"We’re not fighting like the team I know that we have. We’ve got to fight for what we want." On a shockingly tepid effort on Senior Night
There are bad losses, and then there’s what we witnessed between Providence and a Seton Hall team that was playing without star guard Kadary Richmond on Saturday afternoon.
The Pirates are a team in transition in Year One under Shaheen Holloway. They came into Saturday having lost five of their last six games, with the only win coming against a Georgetown team that has set Big East futility records over the past two seasons.
Seton Hall scratched their way to 10 Big East wins this year behind one of the better defenses in the league, and in spite of an offense that ranks 250th in Offensive Rating nationally — and that was after they shockingly blew out Providence, 82-58, while shooting 62.5% from the field.
The result was surprising for a number of reasons. Mainly, we’re now waiting for this team to wake up. Providence was doubled up (40-20) on the glass at Connecticut. Fine. That was UConn playing on Senior Night, with two dollar beers, in as hostile a building as the Friars saw all season.
After soundly defeating Georgetown, Providence returned home needing a split of their final two home games against Xavier and Seton Hall to avoid the 4/5 line in the Big East Tournament and a matchup with UConn, which would then be followed by a pairing with top seed Marquette in the semifinals.
That seems like the least of Providence’s concerns this morning.
If the Storrs experience was just one of those blips on the schedule, and allowing 72% shooting in the second half against Xavier was a matter of one of the best offensive teams in the country playing well, how do we explain the collapse against the Hall?
Cooley promised his players would feel it in practice following the loss to UConn. He called their defensive effort against Xavier “piss poor” on Wednesday night. Yet, aside from the win over lowly Georgetown, there is an unsettling carelessness that has settled in with this team defensively — and a pair of embarrassing efforts did little to get them to re-engage on that end of the floor.
“I think this is the worst home loss in my tenure here, and that’s clearly on me,” Cooley said on Saturday. “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 called his team soft on more than one occasion on Saturday afternoon.
“We haven’t guarded anybody in two weeks — it started at Connecticut,” Cooley said. “Seton Hall played an arrogant team today. That’s who they played. They played a complacent, arrogant team today.”
It’s hard to argue otherwise.
Providence’s precipitous drop on the defensive end is there for all to see, and the numbers back it up.
In the month of January, this team’s Defensive Rating was 102.0 — that’s in the 72nd percentile in the country.
In February and early March, that number plummeted to 114.7 — 4th percentile nationally.
In other words, Providence is giving up more than 12 points per 100 possessions than they were a month prior.
“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,” Cooley continued. “It had to do with our will and want today, and our will and want was left somewhere on Smith Street. It definitely wasn’t down here at the AMP, I can tell you that.”
The head coach noted that he’s fighting through “a lot of anger” after a loss that dropped Providence to the fifth seed in the Big East Tournament, just days after they were battling Xavier for #2.
“And that’s my job, to try to take that away and try to turn that anger into will, want, and a passion to win,” he said.
Seton Hall scored on ten consecutive possessions in the first half — a half in which they shot 65% from the field. That was without Richmond, and with second leading scorer Tyrese Samuel playing through foul trouble.
Junior Dre Davis scored a career high 24 points on 9-10 shooting. Fellow junior Femi Odukale went for 19 points, eight rebounds, five assists and four steals.
Odukale had a lot of fun in the process: hiding along the baseline after made baskets to sneak up for steals from behind, then motioning to give courtside fans a high five after a bucket with the game well out of reach.
The Pirates were all smiles throughout the second half.
We simply aren’t used to seeing an Ed Cooley coached team unresponsive, especially at home where the head coach likens losses to someone breaking into your house.
At this point, what cards are there left to play? Embarrassing efforts versus Connecticut and Xavier did little to provide this group with a sense of defensive purpose in the season finale — nor did a potentially favorable seeding in the Big East Tournament, or improving their postseason resume. Sending the seniors out on a high note certainly didn’t motivate anyone.
The change has to come from the players. Aside from Ed Croswell (13 points, 9 rebounds) and an occasional lift from Devin Carter (13 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists) the Friars were largely lifeless on Saturday.
When these two clubs met in the Big East opener in December, Bryce Hopkins went for 16 points and 10 rebounds — in the second half alone. He finished with four points, four rebounds, and four turnovers in the rematch.
Hopkins wasn’t alone in struggling. Noah Locke shot 1-9 from the field and 0-6 from three, while the Friars went 4-23 from beyond the arc as a team.
It seems like a distant memory now, but for all of November and into mid-December Cooley expressed concern about this team’s emotional engagement and passion.
They obviously turned enough of a corner to help them finish 21-10 on the season and 13-7 in the Big East — remaining in the AP Top 25 since cracking the poll on Jan. 9. Their conference record was bolstered by a 6-0 start with wins over UConn and Marquette at the AMP.
Yet, somehow we have circled back to where this team started in November — disconnected defensively with a head coach searching for energy givers.
Cooley wasn’t interested in subplots or excuses after the loss.
“They expect better. So do I,” he said of fans booing PC’s effort on Saturday.
On if his team might be fatigued: “No, bullshit. Bullshit. No, these kids are young. Emotionally fatigued could be, mentally fatigued could be, but I think about complacency, I think about arrogance, I think about purpose — I’m not saying that’s it, but those things come to mind.”
Providence now opens with a red-hot Connecticut team on Thursday afternoon (2:30pm) in Madison Square Garden for next week’s Big East Tournament. The Huskies and their supporters assuredly smell blood, and they did take well to comments Cooley made in Storrs two weeks ago. They’ll not only want to win this one, they’ll want to make it hurt.
Will the Friars respond any better than they did in the final week of the regular season? We’re going to learn a lot about this team this week.
shocking, shocking performance.