Ismael Sanogo (11 points) answered Cartwright’s triple with a make from deep. Before the Pirates knew it, they were up 10 (71-61) after Carrington completed a three-point play with six minutes left. Myles Powell complimented Carrington with 20 points while Angel Delgado had 14 points and 11 rebounds.
“Our mentality was that we wanted to come out like we were down. We didn’t want to come out relaxed,” said Willard. “(The Friars) played pretty darn good for the first three minutes [when the contest resumed], but we made some good plays down the stretch and that’s what it came down to.”
PC’s deficit remained at double digits with three minutes left and stood at 12 points with one minute left. The loss leaves the Friars in a tough spot with road games at Georgetown (tomorrow at noon) and fourth-ranked Xavier (next Wednesday night) before returning to The Dunk a week from this Saturday against St. John’s.
Naturally, the decision to halt Wednesday’s action at The Dunk due to slippery playing conditions was still on everyone’s mind on Thursday. Before the game was resumed, Providence College announced that it will distribute refunds and credits to season-ticket holders that can be applied to next season’s ticket package.
For example, if you have four season tickets in Section 122 worth $1,400 apiece, the average value of the ticket over an 18-game season is $77.78 per ticket. Therefore, you would receive a $311.11 credit towards 2018-19 tickets.
PC athletic director Bob Driscoll said members of the athletic department were at The Dunk as late as midnight on Wednesday and arrived at Alumni Hall just after 6 a.m. Thursday. Between creating emails explaining the school’s refund policy to making sure everything from the television side of things went off without a hitch, Driscoll was pleased with how everything came together under less-thanideal circumstances.
“It’s really a testament to how talented and hardworking we are. Even Kevin Willard came up to me and said, ‘You should be proud of your staff,’” said Driscoll “We talk about character being revealed during tough times. You can’t control the outcome, but you can control the environment.”