PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Ready or not, Big East play beckons for the young Providence Friars. If what they showed in the last non-conference game is any indication, not much has changed from the beginning of the season. The reality is that this is still a team that will have great moments and has the potential to over-achieve, but also a glaring weakness and is still a young team.
The Friars knocked off Yale by a score of 87-78, but it didn’t come easy. The plus side is that they won, and did so with some persistence. For much of the game, they didn’t get great results from their press, as Yale took good care of the ball. Finally, in the latter part of the second half, they began to get results, getting some turnovers and disrupting Yale’s offense enough to get stops when they didn’t force a turnover. The offense followed, as the Friars shot 54.3 percent from the field in the second half.
“Once we get stops, we can run,” said Marshon Brooks, who had 11 of his 13 points in the second half. “We can’t run if we’re not getting stops. That kind of kept us at their pace of the game, so they stuck around.”
Brooks is very much a key to this team as one of its veterans and its most talented player. Early on, it looked like he could be poised for a breakout season, but that was the case last year and he instead had the kind of season a young player can have. For a while this season, it has looked like it could be the same kind of year: big games early, but then he struggles to get back to that level.
Brooks led the Friars to the World Vision Invitational to open the season, earning the tournament MVP after averaging 17 points per game in the three games. The last game was the first of three straight outings of 20 or more points. The next two games weren’t bad, scoring 16 and 10 against Boston College and Northeastern, respectively, but then things seemed to take a bad turn. Early foul trouble hurt him in the loss at Rhode Island as he scored four points in just 20 minutes, and he had just eight points against Brown a couple of nights later. While he hasn’t played poorly since then, he’s clearly not been at the level of the early games, and his defense has played a role in that.
“Defensively, I’ve got to do a better job of keeping my man in front of me,” Brooks said.
In his defense, Brooks has, along with several others, battled the flu bug in the last week and a half starting a couple of days before the loss to Iona and running through final exam week. Still, this is a player the young Friars need to be consistent.
“Everybody knows, Marshon knows that he’s just scratching the surface of how good a player he can become,” said head coach Keno Davis. “He’s got to be able to add the different areas of his game to become a lock-down defender, to become a good rebounder from a guard position, and obviously to take the ball to the basket and not rely on the pull-back jump shot. He’s trying, and I think with his work ethic and his attitude, I’ve got a good feeling that he’s going to improve as a basketball player.”
The Friars have been very reliant on the three-point shot all season long, which is a big reason they look the part of a feast-or-famine team. They have averaged over 25 attempts per game from long range and are shooting just over 33 percent from deep. In each of their first three games, they took 32 shots from behind the arc and made no more than 10. In Monday’s win over Yale, they were 4-19. Conversely, they went 15-27 against Vermont and 16-29 at George Washington, so they can get hot from long range. There have been times where they move the ball well to get those shots and times where, like last season’s team, they simply settle, and when it’s more like the latter the shots haven’t been falling.
That means the Friars have to find other ways to score. Brooks is capable of it, as are other key veterans like Sharaud Curry and Brian McKenzie. McKenzie has taken 77 shots on the season, 47 from behind the arc. Of the 41 shots Kyle Wright has hoisted up this season, 30 have come from behind the arc. All are capable of scoring off the bounce.
Yale led for most of the first half on Monday night, at one point by 11, and for most of the first 11 minutes of the second half. To boot, the Bulldogs basically had their way with the Providence defense, especially inside, as they at times scored with ease when they got the ball inside either on drives or an entry pass into a post player.
The need to score aside from three-point shots and the interior defense both point to what will be another key: the Friars’ press. When the press works, the Friars dictate the tempo and can disguise their weakness inside. They also don’t need to score in other ways because they can get easy baskets off turnovers. When that doesn’t happen, it will be tough for them to win against teams in the Big East that have bigger, stronger frontcourts. By not controlling the tempo, they’ve basically lost half the battle already.
“We’re not going to be the biggest, strongest team in the Big East, and probably never will be,” Davis said, noting that Yale provided a textbook example of how to attack them inside. “So in a halfcourt game, if it gets down to a 50-point game as some teams like to play, and the walk the ball up and we walk it up and they dump it into their post players and we dump it into our post players, we’re not going to win that game anyway.”
The Friars are inexperienced inside as well, and it has shown. Bilal Dixon has been in foul trouble often, and Monday night was no exception. Jamine Peterson will get plenty of rebounds, but he is all of about 6’6″ and fresh off a redshirt season, and James Still is probably not physically ready for the Big East but will have to play. Russ Permenter will throw his weight around, and there’s a chance that Ray Hall could play as he’s now practicing and suiting up, but neither is a panacea. Simply put, the Friars have some room for improvement up front.
That means the guards have to do a little more when they get into a halfcourt set defensively. If the big men alone can’t shut down the post players, the best thing anyone can do is not let the ball get inside.
“We’ve just got to do a better job of walling up, trying not to foul and keeping our bigs out of foul trouble,” said Brooks.
When the Friars are able to turn it into an up-and-down game and force turnovers, they’ll have a chance to win. They might pull off an upset or two along the way as a result. But when that doesn’t happen, it could be a long night. That’s pretty much what was projected for this team before the season, which means the first month and a half has gone about as expected.
