VC to the Rescue

I’m gonna keep this brief since I missed half the game, and the Giants and Devils are playing. Tonight, the Friars proved that defense really does win games. I missed the abortion of a first half that took place at the Dunk tonight, and I’m kinda glad I did. By all accounts it was the same problem that plagued the Friars in the first 12 minutes of the second half, and really the whole season as well. Absolutely no defense. I know Keno has said that he’s OK with the other team scoring 100 points if we score 101, but that shit isn’t going to work every night. Tonight we ran into the juggernaut that is Alex Zampier, and we almost paid for it. This random Ivy League guy put up 25 points on us. I don’t know much about Ivy League ball, but I do know it’s not the Big East. Hell, it’s not even the A-10.  And Yale isn’t even a good team for the Ivy League. We HAVE to start playing defense. That is the bottom line. This crap ain’t gonna fly against real teams.

It was yet another horrific 3 point shooting performance, which is absolutely the key stat for this team, who for the most part seems completely disinterested in stopping the opposition from scoring easy layups over and over again. Marshon and Sharaud only scored 13 apiece, which certainly didn’t help things. Greedy put up another double-double with 25 and 13 and some pretty incredible plays down low. Gotta give him some credit. His D was suspect at times, which he really HAS to work on as potentially the go-to guy on this team. If Bilal is going to get 4 fouls with 10 minutes to go in the game, we’ll need him to play D down low. Someone’s gotta do it.

The big thing to take away from this game though, is just how good Vincent Council really is. I really don’t want to jump the gun here, but I doubt the players read the BS I write on here, so it’s not like he’s gonna get a big head out of this. He only scored 13 tonight, but look at his full line: 13 points, 3 rebounds (1 ORB), 3 assists, 3 steals. He was 4-5 shooting, 5-6 FT. He drilled his shots when they counted, and he was absolutely the defensive catalyst for the Friars tonight. There was a distinct difference between when Curry was playing point and when Council was in his place in terms of total team defense. He made the entire team better on both sides of the ball, and at the end of the day, that is exactly what great point guards do. What great point guards usually don’t do, however, is throw down vicious dunks over multiple people who are a solid 6 inches taller than they are. That was just an added bonus. By the way, if anyone somehow has some kind of recording of that dunk, please, for the love of God, post a link in the comments. Send it to Friarblog. Send it to SOMEONE so people can see it. That thing was unreal and people need to be aware of it.

-SM

EDIT: Ryan over at The State of Friars Basketball put up this wallpaper featuring the aforementioned VC. He also reports that Ray Hall was warming up with the team. Will we have an Ostrogoth sighting? Stay tuned.

So much for that offense.

A note to the team: the whole “let’s not play any defense” thing really only works when you can actually score. Just a few days after putting up one of their best offensive performances of the decade, the Friars sputtered entirely, continuing an infuriating trend of coming out completely flat after a big win. It was the absolute direct opposite of the previous game, with only two Friars scoring in double figures. Marshon Brooks led the team with 18 points, but several of them were in garbage time. However, I can’t fault him entirely given his 7 boards and 2 steals. He also did shoot 50% from the field and 33.3% from three point range, which is much more than we can say for most of the team, which went 30.8% from the field, and a SPARKLING 16.1% from three. Generally, when you shoot 31 three pointers, you’d like to make more than fucking FIVE. Just about everyone was guilty in the shooting department: Bilal Dixon went 1-5 from the field, including a missed three. He should not be shooting threes ever. Sharaud Curry couldn’t find the hoop either, going 1-7 and missing all 5 threes he put up. He also had only 3 assists and several times was guilty of the same rally killing slow pace basketball that killed the Friars against URI. Brian McKenzie added 4 missed threes of his own. Johnnie Lacy, who was actually not bad and showed a little promise tonight also missed both of his three point attempts. Even Vincent Council showed he was human, going 0-6 from the floor, scoring TWO points to go with his 1 assist and 3 turnovers, and not really being a factor at all. I’m not going to sit here and rip him apart though, because everyone gets one free bad game without hearing it from me. The one guy, however, who led the team in attempted and missed threes, had absolutely no excuse whatsoever. As some of you may recall, I made a comment last game on Twitter about how I wasn’t going to argue against Greedy Peterson taking threes anymore. Apparently he took that literally. Allow me to set the record straight. Greedy Peterson should not be shooting 7 threes over the course of 5 games, never mind one. Especially if he can’t fucking hit them for his life. He hit one three early on and decided he’d be Steve fucking Kerr for the rest of the night, and didn’t stop until the final buzzer. His 14 boards, 5 steals (!) and 1 block salvaged his night, but for God’s sake, it’s time for Keno to pull him aside and tell him to stop with the dumb three pointers and leave it to the experts, because that kind of undisciplined play is not winning us any games. It also didn’t help that he didn’t have much of a shooting night anywhere on the floor, even from within the three point line. The Greedy Ratio for this game was a very low 0.667, which I believe is the second worst showing he’s had since I arbitrarily made the stat up. In his defense, however, a lot of the missed two point shots were a direct result of him trying to put shots off the glass down low and getting flagrantly hacked while the refs looked the other way.

While I can’t blame the crappy shooting and inexplicably slow pace that ultimately doomed the Friars entirely on the refs, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention just how inexcusably bad they were. It seemed like all three refs were intent on taking over the game and directly influenced the outcome, and would not stop calling stupid touch fouls until they got their way. The crowd pretty quickly began to react to their bullshit, but it just seemed to fuel the fire. It was like they wanted the crowd to abuse them more. Every time someone told them they sucked, they would call another touch foul on the Friars in the backcourt, or look the other way as Greedy got clubbed in the face for the 34th time. Even when they called fouls on Iona, it seemed like they always did it in such a way as to stop a fast break or take away momentum in some way or another.

As for the defense, other than the valiant efforts of Marshon and Greedy, who were pretty solid, the Friar press again had its problems. Again and again, they managed to trap Iona in the backcourt for 7-8 seconds, but they’d always make it over the halfcourt line in time, and when they did, they usually had a clear lane to the basket. Four Gaels scored in double figures, with most of their points coming either in the paint on easy layups or occasionally on totally uncontested threes. Iona was led by Kyle Smyth, who might be the goofiest looking white kid I’ve ever seen in a division I basketball game. This kid looked like he would be better suited to play for Merrimack than Iona, but he absolutely made us pay. Jonathan Huffman posed a pretty big problem as well, since he had several inches on just about everyone on the Providence team.

Overall, it was just another infuriating performance that brought us all back to earth. This team really still has a lot to learn, and needs to be much more disciplined in both their shot selection and defense before we’re going to see any real, lasting progress. Until that happens, we may continue to see this pattern of dominant bursts followed by inexplicable letdowns.

Glad to see PC getting some recognition.

Official roommate of The Truth About PC Basketball Reinhart the Dragon Slayer came across this list of the ten worst dunks of all time, featuring a familiar face coming in at #6. As I recall, that wasn’t even the only blown dunk in that game. Not a good day for the man who is now LEADING THE NATION in offensive rebounds and is THIRD IN THE NATION in total rebounds. You’ve come a long way since March ‘08, Greedy.

-SM

Friars make it rain on GW

Remember how the offense was kinda iffy against Brown? How no one seemed to really give a crap? Yeah, about that…

Here’s the fact of the night. In this decade, the Friars highest single game point totals are as follows:

119 vs. Binghamton, 2/22/01

111 vs. Sacred Heart, 11/20/08

110 vs. George Washington, 12/9/09

110 vs. Brown, 12/23/00

GW has to be the best of those teams, right? Plus, that 00-01 team went to the tournament. Not saying we punched a ticket tonight or anything, but it’s kind of a cool stat.

Most of the points came via the three-ball. The Friars hit 16 of their 29 threes for a blistering 55.2 3FG%. Compare that with GW’s 54.2 FT%, and that should tell you plenty. In fact, the 16 threes was a record for an opponent in GW’s Smith Center, and fell short of the PC team record of 17 (vs. Nova last year and vs. Loyola Chicago in ‘04).

Everyone got involved as well. It was a very balanced team effort, with SIX players scoring in double figures (Marshon 19, Bilal 18, Greedy 18, BMac 17 (!!!), Sharaud 16, VC 10). Additionally, Chainsaw and Kyle Wright scored 6 each to account for the rest of the Friar points. Greedy and BMac, 2 guys who I generally hate to see shooting threes, hit 3 and 4 from behind the arc, respectively. Absolutely unbelievable.

The scoring efforts were also helped by the rebounding efforts of the Friars. If you listened to the postgame show on WEEI, you’ll know I’m lifting most of this right from Keno’s interview, but whatever, it’s worth repeating. Coming into the game, GW had a +11 average rebounding margin. In this game, technically speaking, the rebounding was tied. There is an important caveat to this stat, however, which Keno mentioned in his interview. The LEADING rebounder for GW was “Team”. As in 10 of the 42 GW rebounds were actually balls that went out of bounds off of shots, which is an outrageous discrepancy. By contrast, the Friars only had 1. Take out these shots, and the Friars end up +9 in the rebounding department. Greedy led as usual with 12 boards for yet another double-double (his 5th in 10 games), and Bilal chipped in with 7 of his own on what was a career night.

Further, in a stat that was probably skewed by the high point total and fast pace of the game, but is impressive nonetheless, Sharaud Curry responded to whispers (more like yells from yours truly) that VC is a better point guard by putting up 13 assists in this game. VC only had 3, although he contributed in other departments, such as his 3 offensive rebounds (!).

The one thing that still concerns me is the total lack of defense. No one really played any defense in this game, as reflected by Joe Hassett’s observations that it was “like a rec game out there” and “like an all-star game”. The best defensive player of the game out there was Chainsaw, who seemed to be the only player that could stop GW down low, who put up a large percentage of their points in the paint. It wasn’t as bad as the BC game, but at times it seemed like Bilal and Greedy weren’t exactly doing their best to stop the layup. GW had a balanced attack of their own, with ELEVEN players scoring a point, led by 20+ point performances from Damian Hollis and Lasan Kromah. All that said, Keno Davis has said before that it’s ok to give up 100 points as long as you score 101. As crappy as the defense was, you had to be encouraged by the fact that the Friars took control of the pace, pushed it all game, and didn’t make the same mistake of sitting on a lead toward the end. They held off a late comeback and finished with the win, and at the end of the day, that’s what really matters here. And boy did they put on a show in the process. Here’s hoping they put on another show on Saturday, when I finally make my triumphant return to the Dunk for the first and last time before Christmas break.

-SM

Brown Live Blog

Alright so since all of my roommates and I seem to have a crapload of work this week, I’m not at the game, so I’ll be following it on the channelsurfing.net feed here which is iffy at best right now. I may switch to the radio. Why isn’t this game on Cox? What do they have better to show on that channel?

7:07: So in the pregame John Rooke seemed to imply that Ray “The Ostrogoth” Hall may make a cameo appearance later in the season. That would make my year.

7:08: Curry misses a three, Brown comes back and nails one, and we’re losing. This is followed by Greedy missing a three. Fantastic.

7:10: Defense is taking a nap. Everyone is standing around under the hoop. This is a mess. I know it’s early but there is literally no reason for us to be losing by any amount at any point to BROWN.

7:11: VC is coming in. Thank God.

7:12: Kyle Wright ties it up. Sucks that our defense is a joke right now.

7:13: Kyle Wright is the MVP right now with 3 big threes. Couldn’t tell you how we’re winning.

7:16: Feed is pretty much down. Scrambling for a radio.

7:21: Finally got the radio going. Have no idea what the score is.

7:23: 22-16. Friars suddenly have big rebounding advantage. Not sure how that happened.

7:25: Joe Hassett: “You see kids step out of bounds a lot in college.” Especially at Brown. And right on cue, they hit a three and Hassett says it’s a “scary game”. Apparently we’re sleepwalking right now.

7:27: WE HAVE A CHAINSAW SIGHTING!

7:28: Curry has missed like 12 threes in a row. Someone stop him before he shoots again.

7:30: Sounds like we legitimately don’t care tonight. If we lose I may be selling my season tickets. Not that anyone will want them.

7:35: Bilal Dixon picks up his second foul in 7 seconds and gives Brown 3 free throws. James Still comes in, and we’ll see Bilal with 5 minutes left in the game. Also, a side note, we haven’t scored in almost 6 minutes.

7:37: Joe Hassett loves Duke Mondy. If he’ll play defense, fuck it, I like him too. Someone’s gotta do it. And holy shit, Sharaud Curry hit a three! That’s his 4th in his last 29 attempts!

7:38: Matt Sullivan has a career high with like 5 minutes to go in the first. Fuck it, let’s just start shooting on our own basket.

7:39: NO MORE FADEAWAYS. STOP IT. YOU’RE NOT IN THE NBA. FUCKING STOP.

7:43: Mondy decided to play defense tonight. Gotta love that. Kyle Wright decided to play offense tonight. Gotta love that too. Friars back on top.

7:46: Halftime: Friars 37, Brown 33. What a god damn shitshow. I think Keno needs to stab someone in the locker room, just to make a point. We’d better absolutely blow the doors off these guys in the second half, because if this is even close there’s a 20 pound analytical chemistry book in front of me that would make a damn good projectile. Speaking of which, I have not even remotely started studying. So there’s some good coming out of this game.

7:59: Joe Hassett just called Brown “this Bruins team”. Our color guy doesn’t even know what their mascot is. This is why we should be up by 30 by now.

8:02: The commercial breaks are the most entertaining thing ever. “Fuck, I had money on that game.” “Sucks to be you.” Joe Hassett and John Rooke, ladies and gentlemen!

8:05: The tastefully named Andrew McCarthy is killing us on the boards. And Bilal gets his 4th foul.

8:07: Mullery, McCarthy, and the Sullivan brothers. That is way too many Irish names for a basketball team that is almost beating us.

8:08: Marshon turns it over again as Joe Hassett says “Marshon is just playing with no confidence.” Don’t think that’s the problem.

8:09: Chainsaw with back to back blocks. Remind me why he doesn’t play?

8:12: PC has the largest lead of the game at 7. Really? REALLY? Kyle Wright hits double digits. So there’s that.

8:14: “Greedy is always open.” – Joe Hassett. Primarily because he’s shooting about 8% from 3 point range and no one bothers to guard him outside of the paint. See that? I’m abusive even when we’re doing things right! You guys wouldn’t read this shit if I wasn’t, be honest.

8:17: Tickets for the next 2 games are $5. God, they are desperate.

8:18: Greedy. Enough. Really.

8:20: VC is flying all over the place, and the lead is growing. He’s taking over the rebounding duties too since apparently no one else wants to. Can we start him? Come on, we can bump someone. Bilal will be out of the game after 2 minutes anyway. This new guy Ryan over at The State of Friars Basketball (http://gofriars.blogspot.com/) has a novel idea where we just start with a small lineup with VC at the point and Curry at the 2 with Greedy playing center and Bilal on the bench. I don’t hate it.

8:27: Greedy is starting to take over. Apparently he just made a ridiculous shot. He’s really got a lot of talent, but he needs to stop with the threes.

8:29: John Rooke: “Friars get a little sloppy.” Are you surprised, dude? They have a big lead. Why play hard?

8:33: Marshon picked up an assist. I am flabbergasted. Write this down. It may never happen again. In other news, Bilal Dixon is still in the game. It’s a Christmas miracle!

8:37: Peter Sullivan gets fouled on a three. Good thing he’s garbage and missed the free throw. He’s 2-8 and 1-4 from three point range. Let’s hold off on the praise, John/Joe.

8:38: 26% for Greedy from three? Yeah? He’s hit three tonight. He’s also shot 6. I’ll look the other way since he’s got 19 points, 7 rebounds, 2 assists and a block right now.

8:39: Marshon’s got less than 10 points again. Good. The fewer people encouraging him, the better. Maybe he’ll play his ass off in the Big East schedule. Or maybe he’ll play games high for the rest of the season. We’ll see.

8:41: Mondy’s playing some really solid D tonight. He’s really growing on me. Also playing good defense: Chainsaw. That’s 3 blocks. You don’t bring that shit in Chainsaw’s shed.

8:44: Keno’s radio commercials are really forced. I don’t think I’ll be going to Mark whatever Clothiers, since it sounds like they have our coach tied up in the basement with a gun to his head.

8:46: Brown is within 16 with 3 and a half to go. There’s still time to lose this one! Refs aren’t helping apparently.

8:47: Only 11 turnovers for the game. Not bad, although I’d really like to see this team not play like a bunch of assholes in the last 4 minutes for once. Keno is giving them a real beating right now. Good.

8:49: The lead is 14 with 2 to go. Screw it, let’s just hand them the ball until the lead is about 2.

8:50: Mondy walks and Kyle Wright commits a foul. Seriously, what the hell, let’s shoot on our own basket.

8:52: Kyle Wright hits another three. Like what I’m seeing out of him, at least against shitty teams. And that’ll do it. We win, and yet once again, I am not remotely satisfied with this team. Really looking forward to the massive blowout in the first Big East game. Don’t even know what the first BE game is. Let me check.

…

Notre Dame. Yeah, ok, we’re dicked.

-SM

URI Postgame

Where to even begin here? At the end of the first half of this one, it seemed like there was absolutely no way URI would be even close. The Friars were up 14 at halftime, with Brian McKenzie finally showing up for a game, putting in 13 first half points and grabbing somewhere in the region of 6 boards. Greedy Peterson was his normal self, pulling down rebounds all over the place and throwing home at least 3 vicious dunks. Vincent Council set him up for 2 of them with absolutely outstanding Ernie D.-esque passes and really impressed with his speed and drive. Side note: Speaking of Ernie D., he was in attendance today. Gotta think he’s impressed with VC. Here’s a crappy cell phone picture of him standing 5 feet away from me.

Sharaud Curry was running the offense efficiently and playing the kind of speed game that usually spells success for the Friars. Even Bilal Dixon put up big numbers without getting in foul trouble. The only dark spot was the absence of Marshon Brooks, who spent most of the opening half on the bench after getting in foul trouble early. The way things were going, however, it seemed we didn’t even need our star scorer, and it would just be a bonus when he got back into the game. At halftime, the Rhody fans were absolutely stunned and chants of “Let’s go Friars” rang out in the concourse of the Ryan Center.

Apparently, for at least a little while, we forgot what team we were dealing with.

It became immediately apparent in the second half that this game would not be the walk we all thought it would be. The biggest indicator was the total disappearance of any rebounding. The Friars absolutely dominated the boards in the first half, with Bilal, Greedy and McKenzie flying all over the place. This was really the single biggest reason for the halftime advantage. Suddenly, URI’s hilariously named  Orion Outerbridge and Lamonte Ulmer (8 and 9 rebounds, respectively), among others,  were taking all the boards. Even when we did come away with rebounds, it usually ended with a turnover anyway. The refs didn’t help, calling questionable fouls all afternoon, and making one of the worst calls I’ve ever seen when they neglected to reset the shot clock after a Marshon Brooks miss and Greedy rebound. The refs didn’t even bother checking the monitor, which resulted in Keno Davis literally walking halfway across the court to personally yell at all three refs. With the Friars already reeling, this turned out to be a major turning point in the game, and as it turned out, Providence would never recover.

Additionally, while this was happening, for whatever reason, the pace slowed considerably, and it was largely the Friars who were doing the slowing. This isn’t the first instance of this happening this season, and it makes very little sense to me. Where in the first half, Providence was dynamic, flying up and down the court and getting quick scores on offense, in the second half they started running bizarre half court sets that consisted of Sharaud Curry standing 35 feet from the basket and dribbling around in circles for upwards of 20 seconds while the rest of the team stood around watching him. When someone finally made a move, one of two things usually happened. Either a.) someone would drive to the basket, taking 3 guys on at once and either turning it over or getting called for a charge (I’ve never seen more charging calls in a game before. Ever. And most of them were flagrantly incorrect) or b.) Sharaud would force up a shot himself and miss as the shot clock expired. There is absolutely nothing more frustrating than watching a team have tremendous success with a speed game all first half and then watching them sit on the ball for the entire second half while the other team demolishes their lead. The primary culprit here was Sharaud, although his teammates weren’t much help. It got so bad that Keno eventually yanked Curry from the point guard position and let Vincent Council take over. VC did a much better job and was really the biggest bright spot for this game, putting up 16-6-6 and really looking impressive. By contrast, Sharaud Curry, despite scoring 17 points, was absolutely cover-your-eyes bad down the stretch, finishing 5 for 14 and missing ALL of his 6 three point attempts. It seemed to me that he actually looked bored for most of the second half and did nothing that I saw to encourage his young teammates. I think the only thing keeping him awake out there was all the noise the URI fans started making when they realized the Friars were doing everything in their power to hand the game to them. So much for senior leadership.

Speaking of leadership, it’s hard to just hand the LVP trophy to Curry with some of the other performances. Brian McKenzie literally disappeared in the second half, going from a strong rebounder that couldn’t miss to a close approximation of last year’s B-Mac, indiscriminately flying all over the place and hacking the hell out of anyone that got in his way. He did not score after halftime, and didn’t do much rebounding either. However, he was not even close to being the worst player today. The real race is between Curry and Marshon. It’s close, but I think the single worst performance in this game had to be Marshon’s, since Curry at least scored some points. Marshon’s line tonight: 20 minutes, 4 points, 1 rebound, 2 assists, 4 fouls, 2 turnovers (I’m reasonably sure there were more than 2 due to his overwhelming propensity to dribble into a triple team instead of passing). Absolutely unacceptable from someone who is supposed to be the best player on this team. Sure he’s dominant against teams like Vermont and Bryant, but I have to say, I’m not seeing much against legitimate competition. Last year, I tried to attribute his second half vanishing act to fatigue, citing the fact that it was really the first time he saw extended minutes. Now I’m noticing his steady decline coincided with the tougher part of the Friars’ schedule. This begs the question: just how good is Marshon really? I hope he proves me wrong, I really do, but if he continues on the road he’s on, he just might be the final name added to a lengthy list of failed Tim Welsh recruits.

One more thing I’d like to mention, because I’m not sure if it showed up on Cox: the URI student contingent stormed the court at the end of this one. I really don’t think I even need to make a sarcastic comment here. That just speaks for itself. Enjoy your meth parties tonight, URI. You stay classy.

-SM

The RIvalry

The oldest and most important basketball rivalry in the fine state of Rhode Island (Brown vs. Bryant never really made it) kicks off again tomorrow. It doesn’t have the history or prestige of Duke-UNC, but find me another rivalry where the fans of one team beat the hell out of the mascot of the other team just for shits and giggles. It’s an odd rivalry, to be sure, since we have bigger fish to fry (UConn, Syracuse, etc.) and the URI student population has meth to cook. The hatred continues to run deep, however, since PC and URI are the only two schools that have ever been relevant in basketball in this state. It’s a unique situation to have two teams that are always guaranteed to be the best two teams in a state, and so we have somewhat of a unique rivalry.

Adding fuel to the fire is the fact that it always seems to end up being a close game. No team ever blows out the other, regardless of the talent gap. Take last year’s game for example, in which the disastrously bad free throw shooting Geoff McDermott sank two freebies to ice the game at the end. The game was an absolute nail-biter, and especially because the Dunk was split right down the middle, the tension was palpable right to the very end.

The biggest factor here, though, is this inferiority complex the URI student body seems to have. I can’t seem to find a Facebook event for this year’s matchup, but I distinctly remember an event last year titled “Men’s Basketball vs. PC (aka The Devil)”, which was apparently created by Bobby Boucher’s mother. They apparently hate us all. A lot. The reasons for this are unclear, but it could be because they didn’t get in here, or maybe because they’re jealous of our non-incestuous origins. Either way, the hatred is there, and we just can’t help but return it.

Tomorrow, the rivalry will be renewed at the Ryan Center. Both teams are rebuilding and it promises to be another close game. From what I understand, the building is completely sold out, and the PC student section will be completely full. If you’re going and you’re new to the rivalry, my only advice to you: bring a helmet. See you at the game.

-SM

Friars Escape, Huskies Fans Actually Do Go Home Disappointed

This looked familiar. Road team comes in, builds up big lead, home team puts together huge comeback that falls just short. Good thing we were on the right side of this one or things would have gotten violent around here. That said, I really am getting tired of having heart attacks at the end of the game. I mean, yes, I suppose it wouldn’t be Providence basketball without it, but just once I’d like to see the Friars close out a game like this early on. Vermont and Bryant don’t count. I want to see a game that is never in question against a real, legitimate team. Is that asking too much? Maybe when there is so much youth involved and a tendency to get complacent surfacing time and again from the veterans. Seriously, Marshon, it’s time to get your head out of your ass, dude. You want to be a superstar, don’t you? Well, to quote a certain Friar legend, at the end of the game, that’s superstar time, baby. It’s not a good sign when your fans are absolutely terrfied when you drive the lane in a big situation down the stretch in a game. You don’t have to take on 4 guys at once. In fact, if 4 guys are on you, that just means someone else is open. Sometimes the right play is dishing it to Sharaud or VC for an open shot. Also, I’m still waiting to see a complete game out of Marshon. 40 minutes, start to finish, strong play. That’s all I ask.

Good to see Sharaud is taking over some of the scoring duties. That was a huge problem early on. While he’s still not exactly putting on a show, he’s led the Friars in points in the last two games. Most importantly, the three point shot is back. Sharaud was a sniper last night, burying all three of the NBA range threes he shot.

The real star of this game, however, was Greedy Peterson, whose putback on an inbound pass with 1 second on the shot clock (that my roommates and I successfully predicted) was the basket that effectively sealed this one up for the Friars. Besides a few crucial missed free throws (which he’s got to work on) and one ugly three (which he should never take), Greedy was lights out shooting and a monster on the boards, putting up a very nice 19-8 performance and putting together an outstanding Greedy Ratio of 2.77, a new season high. A side note: since the Greedy Ratio seems to be a pretty nice indication of how Greedy is performing, I may come up with similar ratios for other players. The B-Mac Ratio, for example, would consist of the formula (minutes played)/1. If the ratio is over 5, we have a problem. Just kidding. Maybe.

Speaking of Brian McKenzie, he put up some gaudy offensive numbers as usual, hitting a grand total of 1 shot the entire game for 3 points. Maybe it’s just me, but I think I’d like a little more scoring production out of my starting 2 guard. Just saying. I suppose I have to mention, however, that he did pull down 8 rebounds, several of them in huge situations. So it wasn’t a total loss putting him out there for 28 minutes.

Next order of business, however: Someone explain to me how Vincent Council isn’t starting? 11 points and a team leading 5 assists in 24 minutes? Check please. I continue to love this kid, despite his shocking 3 turnovers last night, which probably bumped his assist-to-turnover ratio down to about 13. Don’t care. He’s still my boy. I have no concerns about the transition next year when Sharaud is gone.

As for everyone else: Duke Mondy was less than stellar on offense with only 2 points, but he played pretty strong defense in his limited time on the floor. Lacy, Still and Wright all saw some limited action as well, and none of them really impressed me a whole lot. Not much to say here really, other than to point out that it seemed like Keno subbed players in less than he has been, which is partially a function of the sneaky slow pace of this game as Friarblog alluded to, and partially, I think, a result of Keno finally getting a good feel for which players are really going to help this team right away. I’d like to see a little bit more of Kyle Wright, just because he showed us a lot in the Vermont game and hasn’t seen much time since. The other big story here: a no show from fan-favorite Russ Permenter. Chainsaw, what’s going on, big guy? He’s gotta be sick or something, right? I’m told he lives in Bedford, so maybe he sneezed a little bit too close to the health center and they immediately wrapped his face in Saran Wrap and sent him back to Texas. I’m not kidding, that’s what the health center does now. Can’t have anyone catching the swine.

-SM

These guys play basketball?

Look at these guys. Have you seen a goofier bunch of kids in your life? They got lucky, caught us on a bad night, and beat us last year, and now they’re GUARANTEEING a win tonight. Congratulations, guys, you beat us once. But last time I checked, we’re in the Big East and you’re in something called the Colonial Athletic Conference. Also, you’re currently sitting at 8th in the conference after dropping 2 games to Siena (ok, they’re somewhat legit) and BU (not so much). On the plus side, you have 2 wins on your schedule by a combined 6 points over Utah State and Wright State, which I’m sure Joe Lunardi will be pointing out when it’s time to make the case for giving the CAA a 4th at large bid.

Really, gentlemen, I like the effort, and it’s good to have confidence in yourself. But you are in no position to trash talk right now. In fact, we have a history of taking care of business against teams who have done this kind of thing. Isn’t that right, AJ Price?

I’ll take that as a yes.

We will win this game tonight. I sincerely hope we win by 40. Won’t happen, but that’s not gonna stop me from hoping.

-SM

BC Postgame Rant

Way back on December 23, 2008, Providence College lost to Boston College despite a furious second half comeback that fell just short. Frustrated, two PC students created a blog called The Truth About PC Basketball on which they could air their grievances with the infuriating Friars, who never should have had to put together such a big comeback to an arguably inferior BC team.

Different year, same story.

Let me start by saying that this is a largely young team, and there are obviously going to be some growing pains. I’m not going to sit here and compare these guys to last year’s team, which had no excuse. That said, the aspect of this game that made it so difficult to swallow is the fact that it was once again the veterans who came up short, not the youngsters that we like to pin so much on. Sharaud Curry finally decided to show up for a game this year, putting up 20 points and 8 assists, but it was Curry who turned the ball over in an absolutely critical situation late to essentially hand the game to BC. It was a familiar sight seeing a veteran commit the cardinal sin of a bad turnover late in a close game after we saw it 3 or 4 times against Alabama. Marshon Brooks had his struggles as well, as he was an absolute nonfactor in the first half. He turned it on in the second half, scoring 13 during the comeback, but the comeback likely would not have been necessary had he found the bottom of the basket at any point during the first half. As for Brian McKenzie? What can I say? I got nothing. I really can’t think of a reason why he should be playing at all, never mind starting. If Keno Davis has any sense he will sit him down for the next game, and start Vincent Council instead.

The poor play from the leaders was compounded by the poor play in the paint for the Friars. Greedy Peterson pulled down 11 boards, mostly in the second half, but scored only 15 on 7-19 shooting, producing a Greedy Ratio of 0.625, a far cry from last game’s 2.22. Bilal Dixon put up a strong 10-9, but like Marshon, he was an absolute nonfactor in the first half and played very little defense, especially after he got into foul trouble. He fouled out in crunch time, leaving the Friars without any real presence down low to close out the game. With Chainsaw Permenter and James Still spending almost the entire game on the bench, his defense was a real problem for the Friars. It seemed like on every BC possession the back door layup was wide open. Case in point: BC put up 64 points in the paint tonight, and had four starters (Trapani, Jackson, Raji, Southern) score in double figures without the aid of any three point baskets. That is absolutely unheard of. The perimeter defense was there, as demonstrated by BC’s inability to make a single three point field goal all night, but down low, the defense was like Swiss cheese. It was simply too easy for BC to get points down low, and ultimately, that’s what killed the PC comeback.

The bright spot from this game was Vincent Council, who played consistently well throughout the game. He scored 12 in 27 minutes off the bench, hitting three big time three pointers, and filled up the stat sheet with 2 boards, 2 assists, and a block. His defense was a big part of the Friar comeback as well. He looks very promising for the future, and is really the first example we get to see of the recruiting power of Keno Davis. His speed, court vision and scoring ability will make him a perfect fit for Keno’s system and I am very excited to see him develop as a player. This really is what bothers me so much about this team. The pieces are starting to fall into place, and this edition of the Friars should at worst be a fun team to watch and at best a legitimately competitive offensive force. It just seems like time and again that the leadership just isn’t there in the most crucial situations, and with such a young team, that could have a real, lasting effect. I wish I could blame this loss on inexperience, I really do. But this game was lost  by the shortcomings of the veterans, not the mistakes of the rookies. It’s good to see Sharaud taking a step in the right direction, but he still needs to learn to take over down the stretch. Marshon has to lose the schizophrenia and be consistently effective over an entire game, rather than just picking one half to be dominant. Brian McKenzie has to take a fucking seat. If these things can happen, we’ll see some real improvement from the entire team.

-SM