For most Big East schools, getting a player drafted in the first round is a frequent occurrence. Yes, there were several handfuls of fans in UConn jerseys who stood and cheered when Kemba Walker was drafted (for the record, I booed, in a respectful fashion, of course), but you got the feeling that they took it for granted. By contrast, there was a significant smattering of Providence fans in the crowd, one that far exceeded my expectations. I expected to be one of the only people wearing the black and white at the Rock; turned out I wasn’t the only one with a PC jersey on in my section. When Marshon Brooks was drafted by the Celtics at #25, several groups of Friar fans turned up on the jumbotron absolutely going nuts. You got the feeling that if the Providence contingent was just a bit larger and more concentrated in one spot that David Stern might be in danger of getting trampled by a crowd storming the stage (this is Providence College, after all). On my way out of the Rock later that night, I was practically assaulted with congratulatory high fives by a couple of Johnson & Wales students who had become PC fans. Maybe the greatest compliment of the night occurred when a 12 year old kid in a Kemba Walker jersey walked up to me and said, “Marshon Brooks? You think he’s going to save the Nets? Sorry man, he sucks.” When fans of the reigning national champions are going out of their way to insult your player, at least on some level, you have to feel like that player has made it. The whole night felt like a win for Providence College, and more importantly, one with a more lasting effect than some of the recent on-court upsets.

It should be fairly obvious what getting a player drafted in the first round of the NBA draft can do for a small program. High caliber recruits want to go to the NBA. They want to go to a school that can get them to the NBA. What Marshon Brooks did was prove that Providence College can get you to the NBA. And not just as a second round afterthought either. It’s been a while for Providence in the NBA draft. Currently, there is one other Friar in the NBA, Ryan Gomes, who was drafted in the second round. In fact, no Friar had seen the first round since Austin Croshere went as a lottery pick in 1997. For a school that has gone so long without having a first round pick, Marshon’s entry into the NBA should make Ed Cooley’s job easier as a recruiter.

From an NBA standpoint, the Nets make sense as a destination for Marshon, and I don’t just think so because I’m a lifelong Nets fan. The Nets’ most glaring weakness was an inability to score, finishing 28th in the NBA in scoring at 94.2 PPG. We’ve all seen what Marshon can do on the offensive end, and he should be able to help in that department. Their defense wasn’t much better, especially from the smaller  guys in the lineup, as New Jersey finished dead last in steals per game. I’m not saying Marshon is exactly a defensive wizard, or anything close to it (Thanks, Keno), but his defense did show improvement in his senior season, and his quickness and length paired with the defensive coaching philosophy of Avery “Squeaks” Johnson could make him a solid defensive contributor. With Deron Williams entrenched for at least the next year (and hopefully much, much longer) at the point, and young talent at the center and power forward positions in Brook Lopez and Kris “Humpty Hump” Humphries, the biggest need for the Nets was a slashing scorer at either the 2 guard or small forward position. Enter Marshon. As for you disappointed Celtics fans out there, the move made sense from their standpoint. With Kevin Garnett getting old and the midseason departure of Kendrick Perkins, the Cs’ biggest need going forward was some toughness down low. While I’m sure a lot of you guys would’ve loved to see Marshon in green like Ryan Gomes and Eric Williams before him, he just wasn’t a commodity Boston needed.

What happens with Marshon’s career is largely up to him. With a team like the Nets, he is, as Avery Johnson has already said, going to compete for minutes, and may find his way into the starting lineup at the shooting guard position in year 1. He showed in his senior season that when he is out to prove himself, he can step his game up and open some eyes. I sincerely doubt he’ll be the next Kobe Bryant (seriously, calm down, people), but he’ll have every opportunity to have a long, productive career in the NBA. He has said himself he plans on being with the Nets for quite some time, saying, ”You guys will be seeing me for the next 10 years with this organization” at his introductory press conference. Here’s hoping he’s right.

Make us proud, Marshon.

While I’ve got you guys here, I’m also announcing my retirement from this blog. With Friarblog and Friar Basketball available as more in-depth, informative blogs, The Truth About PC Basketball always existed primarily to fill the student-run blog niche. I’m now a PC alumnus, so this blog can’t serve that purpose anymore. I’m also heading off to Penn State for grad school to go do scientific things, so I’m going to have significantly less time. Since I only wrote occasionally when I did have some time, I figure I’ll never post anymore anyway. It’s been fun, if only because the blog let me publicly gripe about Jeff Xavier, Greedy Peterson’s miniscule basketball IQ, and Ken_ _avis and gave me a soapbox to denounce Hasheem Thabeet from. There was also the added bonus of having 20,000+ page visits (probably coming from about 12 people, but still), which we never expected when we started this blog back in the winter of ’08. Thanks to everyone for reading over the last few years. Hope you enjoyed reading this blog as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Let’s go Friars.

-SM

P.S. For those of you following @TTAPCBBall on Twitter, I’m keeping that alive for the foreseeable future. You’re welcome, America.

-Keno Davis had to go. I don’t think anyone will disagree with that. Hell, even the donors over on the Scout forum who freak out anytime someone “discredits the program” were calling for his head. The final nail in his coffin had to be the Duke Mondy affair, which we’re all still waiting for answers about. Definitely legal trouble. Had to be. We’ll find out soon enough if he’ll be back next year. Regardless, he was 5th player and 4th Keno recruit to find himself in hot water, which is entirely unacceptable, especially considering the product on the court. I mean at least the St. John’s teams of the late 1990s-early 2000′s were good.

-It certainly didn’t help that at the end, it seemed pretty clear that the team had quit on Keno. The end of the Louisville game was a prime example. I actually found myself enjoying watching it, even though PC looked like the Washington Generals. Marshon Brooks looked like the only one who really cared down the stretch, unless you count Vincent Council’s sudden interest in padding his own stats at the expense of the rest of the team.

-Speaking of VC, I think he quietly took a bit of a step back this year. Not a huge step, but he wasn’t the guy I expected to see this season. Last year he was making dazzling passes and showing flashes as a potential star facilitator. I can’t recall seeing any really special feeds this year. Yes, he was second in the Big East in assists when all was said and done, but there were stretches this season particularly at the end where he looked like the only thing he was concerned about was scoring. Going forward, his focus should be on creating opportunities for the true scorers on the roster, like Gerard Coleman and Kadeem Batts.

-The biggest step backwards on this team was, of course, Bilal Dixon. What a tremendously disappointing season. I lost about all the patience I had with him when he complained on Twitter about playing time after the biggest win of the season over then #7 Nova, going so far as to compare himself to LeBron James. Seriously. I’m not kidding. THAT LeBron James. The one that’s good at basketball. The handling of his situation spoke volumes about the Keno Davis era, as Dixon didn’t just start the next game, but actually got MORE playing time. Another instance of Keno letting his players get away with just about anything off the court.

-Gerard Coleman looks like he could have a bright future ahead of him, as long as he can play with some consistency. He also has to learn that his strongest offensive talent is his ability to cut to the basket, NOT shooting threes. He didn’t shoot an inordinate amount of threes this season, but when he did, they were often less than great decisions. As long as he doesn’t get too enamored with the 3-ball a la Jeff Xavier, he’ll do fine.

-Ron Giplaye has got some real potential. He’s undersized for a power forward but he’s got the toughness that has been in such short supply over the last few years. Yet another shortcoming on Keno’s long list was his decision to give Ray Hall extended minutes, taking away valuable experience from Gipper and Kadeem. Ray was a fun player and a good story, but it wasn’t like he was winning any games for us with his 1.1 points per game and 3 inch vertical leap.

-That said, I will absolutely miss the Ostrogoth.

-Kadeem Batts drove me nuts this season. Obviously, he’s another guy with potential. He had games like the Cincy game (17 pts, 11 rebs), or the first South Florida game (19 and 11). For every double double though, he’d throw up a line like he had against Marquette (6 and 3). He’s going to need to put on some muscle in the offseason and really work on his toughness down low in order to really compete in the Big East. He’s also gotta learn that the occasional jumper could be a good thing, but constantly taking mid-range jumpers is not what we need out of him.

-Duke Mondy turned out to be a force on defense, ending up a quiet second in the Big East in steals. His absence was painfully obvious down the stretch. From a basketball perspective, I’d love to have him back next year, since no one else that’s coming back has done anything to instill confidence in their defensive abilities. If the rumors about what the hell he did are true though, he has no place at Providence College.

-All the others… I mean… fuck, I don’t know. Bryce Cotton was a pretty decent scorer off the bench, but the rest of them are useless.

-And that brings us to Marshon S. Brooks. I’ve given him plenty of shit over the years on this blog and elsewhere. Hell, I once asked on this blog whether he was smoking dope before the games because he sure played like he did. Now it’s time to give credit where credit is due. He really was a different player this year. Coming into the year I really had no idea what kind of leader he’d be. He never seemed to be a guy who would take charge of a team. And yet he answered those questions. Regardless of what the rest of the team did, he had a season that won’t be forgotten anytime soon. He completely put the team on his back multiple times, most notably the Georgetown and Notre Dame games, when he was literally the ONLY reason the Friars were even close. He went out and gave everything he had, regardless of how little the games mattered. You can say he was only trying to improve his draft stock or get individual attention, but you absolutely can not say he didn’t play his ass off, which is more than you can say about a lot of the other guys on the team. Quite simply, he deserved better.

-So now here we are, without a coach and little hope for the immediate future. What now? A lot of names are being thrown around, and it seems like the favorite among PC fans is the assistant that got away, Pat Skerry. Here’s my thoughts on Skerry: He is NOT the answer. His proponents cite his legendary recruiting skills. Here’s my question: who did he ACTUALLY bring in? OK, fair enough, Khem Birch followed him. But who else? Shabazz Napier committed to UConn before he left. Joe Young decommitted afterwards, but he didn’t follow Skerry to Pitt. Same with Naadir Tharpe. The Ricky Ledo fiasco happened well after Skerry left, so he clearly wasn’t a factor there. Besides all of that, does anyone know anything about his actual coaching skills? He seems to me to be a recruiting specialist and not a real X’s and O’s guy. The best way to sell your program is to win games, and you can’t do that unless you can draw up plays, design defenses, and effectively coach your guys. Keno Davis made that crystal clear. The other major candidates at this juncture are Herb Sendek, who recently finished in the basement of the Pac-10 (yawn), and Ed Cooley, who has done a nice job at Fairfield. Cooley could be a good fit, and by all accounts, he’s a hard-nosed coach who expects a lot out of his players, which is exactly what this team needs. That said, I have to say I’m a bit leery about hiring another mid-major coach, even if he does have more experience under his belt than Keno did before he came. I’m more intrigued by Mike Hopkins, who a few years back was picked to be the heir apparent to Jim Boeheim at Syracuse, and is still waiting. Good enough for Cuse, good enough for me. And who better to turn around our defensively challenged program than a guy who has spent the last 15 years studying under one of the greatest defensive coaches of all time? As for recruiting, it seems like he’s more than capable, as he’s had a hand in several of the big names that have come through Syracuse over the years.

-Of course, we’ll probably end up with another bad fit, because it appears that Bob Driscoll will be remaining in power, despite this week’s acknowledgement that Tim Army and Keno Davis, two Driscoll hires, were both mistakes. Army and Davis were just two more additions to a long list of failures on Driscoll’s resume. The best way to get the program moving in the right direction at this point is to continue cleaning house and get rid of Driscoll or at least get some other opinions involved in the coaching search. But then again, what do I know? As Driscoll himself said, ”The vast majority of folks who criticize me have never hired a basketball coach or a hockey coach. Or played sports.” So really, as long as we can find a good coach who doesn’t mind working for a pretentious jackass, we’re all set.

-SM

Sure looked like the team was concerned about saving his job tonight. …NOT. Losing, anyone?

-SM

(But in all seriousness, we’re probably stuck with him because PC doesn’t have the money to buy him out. Shit.)

Some other notes and observations:

-Jeremy “Dumbo” Hazell was held to only 10 points, and was 0-7 from 3 point range after torching Syracuse earlier in the week. Instead, the combination of Jeff Robinson and Herb Pope torched the Friars for a combined 43 points. The Friars always seems to do a decent job of holding the opponents’ best player to low point totals while other players come up big. I have no idea what this means, but it’s still an interesting trend.

-Other than Keon Lawrence, who scored 10 for the Pirates, Seton Hall’s fairly deep bench was held to 2 points. I suppose this stat would be more relevant if Providence had gotten more than 5 total bench points.

-After his post-Nova rant on Twitter, Bilal Dixon had a strong game with 17 points on 6-7 shooting and 10 rebounds. It was his first double-double since December 6th vs. Brown and his first double digit scoring night since December 28 vs. Syracuse. It certainly would help going forward if Bilal could get going again, and this game was a step in the right direction. Not sure I’m a fan of Keno’s decision to actually respond to Bilal’s tweets, however. It appeared at times that Keno was going out of his way to keep Bilal in at the expense of Kadeem Batts’ (0 pts, 4 rebs in 17 min) minutes. Rewarding  that kind of behavior sends a message to the rest of the team that you can do whatever you want, and that is not going to help this program going forward.

-The Friars did not hit a three pointer until 11 minutes into the second half. Ended up not being a huge factor, since Seton Hall actually shot at a worse clip from downtown overall. Still, 21% from three point range is not something you like to see.

-Free throw shooting was a huge factor. The Friars did actually get to the line 9 more times than Seton Hall (31 attempts), but shot an atrocious 54.8% once they got there, as compared to Seton Hall’s 81.8%. For all the emphasis Keno Davis places on getting to the line, he’s going to need to convince his players to put in the extra hours at the gym to practice freebies.

-The other two huge, and very telling stat disparities between the two teams: Turnovers forced: SHU +9; Assists, SHU +10. Very reflective of the kind of recklessness in the halfcourt offense that plagued the Friars especially early.

Good opportunity to get back on track Wednesday at home for USF. Here’s hoping the Friars can take advantage in front of what I would guess will be a diminished home crowd as compared to the last few games.

-SM

-In an otherwise great year for Rick Pitino, his former team has now gotten the best of him twice. Ricky Ledo is not walking through that door.

-For a lot of this game, this was one of those games where I felt like we should have been down by much more than we were. The offense had some rough patches, including a long scoreless stretch in the second half. The defense was quietly and very surprisingly stifling, however, as the Friars got away with the offensive lulls without taking much damage. The stat that jumped out to me the most was the fact that Louisville, the best three point shooting team in the Big East, did not hit a single three pointer in the second half. After a stretch of games where even below average three point shooting teams were shooting the lights out against us, this was particularly refreshing to see.

-On the other side of the ball, the Friars hit 40% of their threes, well above the season average. I wouldn’t get used to it, because this team is not exactly stocked with sharpshooters, but this game was largely won and lost at the three point arc.

-Bilal Dixon is a big concern going forward. Definitely a low point in the Friar lineup with 0 points in only 15 minutes. He’s going to need to get straightened out if we want to see more Big East wins, because we’re not going to have many great three point shooting games.

-The crowd was a big part of this win. There were 2 reasons for this. First, it was the first game back from winter break, and really the first “important” game this season for which students were on campus. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, 5 pm is really the perfect time for a Saturday game. It’s late enough to drink before hand but it’s early enough that you don’t lose the all-important “this game is going to cut into my drinking time” demographic. Bob Driscoll: Schedule more 5 pm Saturday games.

-Also, for those of you not on Twitter, I’d like to once again point out that I predicted this win right here on this blog back in November. I’m awesome.

If you want a full, detailed recap of this game, I suggest you go check out Friar Basketball’s take on the game, which pretty much covers all the relevant analysis.

-SM

A few other thoughts:

-As Friar Basketball points out, Bilal Dixon, Ray Hall, and Ron Giplaye were the only Friars able to shoot at a decent clip, while the wings struggled, especially from long range, again shooting under 30%. The game plan has to change. Fewer 3′s, more high percentage shots in the paint. Keno has to notice this, right?

-The aforementioned Ray Hall had a career night, and was possibly the Friars’ MVP last night. It’s a shame it happened on the road, because a performance from him like that would’ve blown the roof off the Dunk. He’s the most popular Friar since Thomas Aquinas. All of that said, if Ray Hall is your team MVP on any given night, you’re probably losing big.

-Who the hell is John Flowers? Sounds like last year’s trend of getting torched by a random role player is making a comeback.

-Outside of The Ostrogoth (9 boards, 7! offensive), the rebounding was atrocious. The Mountaineers didn’t miss many shots (48.6% shooting), and of those they did miss, they were able to grab their own rebound about 50% of the time. If you let that happen, you’re going to lose. Simple as that.

Let’s hope this team figures out a way to bounce back quickly, because this program needs a win on Sunday. Desperately.

-SM

2. I have no problems with GC’s three down the stretch. Maybe he’s not the best shooter from 3, but it shows that this kid has tremendously big testicles and isn’t afraid to back down from the big shot. I mean he was wide open too. If he hits it, everyone in the world is sucking his cock. I loved that he wasn’t afraid of the big moment. It speaks to the type of big time player he will become. Next time he won’t pass up the shot. He just won’t miss.

3. To say that this team is “too talented” to make poor decisions down the stretch is a bunch of bullshit. This team seriously lacks talent. Besides Marshon, everyone else playing are freshmen and sophomores. Really only 6 people play. Our bigs need time to develop, like any set of bigs. Batts looks like he fits the Dante Cunningham from Villanova type mold as a player, but even Cunningham needed his fair share of time to develop into the NBA player he is now (2 ppg as a fr., 9 as a soph., 10 as a jr. and finally 16 as a sr.). Dixon, on the other hand, cannot generate points on his own and probably would not see many minutes on other Big East squads. But he is what he is. He’s what we have. Live with it.

4.What they make up for in lack of talent is heart. Talent and heart are very different. When you play with heart, you play scrappy and with high energy. You don’t always make the right play–you sometimes get lucky and unlucky. People just need to stop pretending that this team is something it’s not–and that’s highly talented. They are a scrappy bunch that are about 2 talented players and a year or two away from being a true competitor. That’s not a bad thing. It just is what it is. People just need to stop getting mad because they expect some players to perform much higher than they are actually capable of performing.

5. In Ledo We Trust. Amen.

6. If anyone actually reads this, well you must be pretty bored with your life. But by far the best friar resource out there is http://www.friarbasketball.net/….everything he says is spot on. It’s a one spot stop for analysis. It’s head and toes above any other references out there. Between that and the scout forums, you should be able to get your fix of PC news.

I’m getting kinda tired of hammering at the “this was an encouraging loss” point. If you really want to revisit that argument, feel free to read this, replacing every mention of “Syracuse” with “Pitt”. It’s not that I’m not encouraged by what I saw Tuesday night, because I certainly am. But there’s just so many different iterations of “they showed a lot of fight”, “they didn’t roll over and quit like Friars squads of old”, and “chalk this one up to inexperience, not lack of talent or effort” that I can write before I start sounding like an automated cliche machine.

You know, like Merril Hoge.

The fact is, sooner or later, losses like this will no longer be considered encouraging. I don’t think we’re there yet, but we might be getting close, with the Big East losing streak standing at 14 games and our hopes of competing in the Big East this season quickly fading. This is particularly true if the same end of the game mistakes keep cropping up. As a great man once said, “at the end of the game, that’s supastar time, baby!” This time around, it was particularly disappointing to see a wild contested 3 early in the shot clock with the Friars only down 2, even though it’s not the first time we’ve seen it. For the first 38 minutes of this game, the Friars steered clear of their old strategy of hawking up bad threes like Jeff Xavier on acid. They worked the ball inside to Kadeem Batts (9 pts, 6 boards, 5 offensive), and Bilal Dixon (5 pts, 5 rebs), who did a very nice job against one of the toughest frontcourts in the country on both ends of the ball. They also slashed to the hoop for easier buckets and to draw fouls, getting most of the Pitt starting lineup in foul trouble early. I’ve been saying for the whole season that with talented slashers like Vincent Council, Marshon Brooks, and Gerard Coleman, this should be a no brainer game strategy, and it looks like the team finally figured that out. All of that is what made it so frustrating when the Friars began to rely on the three ball down the stretch. Yes, they hit 2 in a row. I had no problem with the 2 they made, because they were carefully selected, open looks. I did have a problem with the 3rd attempt, which missed badly (I’m not 100% sure, but I believe it was Coleman who took it too, and I am not a fan of him ever taking threes). It just seemed that the third three was rushed, and taken on the premise that the last two threes had gone in. This has been somewhat of a problem over the last few years, as evidenced by the fact that my father, who did not watch most of the game, actually said “you know they’re gonna go to the well one too many times” seconds before Coleman whiffed. Hopefully, this kind of poor decision making down the stretch won’t stick. I don’t think it will, because Coleman, and this team as a whole, is too talented. For now, though, it’s a problem Keno Davis is going to have to find a way to deal with.

Now that the negativity is out of the way for this blog, I’d like to point out the defensive effort by the Friars in this game. Pitt is a very good team, and Jamie Dixon is a very good coach that always has a disciplined roster. The Friars were able to force TWENTY TWO turnovers in this game, which is a huge part of why this game was as close as it was. The perimeter defense was shaky at times, particularly in the first half, but the transition defense was nothing short of stellar. Duke Mondy is very quickly turning into a go-to defensive stopper, which makes me forget about his occasional penchant for X-esque threes (seriously, does he have to miss a three within his first minute into the game to keep his scholarship or something?). The box score has him listed for 4 steals, but it sure seemed like more than that. VC quietly added 6 steals of his own, which is nothing short of outrageous. I arrived at PC in the fall of 2007, and this was definitely one of the best defensive performances I’ve ever seen from the Friars. Considering how well the transition offense runs, if the Friars continue this trend, we might be on to something, especially if the end of game situation gets straightened out.

-SM

On the other end of the ball, the Friar transition defense was awful, with St. John’s having their way in the paint, particularly in the first half, when the Red Storm scored ALL of their points there. Dwight Hardy, Justin Brownlee, and Justin Burrell all had strong games, taking advantage of the breakdowns in the Providence D. Considering the fact that the Friar offense runs most efficiently in transition, Keno Davis will have to tighten up the transition defense so the Friars can win playing at a high pace.

Depth continues to be an issue for this team. Only Duke Mondy saw double figure minutes off the bench in this game, and only he and Dre Evans scored any points off the bench. Bryce Cotton made some poor decisions in his 7 minutes and I’m starting to wonder whether or not he should be getting minutes over Evans, who was impressive in limited minutes. Ron Giplaye continues to be an intriguing option, picking up 2 offensive rebounds in 2 minutes. He did miss 3 shots, but they were all putbacks in the course of about 5 seconds. Lee Goldsbrough is my least favorite player on this team. Ray Hall killed a bear with his bare hands in limited action.

This was a disappointing loss in a winnable game for a team that’s going to need to take care of business against middle of the pack teams like St. John’s to be competitive this year. It wasn’t a total letdown, since we saw the same fight out of the Friars down the stretch, indicating  that they are a resilient group. The issue here is not falling in a hole that requires them to fight back in every game. Once this team starts coming out of the gate more quickly and figures out that the three ball is not the answer, we should see an improvement. Let’s hope that happens sooner rather than later.

Another side note: Ricky Ledo tweeted several times during the game and appeared to be really into the game. He also didn’t seem too discouraged by the loss, tweeting, “to badd we took a L we get bak at it next game”. Don’t know about you guys, but that sounds good to me. I think.

-SM