Providence's Late Rally Not Enough to Overcome UConn, Selection Sunday Awaits
Following a first half in which Providence trailed 35-19 at the break after shooting just 8-27 from the field (29%), 1-9 from three, and got doubled up in points in the paint (16-8), and on the glass (21-9), the Friars were somehow worse in the early portion of the second in their Big East Tournament Quarterfinal matchup with UConn.
Connecticut got a pair of wide-open 3-pointers for Alex Karaban and Tristen Newton on its first two possessions of the second half. They were beating the Friars to loose balls, getting out in transition, and seemingly making PC pay every time they were left open.
With the Friars struggling, having lost three of four heading in, this was the nightmare scenario every Providence fan feared: getting run out of the building by the hated Huskies when it felt as though more and more pundits were looking for a reason to call their NCAA Tournament resume into question.
Connecticut later pushed their advantage to 58-32 on a spectacular sequence from Andre Jackson, who dribbled behind his back and then found Naheim Alleyne for a corner three with under 13 minutes left in the game.
It was a full on UConn celebration at that point.
“A devastating display of offense and teamwork by UConn” is how Fox play-by-play man Tim Brando described the action as Connecticut’s size, athleticism, and depth were proving too much for a reeling Providence team to handle.
It felt like soul searching time for the Friars.
Then again, it felt as though that time had already come and gone.
Following PC’s 18-point loss in Storrs two weeks ago, Ed Cooley promised a very different outcome if these two programs were to meet again in Madison Square Garden.
That Connecticut loss felt like an aberration at the time. The Huskies got hot from deep, and rode a wild crowd to pull away over the final ten minutes.
Providence bounced back with a win at last place Georgetown a few days later, but squandered a chance to earn a two or three seed in this tournament by losing consecutive games at home to Xavier and Seton Hall, with the latter coming in a shockingly futile effort on Senior Day.
So, instead of playing DePaul or Villanova tonight they were tasked with facing a UConn team that came into this tournament the odds-on favorite to win it.
Down 26 to Connecticut with under 13 minutes to go, it wasn’t soul searching time. Friartown was just looking for signs of life.
The first sign came via a 12-0 Providence run.
Corey Floyd knocked down a three on a pass from Bryce Hopkins. A missed dunk by Newton led to an Ed Croswell slam (once again assisted on by Hopkins) the other way. Then Noah Locke hit a transition three on the next possession, and Floyd came up with a steal on a miscommunication, as Dan Hurley’s lineup of Newton, Alleyne, Hassan Diarra, Joey Calcaterra, and Donovan Clingan faltered.
Hurley wasted little time in bringing back Jackson, Karaban, and Jordan Hawkins — and shortly after that, Adama Sanogo. A pair of free throws by Hopkins and then Jared Bynum pushed the run to twelve-zip — a stretch that nearly became 14-0 if Hopkins had not fumbled a pass from Floyd at the rim.
Newton countered with what felt like a back-breaker on the next possession — burying another three to make it a 61-44 game.
UConn led by 17 with just over seven minutes to play, but this one turned dramatically over the next three and a half minutes. It really had to be seen to be believed.
Ed Cooley went with a lineup including a pair of freshmen in Jayden Pierre and Floyd, to go long with Hopkins, Croswell, and Noah Locke.
The lineup simply battled.
Hopkins made it a 63-50 game with 6:08 on the clock after making an athletic layup. Pierre then found Croswell on a second chance opportunity, and next Hopkins willed his way to the free throw line to make it 63-53 with 4:32 to play.
Then, in almost an instant, the game got turned on its head.
Providence got Locke a great look in the corner, which he promptly buried for three, and then Floyd came up with a steal of a Jackson pass (the official scorer had Jackson down for just three turnovers in the second half — a generous figure if ever there was one) which he laid in at the 3:35 mark, and somehow this was a five point game at 63-58.
It was a 26-5 Friar run.
UConn head coach Dan Hurley called timeout to slow the momentum, but not before the Garden erupted.
As the two teams broke into their respective huddles, a pair of comments from Cooley’s post game presser following Saturday’s ugly loss to Seton Hall came to mind:
“In life, you get what you fight for. And we’re not fighting like the team I know that we have. We’ve got to fight for what we want.”
“I think I’ve got to look myself in the mirror — am I playing the right guys? Am I playing guys that have a will, a want, passion, a plan?”
Cooley found that group over the final six minutes of the game.
Ultimately, their fight wasn’t enough to overcome a 26-point deficit against a team with very realistic Final Four aspirations.
UConn had answers when they needed them most.
Hawkins, who had been 2-8 from beyond the arc, knocked down a 3-pointer after the timeout that followed the Floyd steal and score. UConn went back up eight.
Locke countered with a 3 of his own on the ensuing possession, but Newton made a pair of enormous plays on the Huskies’ next possession — first coming up with an offensive rebound and then finding Sanogo on a slip for a layup to push UConn ahead, 68-61, with 1:52 left. Nearly a full minute passed from Locke’s made three until Sanogo’s layup. A killer sequence for the Friars.
Next, Hopkins made another difficult layup after a spin move (68-63), and PC nearly came up with a steal late in the shot clock on the following possession, but Newton recovered it, and found Karaban for three more.
Locke, once again, countered with a three of his own, but Connecticut made all of the free throws it needed to down the stretch to hold on for a 73-66 victory to advance to the Big East Tournament Semifinals.
“We made a couple of adjustments,” Cooley said of his team’s second half approach. “The biggest adjustment in sport is attitude — attitude, energy, resilience that our men showed. I think we were down 26, I bet everybody in here thought the game was over. When you have the power of trust, belief in one another, amazing things happens. I thought the ball had a little music to it when it started to move. It sounded like Barry White out there when the ball was moving. Everybody's voice got deep; everybody got energy off of it.”
“But I was proud of our guys, how we responded. I was really proud of our guys for how we responded. A lot of teams that would have been a 35-40 point loss. It goes to tell you the fight and the organization of our players.”
It was a second half that saw Providence out-score UConn, 47-38, behind 14 points from Locke (4-5 from 3) and 13 points and seven boards via Hopkins. Hopkins was coming off a first half in which he shot 1-5 from the floor and didn’t get a rebound.
“We were playing such great basketball at both ends of the court. And once it turned into a whistle-fest and we were putting them at the free-throw line they were able to chip away,” Hurley said after the game. “Mix in some live-ball turnovers and you can't get back and get set defensively. I think that's why they shot 51 percent from the field (in the second half).”
Cooley showed a lot of trust in the freshmen. Floyd Jr. played 17 minutes in the second half, while Pierre went 10.
“Our younger guys are really developing,” Cooley said. “Jayden is developing. Corey Floyd continues to grow, grow, grow, develop. That's the process that these young kids have to go through.”
The past two weeks had to have been a lot for Providence to process. They looked to be playing for NCAA Tournament seeding as recently as eight days ago, but there have been questions of if they will find themselves on the Bubble with Selection Sunday looming this weekend.
The Friars are 21-11 on the season, but have dropped four of their last five games.
“I definitely know we're a we're a tournament a team, for sure. We're 100 percent a tournament team. This league has several tournament teams,” Cooley said following Thursday’s game.
While his team didn’t get a win over Connecticut on Thursday, they will have to hope they rediscovered the edge and energy that has somehow eluded them over the past two weeks.
“I talked to our men about the game being long,” Cooley said. “The game is long. It goes fast but it's long and there's waves. You've got to be able to stand a couple of Mike Tyson swings, right? I mean, they were throwing haymakers.”
The team has taken some collective haymakers of late, and next they’ll wait to find out their fate on Sunday, and hope they look more like the team that fought like their lives depended on it late in the second half against UConn on Thursday.