Kevin Stacom: PC After Four Games
Kevin Stacom, Sports Analyst
Kevin Stacom: PC After Four Games
There were, for the most part, some very positive signs emerging.
The teams overall depth, quickness, and athleticism was in general paying dividends in terms of producing opportunities to score as evidenced by a marked improvement over last year’s team in a couple of key areas Last years early games where the team struggled to find a workable chemistry, were marked by a fairly consistent negative assist to turnover ratio So far there has been a trend towards a major correction in that facet of the game, which even after a tough outing at Colorado stands, after 4 games, 63 assists/ 49 Turnovers
Another glaring improvement has also been a welcome consistency from the free-throw line. That also was an Achilles' heel for last year’s squad but currently stands at a more than respectable 82% as a team, with three players, Jason Edwards, Jaylin Sellers, and Stefan Vaaks, shooting an excellent 91%,90%, and 82% respectively.
Also very encouraging is the dramatic increase, compared to last year’s team, in 2nd chance points and points off fast breaks
Compared to the same point in last year’s season, the kinks to work out were more along the lines of, with regard to the Harvard exhibition and Holy Cross game, “Gee, we had a chance to really blow them out, but we let them back in to make it interesting”, rather than last year having to sweat out a grinding W in the last minute through an uncertain frenetic lack of rhythm.
Against Penn, they appeared to make some progress in that department (transition defense), as they did hold serve against a very hot 3-point shooting team to win going away, 106-81.
To put a punctuation mark on the early part of the mid-major part of the season, it was interesting to get an outsider’s impression of the talent level on this year’s PC team during Holy Cross’s head coach, Dave Paulsen’s, post-game press conference comments:
“…..lot of depth, we’d get close, they’d get a back-breaking rebound, their pressure was accumulative, their size, athleticism, length, hard for us to simulate in practice…not one guy, it was collective… they have a 10-man rotation”
To coach Paulsen’s point there is not really a drop off in talent level when Coach English begins to make his substitutions, and their general willingness to share the ball has not only lead so far to the above mentioned positive assist to turnover ratio, but also to a balanced scoring attack of 5 guys averaging double figures, with an additional player (Jamier Jones) just below at 9 per.
Every team at this time of year is in the midst of an intense learning and adjustment phase, especially in the onslaught of the Portal age, where it’s a necessity in short order to find out how to incorporate so many new players into a cohesive unit
In preparing to watch the game against Colorado, it was obvious from looking at the makeup of their roster that they would present some serious matchup challenges for Providence. For all that we hear of the preponderance of “small ball,” here is a list of the bigs on the Colorado roster that are sharing the bulk of the minutes this season:
#50- Elijah Malone 6’10” 270lbs
#3- Alon Michaeli 6’9” 229 lbs
#7- Sebastion Rancik 6’11” 220lbs
#8- Bangot Dak 7’0” 203lbs
You could tell at the beginning of the game that there was a shock element to Colorado’s size, with PC scrambling to defend a lot of tough mismatches on switch situations as Oswin Erhunmwunse did his best to hold down the fort (7 blocks for the game). All of these bigs were fairly skilled- jump hooks, good passers, and two of them (Rancik and Michaeli) were able to extend the defense with their ability to shoot 3’s.
The Providence team showed a lot of resiliency by clawing their way back to take a 1 point lead early in the 2nd half but the overall size advantage was putting them in a constant state of just trying to maintain their head above water with very little margin for error The combined 50% shooting of their frontline kept a lot of momentum in Colorado’s favor, and in the end, PC wasn’t able to sustain enough resistance with any consistent offensive counterattack- shooting only 24% from 3 point land for the game and a dismal 2 for 11 in the 2nd half.
There were some bright spots to take away as Oswin had 7 blocks for the game, Jason Edwards had a strong game with 24 points on 7/16 FG’s, 8/8 FT’s, and notably 6 assists and zero turnovers. Jaylin Sellers did his best down the stretch to keep them in the game, forcing the action utilizing his elite speed, taking it to the hoop, and making 10 of 11 resulting free throws. Ryan Mela did well in the first half keeping Colorado’s lead within reach by again showing a knack for cleverly finishing around the basket vs taller defenders and Stefan Vaaks managed to continue to progress in his early assimilation to American College basketball by again reaching double figures (11 points) Freshman Jamier Jones also came in to give great effort on the defensive end once more.
This won’t be the last time that Providence will see a bigger front court than theirs, and the antidote will obviously be playing to the strengths of their roster.
With regards to that, one of the more telling comments at the post-game press conference after the last home game vs UPenn came from Ryan Mela when asked the question “how is it for you when some games you start and others you don’t?” He answered without hesitation, and you can tell sincerely, “It doesn’t matter to me as long as I get to play, we have a lot of guys who can play here, and whatever is best for the team.”
This attitude will be critical to sustain since the most likely pathway to success for them will be taking advantage of their overall aforementioned quickness, speed, and athleticism In order to accomplish that, the defensive energy will have to extend at maximum effort in order to minimize the lack of depth in the frontline
and generate as much offense as possible coming off the defense. This will require an all-hands-on-deck team approach.
Also, before that last press conference at home, Sports Information Director Arthur Parks announced to the media that this team is the 1st to score 100 points in consecutive games since the 2008-2009 season.
I know Coach Kim English and his staff have been working hard to instill a defensive identity on this team to make the generation of that type of offensive power a common occurrence.
It would have been nice if Stefan Vaaks' jumper stayed in to grab a dramatic win vs Virginia Tech and to be sitting at 3 and 1. There’s no other choice but to take that loss in stride, to take the Colorado game as a learning experience and move on to make the necessary adjustments to compete at a high level
On any given night, any number of these guys can put up high-scoring numbers if their defense can consistently generate the necessary pressure. The Friars are now 2-2.
If they can do that, this iteration of the Providence College basketball program still has a chance to morph into a fairly unique and entertaining unit.