Prior to Providence’s impressive 72-52 victory at Butler, I asked head coach Ed Cooley if there was any challenge in preparing for the Bulldogs considering two of their key transfers (Jalen Thomas and Ali Ali) had just returned from injury and there wasn’t much film of Butler playing with them.
Cooley wasn’t overly-concerned, noting how well Big East staffs know each other and that there is plenty of past footage on everyone: “We have enough game tape on all of us around the country — there’s no secrets, especially when you get to conference play. Everybody knows when you’re going to tie your shoe, they know when you’re going to pump fake. There’s no secrets. You’ve got to stay disciplined, you’ve got to play to your identity, and you’ve got to get a little lucky.”
Fair enough, but Thad Matta and his staff couldn’t possibly have planned for what we saw in the first half on Thursday night.
It’s not that Devin Carter hasn’t been an essential piece for the Friars this year — quite the opposite — but he was on another level in the first half against Butler.
It wasn’t just that Carter scored 18 first half points to help Providence sprint out to a shocking 46-18 halftime advantage, it was the manner in which he did so.
He shot 8-12 in the first half and showed a little bit of everything in the process.
Carter’s first bucket came as so many Devin Carter baskets do. He simply beat Butler down the floor for a two-hand slam.
Then came a score in traffic after a baseline cut, a 3-pointer, a crazy left-handed layup that he spun home after dribbling 85 feet, a pretty 17 foot fadeaway off the bounce, and finally a huge transition dunk after a great hustle play/steal by Jared Bynum.
At that point, the Friars led 32-12 with just under eight minutes left in the half, and Butler didn’t know what hit them.
The Bulldogs never recovered.
Carter upped the degree of difficulty on his final two makes of the half. The first came on a baseline fadeaway after posting up, and then he banked home a leaner over the athletic Pierce Thomas (a former state champion in the long jump) to make it 42-17.
Carter threw in a charge and a recovery steal that led to an Ed Croswell dunk for good measure.
Providence led by 28 at halftime, and while the temptation for a lot of players would be to seek out a career scoring night (Carter’s career high is 22), Carter’s best plays in the second half came on a pair of pretty assists to Croswell and Bryce Hopkins. He also had a loud block at the rim.
Carter took just four shots after halftime and finished with 21 points.
The sophomore guard is firmly establishing himself as one of the better two-way players in the Big East. This was the second consecutive game in which he scored at least 20 points, and he also added four steals, three assists, a block, and just one turnover in 34 outstanding minutes.
“Every road game we want to make a statement,” Carter said following the win. “I feel like we made a statement today.”
Carter is averaging 12.3 points per game this year, and shooting 53% inside the arc and 46% overall. He’s chipping in with 4.3 rebounds a game on the glass and coming up with nearly two steals (1.9) a night.
It’s only a three game sample size, but Carter is at 16.3 points, 3.3 rebounds, 2.7 assists, 3.3 steals, and 6.3 free throw attempts per game in Big East Conference play.
None of this should be too surprising. Carter scored nine points per game as a freshman in the SEC last year, and did so in under 19 minutes a night. Yet Carter, who plays with a furious aggression, is logging 11 more minutes per game, and his turnovers are slightly down from a year ago.
He is a big reason why Providence just finished the month of December with a 6-0 record.
The Friars were 5-3 when the calendar flipped from November to December, and faced all sorts of questions marks. So many questions that an undefeated December seemed so unlikely.
“We definitely are coming together really well now,” Carter said. “We needed those losses because it kind of made us sit back, look at ourselves in the mirror and realize who we are and what we need to do to come out and try to win every game.”
Who the Friars are now looks dramatically different from a month ago, and the emergence of Devin Carter has been a big key.
Devin Does It All Against Butler