Kevin Stacom: PC Is Up, Down, and All-Around

Kevin Stacom: PC Is Up, Down, and All-Around

It’s been that type of season.

          

Last Saturday (February 15th), Billy Donovan was in town to celebrate his Jersey retirement event that consisted of a two-part ceremony: a banquet on Friday night at the Omni where he was inducted with two other alumni, women’s star Britt King ‘86, and former successful women’s coach, Bob Foley (now deceased).         

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Billy Donovan was able to break away from his busy NBA Chicago Bulls coaching duties due to it being NBA All-Star weekend, which provides a much-appreciated break in the action for players and coaches who are not directly involved.          

 

On Saturday, during the “shoot around” practice before the Villanova game, Donovan gave a very good motivation speech to the PC players, according to my old teammate Ernie D. He relayed to them that he follows the team as best he can and realizes that it’s been a difficult season for them and how adversity can forge strength, togetherness and resilience if you can commit to each other and continue with high effort and never give up. 

            

Devin Carter and David Duke were also there to lend their support, along with Donovan’s old teammates. There was a very enthusiastic sellout crowd that was bathing in all the positive vibes, recalling Billy D’s and coach Rick Pitino’s unlikely magical ‘87 Final Four run, as they anticipated another competitive Big East game vs a very talented Villanova team that was about to begin.

                 

The current besieged Providence College team more than held up their end of the bargain in trying to keep the love fest going in a positive direction, so when it came time at half-time to raise Billy’s banner, the atmosphere couldn’t have been more positive and electric.

 

But it wasn’t just this celebratory atmosphere that caused coach Kim English to feel positive about his team’s chances against this solid Villanova team. As he explained in the post-game press conferences of this game and the one following the Georgetown game last Tuesday, he felt that in the practices leading up to this game (Villanova), the players were focused, sharp, playing hard, especially on the defensive end, to the point where he felt “we deserve to win this game.”

 

Coach explained that he had the same feeling before the BYU game (December 3rd), and the 1st Georgetown game at home (January 25th). He felt very good about the “connectedness” in preparation for this Villanova game also as they pretty much proceeded to dominate for most of the game one of the best offensive teams in the Big East 

Villanova:

1st in 3 point % as a team: 40%

1st in Free Throw %: 81% 

3rd in FG%: 47%, behind only UConn and Creighton 

1st in 3-point FG made: 9.8/ game

         

They also had the league’s leading scorer, Eric Dixon (23.78/game), and two very athletic, NBA-looking wings in Jordan Longino (6’5” 215 Sr) and Wooga Poplar (6’5” 197 Sr). 

         

Yes, PC came out aggressive offensively and started making shots right away. There was a great ball and player movement, but most importantly, they came out with a very high level of swarming defensive intensity, rarely giving Villanova’s talented shooters any easy looks. 

        

As Coach English has emphasized a number of times, this team (which lately fluctuates between having 8 to 9 scholarship players available), has very little margin for error, and for them to have any chance of winning any of these conference games, they must come out with madman intensity on the defensive end Mission accomplished against Villanova.

              

Then came Georgetown 

              

Coach English was very honest after this 21 drubbing. He just didn’t have the same great feeling that he had prior to the previous games mentioned. Coach didn’t observe the same focus, intensity, etc, and that mindset was about to merge with another common factor. Everyone on the PC side knew that Georgetown’s best player and potential lottery pick, Thomas Sorber, who leads the Big East in rebounding (8.7/game), 2nd in Blocked shots (2.1/game) while scoring an efficient 14.7/game, was not going to play. 

          

What seems to happen invariably when a team overestimates its advantage due to the absence of the opposing team's best player is that it approaches the game with a little bit less of the necessary intensity. 

             

Back in the day, if I had a nickel for every time, Red Auerbach would storm into the locker room at half-time and say, “How many times do I have to tell you, expletive deleted guys, that it's not an expletive deleted faucet? You can’t just turn it on and off anytime you feel like. You let them off the hook, and now you’re in a battle.”

          

No matter the level of exhortations from the coach in these situations, sometimes the players almost instinctively let up on the gas and then find out when it’s too late that they’re in over their heads. When you combine this possibility with the fact that Coach Cooley’s mother had just passed away the day before, I’m sure the Georgetown players came out with an additional fervor out of empathy for their coach.

       

Again, as English says, when this PC team does not have the motivation edge on its opponent, it has zero margin for error and most likely zero chance to get a W. 

        

When in the right frame of mind, this PC team proved it could go toe to toe with the league’s best, as they did twice against St John’s and UConn for a good portion of that game.

          

English was honest about his frustration after the bad loss of the Georgetown game. That the team, instead of building off the quality win of the Villanova game literally in his words excreted it all away. 

          

But in a microcosm, the gap between these two games is the story of this difficult season.  Injuries from the beginning hampered the preseason preparations, illnesses, unexpected concussion protocols, not knowing if your best player was going to jump in, down to eight available scholarship players, etc. 

            

We’ve seen the level that they can perform when they are able to muster up a master level of effort and intensity on the defensive end. 

    

This year’s travails have also been a valuable learning experience for a young coach and his staff that I’m sure will pay dividends in the coming years. 

        

I'm looking forward to a great bounce-back effort vs a tough 16th-ranked Marquette team on Tuesday night (Feb 25th) on the road.