Postgame: PC Rallies to Beat Yale

Providence (8-4) came from behind to defeat the Yale University Bulldogs (4-7) last night at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center.  Coming off of Finals Break the Friars came out slow and allowed Yale to add up 11 at one point, and took 30 minutes to finally get their game going with 31-13 run in the last fourth of the game.  The Bulldogs were led by the play of senior guard Alex Zampier who netted 25 points.  The Friars were led by yet another double double performance of 25 points and 13 rebounds from  Greedy Peterson.  This makes it seven on the season and three in a row for the sophomore forward.  Vincent Council also had a strong performance in the win for the Friars who end their OOC schedule with a win.  Next the Friars will have a nine day layoff before they travel to South Bend to begin their BIG EAST schedule against Luke Harangody and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

Not a great game, but a win is a win.  We weren’t quite sure how the team would respond to the Iona loss and the Finals break, and for a while it didn’t look like their response was going to be good enough.  This is the first game that we weren’t able to either see or listen to on the radio, so all we had was CBS Gamecast.

In our pregame we made the mistake of saying that PC should be able to control the boards and dominate in the paint.  Whether that should have happened or not, it was clearly not the case.  The rebounding was pretty even, but Yale actually won in both offensive rebounds and total rebounds.  Not good.  We will put part of that on Bilal’s return to his fouling habits.  With the BIG EAST starting his foul troubles have to end.  We are short on size and him spending most of his time on the bench is bad news for us.  Obviously Greedy is a rebound machine, but he needs another body down there to help out.

Although it seemed for a while like this would be another Iona game, in that PC would just not be able to fully close the gap, with about 10 minutes to go the defense finally showed some life and that led to some offense.  It wasn’t a pretty win, but it was a win.  We were able to finish with the same 8-4 record as we did last year.  Will the BIG EAST go as well for us as it did last year?  Probably not, but hopefully we can have an exciting BIG EAST schedule.  Win or lose we are just happy it is finally here.

PFB Player of the Game: Vincent Council- This was difficult because we weren’t able to see the game.  We wanted to give it to Greedy who had another great game, his double doubles have almost become expected and sometimes it seems like he is the only player ready to play from the opening tip to the closing buzzer.  However, this game we will give it to VC, who by all accounts had a great game.  Sometimes it is hard to remember that he is only a freshman.  But he had great numbers and was essential to PC pulling this one out.  And apparently he had a pretty sick dunk.  Thank goodness for VC.

Links:

Friars.com

Men’s Basketball Down’s Yale, 87-78

ProJo.com

PC pulls away for 87-78 win over Yale

Friarblog

So Long, OOC [Game Recaps]

The State of Friars Basketball

Yale Bulldogs enter the House that Shammgod Built (But Not Really)

YaleBulldogs.com

Late Rally Lifts Providence Past Yale, 87-78

Pregame: Providence College vs. Yale University

Opponent: Yale University Bulldogs / Est. 1701 / New Haven, CT / Enrollment: 12,500 / Ivy League

All-time Series: Friars-8, Bulldogs-7

Location: The Dunkin’ Donuts Center (Providence, RI)

Date: Monday December, 21

Time: 7:00pm

Coverage: WEEI 103.7 FM Providence

Preview: The Friars will return from Finals to take on the Yale University Bulldogs (4-6) in their final OOC game of the season.  The Bulldogs, predicted to finish sixth in some polls, are currentlyfifth in the Ivy League.  Yale is led by returning senior guard, Alex Zampier.  Zampier is averaging 18.3 points.  He is supported by fowards Jordan Gibons and Michael Sands who are both averaging double digit scoring figures.  Providence leads Yale in almost every statistic except for Free Throw Percentage and Steals per Game.

PFB Perspective: First, we need to apologize for our recent abcence.  With it being finals week and traveling home it was hard to get up post.  There were some good things that happened last week so we will try to catch ourselves up during this week.

Finally another game.  Sitting on that terrible Iona loss was difficult all week, so it will be good to get back out there and hopefully get a win.  The team has had a week to rest up and prepare, but have also been preoccupied with finals and haven’t been able to practice fully as a team as much because of the finals.  Therefore we aren’t sure what to expect, but than again the case was probably the same for Yale so maybe it will have no effect.  Hopefully we put the Iona game behind us and close out the OOC portion of the schedule on a high note.

This game is the same as all games.  We need a consistant effort for 40 minutes from everybody on the team.  The bulldogs aren’t the greatest rebounders so PC who is one of the best rebounding teams in the country should dominate on the boards.  We would like to see PC come out and penetrate.  Yale doesn’t have great size (they do have one player at 6’11″) so it shouldn’t be too had for a player like Marshon to drive and take it to the rack, and for Greedy to clean up around the rim.  And if they can’t take it to the rim pass it out for the open three.

On paper PC is better than Yale in almost everyway, but after losing to Yale no game should be taken lightly.  We all know that we are going to take some lumps when the BIG EAST schedule starts so hopefully we can get a win tonight and wrap up the OOC with an 8-4 record (the same record we reached last year).  We won’t be able to see the game as we are back home, but we will be following it closely and will look to put up the postgame tonight or tomorrow morning.

Links:

Friars.com

Men’s Basketball Game Notes vs. Yale

ProJo.com

Davis hopes Friars have learned their lesson in Iona loss

Capsule Preview: Yale vs. PC

Friarblog

What To / Where To: Game #12 Yale

Yalebulldogs.com

Trip to Providence Follows Finals Break