PC’s Cotton, UNC’s Paige match up,
Providence, UNC guards like mirror images
SAN ANTONIO Of all the intrigu ing individual matchups in this weekend’s NCAA tournament, expect today’s showdown at AT&T Center between Providence’s Bryce Cotton and North Carolina’s Marcus Paige to be the most compelling.
Both are quicksilver 6-1 guards who can shoot, score and dish out assists with ease. If you want to search for differences between the two offensive catalysts, good luck. Granted, Paige is left-handed and weighs all of 10 pounds more than Cotton, but they are close to mirror images of each other on the floor.
They also both play an inordinate amount of minutes, though Paige said he noticed this week that Cotton logs even more minutes than he does.
As much as Paige plays — 35.6 minutes a game, more than any other UNC player in the Roy Williams era — he was impressed to see that Cotton plays even more: 39.9 a game. The senior leads the nation in minutes played.
“I thought I played a lot of minutes until I started looking at his stats,” Paige said, “and seeing how many minutes he played this season and how he’s able to still be effective the entire game despite playing that many minutes.”
Paige, who averages 17.4 points and 4.3 assists, is the only player to rank in the top five in the Atlantic Coast Conference in scoring and assists.
He has scored 20 or more points in the second half three times this season.
Cotton, the most outstanding player of the Big East tournament, averages 21.4 points and 5.8 assists, which led the Big East. Coach Ed Cooley called Cotton his ironman because of his ability to play so many minutes for a team that depends so heavily on its starting lineup.
Cooley said the coaching staff never thinks of taking Cotton out of games and that lengthy television timeouts help Cotton get a breather every few minutes.
“I still think he is the most undervalued kid in all of American college basketball,” Cooley said. “I think he’s an elite-level guard. … What kids really do want to come out (of games)? They don’t want to come out. I told them, ‘Come out when you retire. Other than that, don’t look at the bench, because you are not coming out.’ ”
When asked how he combats fatigue in games, Cotton said, “Basically our team has had to endure this for three straight years, and we’ve always had a short roster. … We do a good job training our bodies throughout the preseason.”
It was Paige, though, who got banged up during the ACC tournament, suffering a thigh bruise in the first few minutes of the second half against Pittsburgh. But he said Thursday that his thigh is close to 100% and he would probably wear a pad to keep from having it hit.
He will need to be fully mobile today, when he likely will guard Cotton for much of the game. Williams said Paige does not get enough credit defensively and that he might have won the team’s defensive player of the game more than any point guard he has ever had. Paige will have a lot of responsibilities today.
“So he does have a load offensively,” Williams said. “And he does have a load handling the basketball. He does have a load on defense. He does have a load in the leadership thing. But he is really, really good defensively.”
How the clash between the two dynamic guards unfolds will play a large role in determining whether No. 11 Providence (23-11) can upset No. 6 North Carolina (23-9) in the second-round East Region game.
“It’s going to be a fun matchup,” Paige said, “and I look forward to playing someone as coveted as he is.”