Behind a total team effort, Providence rallies to take out Georgetown

Ed Cooley will have to wait another year to get his first win in the Amica Mutual Pavilion as head coach of the Georgetown Hoyas.

A season ago, the duo of Devin Carter (29 points) and Josh Oduro (8-10 shooting from the field) helped Providence pull out a victory late against a struggling Georgetown group.

With the Hoyas much improved from a season ago, featuring two players that are potentially making their way onto NBA rosters next season, it was fair to wonder which Friars could meet the moment in such an emotionally charged atmosphere.

The answer was all of them.

Providence didn’t get the type of All American effort that Carter provided in this matchup a year ago, but with Micah Peavy (27 points) and Thomas Sorber (25 points, 15 rebounds, 3 blocks, 2 steals) playing lights out for the Hoyas, the Friars needed a total team effort.

That’s just what they got in their 78-68 win in Cooley’s second appearance back home after he departed for the in-conference foe in March 2023.

All nine Friars who took to the floor on Saturday afternoon scored.

PC owned a 26-0 edge in bench points, grabbed 16 offensive rebounds and converted those into 20 second chance points, and had 38 points in the paint.

For a Providence team that has faced questions about its mental makeup and roster construction, this was one gratifying afternoon in Rhode Island’s capital.

The crowd at the AMP may not have been quite as ravenous as the first time they saw Cooley in Georgetown blue and white, but they were still plenty bloodthirsty.

And when Georgetown took leads of 18-7 and 25-13 early, the old building filled with tension.

The catalyst early for the Hoyas was Sorber, the terrific freshman who has dominated the paint this season. What Sorber hadn’t been is a face-up shooter. He entered this game 4-27 from three on the season, 0-9 in league play, but buried two early 3-pointers. By the under 16 timeout Sorber was 4-5 from the field, 2-2 from three, and had five boards and two blocks as Georgetown went up 11 early.

But the Friars just chipped away with contributions up and down the roster — from early threes by Bensley Joseph and a hobbled Wesley Cardet, to Jayden Pierre going to work from the mid-range and in, and Justyn Fernandez coming up with a big-time block and hitting a turnaround and a 3-pointer of his own, PC had done enough to hang around before going on a late first-half surge.

Pierre, in particular, was huge in the first half with 12 points on 6-9 shooting from the floor. It wasn’t that he hit those shots, but when that made his opening 20 minutes so impactful. He also assisted on a pair of 3-pointers during the first half surge.

This came after a pair of nightmare games for the junior guard at Villanova and Creighton.

“He’s a Friar through and through. He cares about this program more than he cares about himself,” Kim English said of Pierre following the win. “He’s a great teammate, he’s a great student, son, brother. He’s going to have great success in life, forget basketball. Every single Providence College fan should be very, very happy that Jayden Pierre’s on our side. He’s the epitome of what a student-athlete should be.”

Providence closed the first half on a 13-2 run (part of a 25-8 spurt) to take a 38-33 lead into the break.

Cooley and his staff couldn’t have felt great going into the break down five, despite Sorber scoring 16 points on 7-9 shooting and Peavy going 5-9 for ten points. They shot 53% as a team in the first half.

The second half was simply a matter of Providence’s will being too much.

Eight days earlier, English expressed frustration in his team’s inability to make winning plays in the critical moments in a two-point loss at Villanova.

The second half on Saturday was a different story.

Every time Georgetown struck, the Friars hit back harder.

An 8-0 Hoya run seven minutes into the second half pushed them ahead, 45-44, but Christ Essandoko (who provided a lift on the interior in the first half) banked home a 3-pointer to put Providence ahead. Essandoko then blocked Sorber at the rim on the next possession, leading to a breakout and layup for Bensley Joseph to push Providence ahead by five.

“Banked in, swished, whatever, it went in. Three points. It was huge,” Jabri Abdur-Rahim said of Essandoko’s shot.

The rest of the half consisted of Providence countering every Georgetown push.

Abdur-Rahim hit a 3-pointer after Jayden Epps cut it to 49-47. A minute later, Abdur-Rahim was fouled on a three and made all three shots to push the lead to 55-49.

After Sorber countered with a traditional 3-point play, Joseph answered with a 3-point play of his own on the ensuring possession at the eight-minute mark.

When Corey Floyd Jr. threw home an alley oop on the break, Providence led 66-56 with under five minutes to play as the AMP burst into delirium.

Georgetown had one final push, it was aided by a Providence gaffe.

The Friar guards were terrific in this one defensively, limiting Georgetown’s starting backcourt of Epps and Malik Mack to 5-23 from the field and 1-7 beyond the arc.

PC was giving up nothing at the 3-point line in the second half, as Georgetown hadn’t even attempted a three for the first 16 minutes of the half.

Trouble came at the 3:13 mark, however, as Peavy bounced in their only 3-pointer of the second half to cut the edge to seven, and Essandoko committed a silly foul on the rebounding action to give Sorber two free throws. He made both, and the five-point possession halted the celebration that began with the Floyd slam.

After Georgetown got a stop, they were on the receiving end of a missed out of bounds call by the officials under the Providence basket. The Hoyas took advantage.

Sophomore forward Drew Fielder scored and was fouled on the inbounds pass, but missed a free throw to make it 68-65 after a 7-0 run that took just 43 seconds of game action.

Up three with two and a half minutes left, it was time to see if Providence could close against their former coach — a coach known for telling his Friar teams to keep the game close until the closing minutes so that he could guide them home.

But it wouldn’t happen on this day for Georgetown.

When Floyd had the ball on the baseline facing Sorber, Peavy went to double team Floyd, who found Abdur-Rahim for a corner 3-pointer — the biggest make of his Friar career with 2:09 on the clock.

“He played with a confidence and a freedom that I love to see out of him,” Pierre said of Abdur-Rahim.

Peavy hit a mid-range jumper on the next possession, but Abdur-Rahim was fouled on another 3-point attempt and made all three from the line with 1:01 left to put PC ahead, 74-67.

The Hoyas never threatened again.

“The X-factor in this game was (Abdur-)Rahim,” Cooley said. “When we put Peavy on Pierre I don’t even know if he scored in the second half. Maybe a layup — maybe. I think I have two of the best defensive players in the country in Sorber and him, and that’s why our defense has been so good.”

Perhaps, but nine Friars scored in this one and five were in double figures. English has taken some grief for his “13 dudes” comments at the end of last season, as PC’s depth hadn’t panned out for much of the season, but this was a game in which Cardet was clearly hobbled (he played five minutes), Rich Barron did not play, and Bryce Hopkins watched from the sideline, but PC simply got contributions up and down the roster.

Conversely, Sorber and Peavy combined for 52 of Georgetown’s 68 points.

“The energy we played with was good, not great. This was the first game we played all year where I thought our defense let us down. We missed assignments, we fouled, I didn’t think we had the discipline we normally play with defensively,” Cooley said. “I didn’t think we were gritty. I thought Providence was tougher. I thought they had a little bit more pop. They played well. They played really well defensively.”

“The biggest thing of the game was we got our ass kicked on the glass.”

PC held advantages of 37-32 and 16-14 on the glass and in offensive rebounding.

Cooley’s press conference wasn’t nearly the circus of a season ago, lasting just under six minutes. His focus was squarely on the players on the court: “Give them a lot of credit, they played well. They played well offensively, and they should play well at home. I’ve coached a million games in here. It’s really, really hard to win in this building.”

Cooley still feels good about what Georgetown is building toward.

“Slowly but surely, man, that wagon is coming,” he said of his group. “Slowly, but surely, that thing is coming.”

Credit the Friar defense. English speaks often of limiting opponents’ assists and Georgetown had just two in the second half — a half in which Epps and Mack combined to shoot 2-13, while Sorber was 3-8 (after going 7-9 in the first), and hit some tough shots with his left hand.

Joseph and Pierre both led Providence with 14 points, Abdur-Rahim had 12 on just three field goal attempts, Oswin Erhunmwunse had a number of key put-backs, while Floyd continued his terrific all-around play with 11 points, five assists, and five rebounds. Floyd had a critical offensive rebound late that Cooley thought turned the tide, and he found Abdur-Rahim for the biggest shot of the game.

“He was phenomenal. Corey had a great game,” Pierre said of his classmate. “He did things all over the court — from rebounding to passing the ball to scoring the ball, he had a really good day.”

Floyd wasn’t alone in doing so. This was a total team effort in a game this team (and its fanbase) needed in a season of narrow losses and unfortunate injuries.

The Friars are now 4-0 against Georgetown over the past two seasons and have a shot to get back to .500 in league play with a win on Tuesday night at Seton Hall.

English has talked about Providence turning the page and starting anew following a humbling New Year’s Eve loss to Marquette. The Friars have been far from perfect since then, but they’ve proven they can compete — taking leads of at least eight points in five of the six games since.

Their 120.4 Offensive Rating in those six games would be good for 16th in the country, aided by their work on the offensive glass. PC is scoring 15 second chance points per game this month — a clear change in direction from a year ago. They are also scoring 23.8 bench points per game in January and turning the ball over just 9.7 times per game (which would be just outside of the top ten in the country over the course of the season).

They haven’t been nearly as good defensively in January, but Saturday marked a step in the right direction.

And for perhaps the first time since they put a hurting on BYU in Hopkins’ return, all felt right in Friartown on Saturday.