Postgame: WhoConn???

After an atrocious loss on Saturday night at the Dunk, the Friars regrouped and were able to knockoff #19 Connecticut by a score of 81 to 66.  After falling down by as much as ten in the first half, the Friars were able to rally and went into the locker room leading by one.  The second half was close and the teams exchanged leads at one time, but Providence built upon their half time lead and stretch things out to as much as 18 at one time.  The Friars were led in scoring by Greedy Peterson who netted 23 points in yet another double double performance.  Bilal Dixon also had a double double and after scoring no points in the first half Sharuad Curry tallied 18 in the second.  UConn had two players score 17 in Gavin Edwards and Kemba Walker.  Walker played an outstanding game, but senior leader Jerome Dyson was not much of a factor.  With the loss UConn drops to 3-4 in the BIG EAST.  They will next take on Marquette.  With the win the Friars improve to 4-4 in league play and will travel out to Ohio to play Cincinnati in their next contest.

Going into this game we weren’t expecting too much, especially after what happened against USF on Saturday.  In the pregame we asked that we just see inspired basketball. That meant hitting the boards like never before, beating UConn on every hustle play, not taking a single play off, and most importantly an intensity on defense unlike anything we have seen from our guys this year.  We are happy to say that we got it!  By no means did we shoot the ball particularly well, but it turns out when you play defense and do the other small things you don’t always have to… how about that.

For people who were at the game, the environment was great.  It has been slow going this year so far, but the students came out for the big game and had a positive impact.  There are few things better than Greedy throwing down a put back on a PC run and having UConn call a 30 second time out, which happens to be just enough time to Fist Pump Jersey Shore Style to Sandstorm.  Speaking of Jersey shore, the large head cut-outs of Snooki and Pauly D. could have only helped our cause.  We also enjoyed the Tiger Woods head.

Back to the game though.  You look at UConn and no doubt about it they are intimidating.  They have great height and athleticism, and have NBA talent in Dyson, Walker, and Robinson.  But that never deterred the Friars.  Even with the height difference Providence played well inside.  In the first half it seemed like we were more likely to get out shots blocked by Ater Majok than to get any sort of rebound, but in the second half we owned the boards.  We wound up out-rebounding the Huskies 46 to 35 and pulled down 17 offensive boards in the process.  Hats off to Greedy and Bilal… and VC for taking control of the glass.

We also saw some defensive intensity.  Sure we got beat down the court a few many times.  Or gave up way too easy alley-oops, and maybe were caught a little out of position on small plays, or looked flat just a few times, but those were the exceptions this game which is a good thing.  There was such a noticeable change in the intensity and the effort the team put forth.  It was just great to see.  We blew it against USF, no doubt about it, but we responded as good as we possibly could have.  And that was great to see, and says a lot about this young team and Coach Keno.  And we aren’t so sure we would have beat UConn had we not lost to USF.  Maybe not though.

But it was a great game to watch, especially because we won, and it was a great atmosphere.  The team showed resilience and it is always nice to beat our neighbors in UConn.  This makes it four out of the last five or something like that.  We don’t know what it is, but we just play well against them.  Maybe Providence really is the  bain of UConn athletics.  Probably not, but its always nice to beat them on a consistent basis.

PFB Player of the Game: Greedy Peterson- We know VC had a great game.  No doubt about it.  And we know people are getting numb to Greedy’s double doubles.  But we liked Greedy in this game for a few reasons.  His work on the boards was essential.  14 rebounds is huge.  And his timing in this game was great.  He got something done when we needed.  Whether it be is first half semi-dunk when fans had nothing to cheer about, or his timely three when we were down, or his monster follow on a fast break miss that sent the crowd into an eruption as UConn had to call a time out, or retrieving a Curry air ball to put it in for a dunk, Greedy came up big.  Greedy is exciting and gets the fans into the game, which can not be underestimated.  We are taking nothing away from VC, who filled up the stat sheet with seven rebounds, eight assists, and four steals (he did have 5 turnovers).  Greedy beat or tied him in most statistics and only had one turnover, but the way VC pushed up the ball and looked in control out there was great.  But we thought Greedy with his 23 points, 14 points, three assists, and four steals was the key… but this is the closest we have come to giving a co-player of the game.

Links:

Friars.com

Men’s Basketball Upsets No. 19/19 Connecticut, 81-66

ProJo.com

Friars bounce back with flair, top UConn, 81 to 66

Friars Journal: Council forgets bad night, comes up big

Friarblog

Friars Can Ger 700 Miles to the Gallon on this Hog [Game Recaps]

UCHuskies Blog

Sad effort does in Huskies

UConn Huskies Basketball Blog

Chopping Block

Postgame: Providence Wins Shootout with GW

Providence (6-3) won what turned put to be an offensive shootout over the George Washington University Colonials (6-2) last night, 110-97.  The Friars shot just over 50% from the field and GW shot just under.  PC also struck 16 times from behind the arc also shooting above 50%.  Providence used double digit performances from 6 players to amass their 110 point total.  Marshon Brooks led the way with 19, but Sharaud Curry, Vincent Council, Brian McKenzie, Bilal Dixon, and Greedy Peterson all saw double figures in their scoring columns.  The Colonials were led by the play of standout senior Damian Hollis‘ 21 points and freshman Lasan Kromah‘s 22 points.

Let’s get right into things with the positives.  First, is that we won.  Always a positive when that happens.  With the win PC improves to 2-2 on the road in their OOC schedule.  Sure it could have been 4-0, but for a young team 2-2 is nothing to hang your head about.  The team was unable to really put the Colonials away, but maybe their experience in all of the close games they have had this year helped as they were able to at least keep GW at a reasonably safe distance heading into the home stretch.  Another positive was the team effort.  We listened to the postgame show on WEEI and Bilal was talking about how they were making the extra pass this game.  It was clear that they were.  They ran through their plays and didn’t take the first shot that came to them, instead waiting for the better shot to develop.  The results were some very open three pointers that PC was able to connect with.  The team effort led to an incredibly balanced scoring attack, reminiscent of last year when 5 players were averaging double figures.  We are not good enough this year to rely on a couple of guys to get 25 points and lead us to a win.  We have seen what happens when one of the players we  expect to get over 20 points has a bad night… we lose.  If we can have nights like last night when you have 5 or 6 players right around the 15 point mark is when we will be at our best.  Opposing teams will not be able to just focus on Marshon and take him out of the game.  We will be able to keep them honest because we will have scoring threats all over the court.  This doesn’t mean we will beat the BIG EAST teams that we play, we are just saying that a team where every player on the court is a potential threat to score on any given play is a good team to have.

Individually it is difficult to say who was the standout (but we will for the PFB Player of the Game) because offensively it was so balanced.  The people we would really like to mention, however, are Bilal Dixon and B-Mac.  Congratulations to Bilal who scored a new career high with 18 points.  He helped out on the glass and, in the first half at least, stayed out of foul trouble.  That actually was probably the most surprising part of the first half.  Bilal wasn’t fouling anybody.  Of course he did tally up 4 PFs before the game finished but he was available for the majority of the game.  And when he is in the game and not in foul trouble he can be a very productive player, as was seen last night.  The other nice performance was from B-Mac.  People have been very hard on B-Mac, and probably rightfully so.  This is where we stand on the whole B-Mac thing: B-Mac is a senior who has been through the BIG EAST.  On this team we don’t have many other people like him in that regard.  He has had some not so great games, but we do not have a problem with him starting.  We feel that he should be starting.  He has the potential to have good games like he did last night.  He also has the potential to disappear like he has for most of this season, in which case you sit him down on those nights.  It seems like he might be finding his three again, and with his size, athleticism, and experience we would very much like him to get his game together before the BE starts.  It is the OOC, so if there is a time to maybe over play him a little and give him a little bit of an extra chance now is that time.  But like we said, on nights he just isn’t bringing it sit him down and give Kyle Wright a shot.  If we can get about 10 points out of B-Mac a night that would be really good… 17 is great.  We aren’t hopping on the B-Mac train after two good games (both of which came recently and on the road), but we are definitely not leaving him behind.  He has the potential to be a great asset for us if he can get things together.

Alright, quickly the negatives.  97 points.  In the post game interview Keno joked that “we held them to 97,” which after a win is fine, but if we had lost this game and given up that many points it clearly would not be funny.  Early on PC had some really solid defensive performances.  We know that we were kind of blitzed by the GW speed and their press break, and they were almost equally has hot shooting the ball, but we need to buckle down a little.  Against better teams this kind of shootout might go the other way.  So a little added D will go a a long way.  But this was the 3rd game in 7 days and there was only one day in between Brown and GW, half of which was spent in transit.  The other problem was the boards.  They beat us on the offensive glass.  We don’t like the thought of giving up 24 offensive rebounds… too many second chances.  That said, interestingly enough 10 of the GW rebounds came from what shows up in the stat sheet as “team,” as Coach Keno Davis pointed out in the postgame show.  That is after a missed  the ball carries out of bounds with and possession went to GW.  ”Team” was their leading rebounder for the game.  So take that away and we still got them.

So all in all an exciting game with a lot of positives (besides the 97 points scored by GW).  We will need another strong offensive game if we are going to beat the Iona Gaels this Saturday in the last game before finals break.  The Gaels are a dangerous team but we will have more about them later.  Good win on the road for a young Friars team.

PFB Player of the Game: Sharuad Curry- we were going to give it to the PC Offense but we like to limit it to one person a game.  There were many guys who had great games, but we really liked what Sharuad did.  Like Greedy, Sharaud posted a double-double, except his double-double was 17 points and a ridiculous 13 assists.  It is really great when you can create 17 points worth of baskets for yourself and 13 other baskets for your teammates.  Oh and Sharaud also got into the mix with a very solid 5 rebounds.  Solid game from Sharaud.

Links:

Friars.com

Men’s Basketball Wins at George Washington, 110-97

ProJo.com

An NBA Game Breaks Out and the Friars have more Firepower

Friarblog

Friars Win with RIDICULOUS!… Offensive Performance [Game Recaps]

The State of Friars Basketball

Friars visit DC to take on Colonials

The Truth About PC Basketball

Friars make it rain on GW

ESPN.com

AP Write-Up and Game Statistics

Postgame: PC takes care of Bryant

The 2009-2010 season opened up for the Friars last night with a 96 to 53 blowout win over the Bryant University Bulldogs.  The game was decided about midway through the first half when the Friars had already doubled the Bulldogs’ score.  PC out-shot Bryant and out-rebounded then 52 to 29.  Greedy Peterson led the way for the Friars with 18 points and three blocks, while Bilal Dixon also had a great performance with 16 points and 11 blocks.  The rest of the team also came to play with everybody putting up points.

More impressive than the Friars offense was their defense.  PC’s uptempo pace led to 21 turnovers from the Bulldogs, which led to 30 PC points.  Keno Davis had this to say to the ProJo:

“I’m really pleased with our team’s intensity coming out to start the game and pretty much throughout the game.  It was really by far another level what we brought right from the tip in the halfcourt defense.”

Sharaud Curry told the ProJo this:

“Defensively we looked good.  This was a good step but it’s still the first game. We have to do it over a long period of time before we can say that we’re a better defensive team. This was a great step towards that but we have to keep doing it the whole season.”

A couple things, all good…  First we were happy to see the intensity the Friars came out with from the opening tip.  It was an intensity that was not seen in the early season last year.  We think that there are a lot of new guys on the team just itching to finally play, and it showed it a great way last night.  The team looked fresh, athletics, and spirited.  Hopefully this keeps up.

Second was the play of Greedy Peterson.  Once again Greedy had a really good game.  It was easy to forget in his year off how much raw talent he had.  It seems as though his redshirt year really benefited him as he has refined his skills and become a real threat on this team.  In addition it is good to see what Bilal Dixon can do out on the floor.  So far he is looking very good, which is a good sign for the team given the concerns about the frontcourt.

Third was the night Brain McKenzie had.  Brian has seemed to be getting lost in the shuffle.  He had an down season last year and is being pushed by the freshmen and transfers this year.  But like Sharaud, Brian is a veteran on this team that lacks experience and it was good to see him produce while he is out there, because as a veteran we will really need him on the floor at times this year.  His 3 threes and 11 points were a good sign.

Last was the Friar defense.  For a team that is expected to let up high scoring totals and is coming off of a less than admirable defensive showing last year it was great to see PC keep Bryant low.  Also PC was able to grab a bunch of turnovers, and just played with at a different level defensively than they did last year.  A more athletic team and a new concentration on defense have looked to help the Friars defense for now.  Lets hope it continues through the weekend.

ProJo: PC Friars Open with a 96-53 Blowout of Bryant

Friarblog: Friars Bulldoze Bulldogs 96-53 in Season Opener

Friars.com: Men’s Basketball Season Opens with 96-53 Win Over Bryant in World Vision Invitational

BryantBulldogs.com: Bryant Struggles Against Providence College, Falls, 96-53, in 2009-10 Season Opener

ESPN.com: PC vs. Bryant Recap