Providence rallies from 18 down, but falls short against Creighton in their first game without Bryce Hopkins
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Kim English has already been in a position similar to this one in his young coaching career. While none of the players English lost a year ago had the talent or impact of Bryce Hopkins, he spent much of last season rearranging his rotation on the fly due to injuries.
George Mason struggled at the Paradise Jam in November without starting point guard Ron Polite, saw Ticket Gaines go down from late December into February, and then lost their second-leading scorer (and a 47% 3-point shooter) in Victor Bailey Jr. over the final half dozen games of the season.
Bailey, who spent time at Oregon and Tennessee before finishing his career at Mason, was an elite shooter, and without him George Mason leaned heavily on its defense. They went on a six-game winning streak to close out the regular season after Bailey went down. During that stretch, they had a defensive rating of 94.8 (98th percentile in the country), ranked in the 97th percentile in defensive rebounding percentage, while opponents shot 39.7% from the field (97th percentile) and 27.6% from three (99th) against them. They gave up just 5.2 fast break points per game, which also ranked in the 99th percentile in the country.
Mason’s rotations seemed to be in flux for a majority of last season, and English will have to take some of the lessons from a season ago into his first year at Providence after his best rebounder and most physically imposing offensive force tore his ACL against Seton Hall on Wednesday night.
Unfortunately for English and his Friars, the Big East is unrelenting this season. They couldn’t pull off a comeback against a suddenly hot Seton Hall team on Wednesday (the Pirates knocked off #7 Marquette on Saturday) and headed to Omaha to start a tough two-game road trip with a 2-1 conference mark.
English and his staff had two days to readjust their rotation prior to the Creighton game — a rotation that took a further hit in the first half when freshman Garwey Dual went out with a shoulder injury.
Providence trailed 37-30 at the half on Saturday against Creighton, and they were that close thanks to the great work of Ticket Gaines (who shot 4-4 from the field and had 10 points to go along with five rebounds) and Devin Carter (11 points, 5-9 from the floor).
This had the makings of an ugly one early in the second half, as Creighton ripped off a 9-0 run and took an 18-point advantage with over 16 minutes left in the game.
At that point, it would have been fair to look for just a few glimmers of hope in the first game of a post-Hopkins world, but the Friars did more than show signs of life.
Down 48-30, Providence ran off a 12-2 run behind a pair of buckets from Josh Oduro (on a dish from Carter and facing up against 7’1 defensive stalwart Ryan Kalkbrenner), Carter scoring twice (including on a tough banked-in shot in which he was fouled), a put-back from Gaines, and Jayden Pierre getting to the free throw line.
Trailing 50-42, Providence had five different possessions in which they had a chance to cut into the lead further, but came up short each time. Rafael Castro couldn’t finish around Kalkbrennner at the rim, Pierre missed a reverse layup with Kalkbrenner lurking once again, Gaines stepped out of bounds in the corner, Dual (who returned earlier in the second half) took an ill-advised step-back jumper, and then Castro missed a 3-pointer. After Kalkbrenner (who scored 15 of his 22 points in the first half) scored to push the lead back to ten, it felt like a huge missed opportunity for the Friars. Creighton opened the door by missing some great looks from beyond the arc during that stretch, and PC couldn’t capitalize.
Providence had one more rally left in them, however. Carter hit a tough step back three from the top of the key to make it 54-47 with just over six minutes to play, then he found Pierre in the corner for three, and suddenly it was a 55-50 game.
English’s message when his team was down 18? “Don’t worry about the totality of the lead, we are going to do it in spurts.”
Carter went right to the rim to make it 56-52, after which English could be seen repeatedly screaming “MINDSET!” to each of his players as they came off the floor during the ensuing timeout.
A red-hot Carter then nailed a 30-footer on the next possession (with 17 seconds still remaining on the shot clock — talk about offensive freedom) to bring PC to within one at 56-55.
The shot of the night came on the next possession though, as Trey Alexander took advantage of Carter going under a Kalkbrenner screen to bury a 3-pointer to push the advantage back to four.
Alexander (21 points, 8-11 shooting, 2-3 from three) had killed the Friars over the previous five minutes — hitting a mid-range jumper and getting to the line twice as Providence was surging. English and his staff tried to keep him from getting in the paint, went under the screen, and paid for it.
“Alexander made a big three,” English said. “Through no fault of our guys, he’s a great player. We thought he was really hurting us getting downhill, and we chose to go under one of his ball screens and he made us pay.”
This was the second strategic decision on the defensive side of the ball English reflected on in the postgame. He also shared that the staff went back and forth in preparation for Creighton on if they should front Kalkbrenner (English’s teams have traditionally fronted in the post). They decided to front Kalkbrenner in the first half, and made an adjustment in the second to slow him a bit (seven points after the break).
Fouls and the Kalkbrenner Effect proved to be the difference after Alexander’s three. Pierre got called for a bump on Steven Ashworth, and the sharpshooter hit both free throws to push the Jays ahead, 61-55. Kalkbrenner forced Carter into a tough shot at the rim, and then Dual fouled Alexander on another bump on the ensuing possession to make it a 62-55 game.
PC had one mini-burst left in them, as Oduro finished a traditional three-point play with 2:15 left to slice the lead to four, but Baylor Scheierman banked in a short shot over Gaines on the other end. It was all but over from that point. The Jays closed it out to win, 69-60.
“We needed this game to see the actual impact (of the Hopkins injury) from a rotation standpoint. Losing Garwey, I thought, hurt early in the game, as far as the way we sub guys in and out,” English said following the loss, after he emphasized that his team still has “more than enough” to win with.
They got more than enough from Carter, once again, as he finished with 25 points, 10 rebounds, and three assists on 11-22 shooting from the field and 3-7 from deep. Carter may have been gassed at the end, as he missed his final four shots from beyond the arc after knocking down the 30 footer that pulled PC to within one.
The difference in this game was Kalkbrenner. He torched Providence in the first half, and impacted countless shots near the rim (early in the second half, PC looked caught in between, missing a number of floaters and short jumpers as Kalkbrenner sagged to the rim). He was also a key reason why Oduro had his worst game of the season (4-17 from the floor, 0-5 from three). With Kalkbrenner playing drop coverage, the Friar coaching staff wanted Oduro to keep him honest with a few attempts from beyond the arc, “We wanted him to shoot some threes. You almost have to do it with someone that size to try to get the floor spaced out a little more.”
Pierre seemed to experience a confidence spike in the second half — nailing the late corner three, slipping through the paint for a layup, and rimming out a shot that would have been an and-1 had it gone down. The second half of this game was the most Pierre looked for his offense since the Friars beat Rhode Island in early December. His nine field goal attempts were the most he has taken since a victory over Milwaukee in the second game of the season.
Gaines picked up some of the rebounding slack in Hopkins’ absence (9 boards) and scored 12 points, but had just one made field goal in the second half. Dual’s day goes down as an incomplete with the shoulder injury, and Corey Floyd Jr. struggled while starting and playing 29 minutes (0-3 from the field) with Kalkbrenner serving as a deterrent at the rim.
It won’t get much easier on the second leg of the road trip.
Providence travels to Madison Square Garden to take on a St. John’s team fresh off of consecutive wins over Butler and Villanova. The Johnnies are currently in a four-way tie atop the Big East with a 3-1 conference record, with their only loss coming at #5 UConn.
The schedule is more forgiving starting next weekend, with Xavier coming to town on Saturday, followed by road games at DePaul and Seton Hall before the Friars welcome Georgetown on Jan. 27.
As he was forced to do a season ago at Mason, Kim English will have to figure out a new-look rotation during the heart of conference play. Down Hopkins, and now potentially Dual, the challenge ahead is a significant one for English in his first year in Providence.
More from Friar Basketball:
Our News and Notes column this week looks at how Ryan Mela and the Newman School continue to rack up wins, a former George Mason guard taking the country by storm this season, further detailing the impact Bryce Hopkins had prior to his injury, the recruitment of Oswin Erhunmwunse coming down to the wire, Brycen Goodine going off for 40, and more.
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The St. Johns game will not be any easier and possibly more difficult than Creighton. Pitino ia a legendary coach and Oduro will be forced to contend with the Soriano Effect. Hopefully we will catch a break and Dual's shoulder will be a quick fix and he can play on Wednesday. Go Friars!