Providence is hearing it all, and determined to prove the doubters wrong
"What you can never do is underestimate the fight in a group of young men — especially a group of older men that are trying to prove something.”
Two years ago, Luwane Pipkins was on fire. The UMass transfer came to Providence with the reputation (and numbers to back it up) as one of the best scorers in the country – only, it hadn’t really worked out for Pipkins through much of his first three months in a Friar uniform.
Pipkins then went on a furious February scoring spree, highlighted by a pair of huge baskets in the second-to-last game of the season when Xavier came to town. He buried a 3-pointer with just over a minute to play in a one-point game, then spun home a runner to seal the victory. The Friars were 11-6 in the Big East and had a chance to set a school record with their twelfth conference win in the season finale – which they did in a trouncing of DePaul.
It took Providence just two years to snap that record. And once again they have a point guard who has gone into takeover mode late in the season.
Somehow, after three overtimes, Jared Bynum mustered up enough lift in his legs to bury a straight-away 3-pointer from 30 feet, giving Providence a five-point lead with under 30 seconds to play – breaking Xavier’s heart in much the same way that Pipkins did in early March of 2020.
It took 55 minutes, but Providence once again set a school record by winning its thirteenth conference game. Ed Cooley’s group is 13-2 in the league, after last night’s 99-92 win over a desperate Xavier club. With 13 wins in hand, the Friars will next look to take home their first ever Big East regular season title when they host Creighton on Saturday night.
Unbelievable.
Not many players remain from the 2020 group that closed the season so well, only to see it cut short. Nate Watson, AJ Reeves, and Andrew Fonts were active, while Bynum and Noah Horchler were sitting out a year due to the prior transfer rules.
Still, this group is playing like a team that was cheated out of something. They aren’t hiding the fact that they’ve heard every last word about how lucky they’ve been, how they are dodging teams their own league determined it couldn’t reschedule, how they’ll be exposed as frauds come March.
Cooley isn’t shying away from the talk: “When you have an older group, when you have a determined group, when you have a group that is constantly, constantly, constantly doubted — constantly talking about the hill to climb, what you can never do is underestimate the fight in a group of young men — especially a group of older men that are trying to prove something.”
And that’s just it — this group of Friars has seemingly put aside any personal ego, which has resulted in an uncanny ability to pull out the close ones. Instead of having that celebrated, they have been continually questioned throughout a 23-3 start.
“Luckiest team in America,” Nate Watson said, once again, after the win. “Everybody’s saying that. I’ll be lucky any time of the day if we keep winning like this.”
Truth be told, the lucky narrative is about four weeks past its expiration date. Anyone keeping it alive is being disingenuous, or petty, at this point.
There are so many other storylines about this team to focus on. Bynum has been the headliner over the past month. He scored 27 more points off of the bench last night, making five 3-pointers in the process. Through will and skill, Bynum carried Providence in the overtime sessions.
There was Al Durham playing through a painful sports hernia injury to gut his way to 13 points, six assists, and four rebounds. He had to be essentially carried to the locker room after hitting the floor on one drive in the second half, but continued to attack despite the pain, taking eight free throws on the night.
If any player embodies the “we not me” mentality of these Friars it is the Indiana transfer. Every time he hits the floor, and it’s quite frequently, we are left to wonder if this will be the time he isn’t getting back up.
Providence has found someone different to emerge on an almost nightly basis. On Wednesday, they saw AJ Reeves bury five 3-pointers of his own, including perhaps the most pivotal shot of the game. The Friars trailed by three with a little over two minutes to play in regulation when the ceiling started leaking. After about a 20-minute delay, Reeves took a step back jumper from the top of the key that touched nothing but net to tie the game.
Reeves hit three huge 3-pointers while playing with four fouls over the final eight minutes of regulation.
Part of PC’s winning formula has become a Nate Watson offensive rebound and score at the most critical time. It came last night with 1:23 to go in triple overtime to snap a 92-92 tie.
Watson’s finish came off of an Alyn Breed miss near the rim. With both Reeves and Durham sidelined having fouled out, Breed made five straight free throws late in the second overtime, and hit a critical floater in a tie game with 2:15 left in the third OT. He was unfazed going to the free throw line on three straight possessions in the final 21 seconds of the second overtime – “a credit to his emotional and mental toughness,” according to Cooley.
It wasn’t perfect by any stretch. There were some defensive lapses, Xavier grabbed 20 offensive rebounds, and the Friars couldn’t foul up three points in the closing seconds of double overtime – paving the way for Paul Scruggs to tie it as the buzzer sounded.
After playing 55 minutes against a conference opponent that will also dance in March, there will always be plenty to nitpick. We’ll continue to hear about how they “dodged” a rematch with UConn and road games at Seton Hall and Creighton. The tired “lucky” narrative will rear its ugly head again. As the calendar turns to March there will be increased talk of this program’s inability to reach a Sweet 16 in over 20 years.
Yet, through all of the talk, no matter how they have been discredited, or how much March consternation lives in the back of our minds, this team will look to continue to do what they’ve done all season – fight their way through 40-minute battles, somehow find a way in the end, and give us 40 minutes (and sometimes more) of outstandingly entertaining basketball.