Mid-Season Report: Friars Finally Get National Ranking Respect, Can They Stay There?
Robert McMahon, Sports Columnist
Mid-Season Report: Friars Finally Get National Ranking Respect, Can They Stay There?
Let’s review some pre-season worries: Coach Cooley lost his entire starting five from last year’s 27-6 Sweet Sixteen team; the off-season transfers to PC, with the exception of Kentucky transfer Bryce Hopkins, seemed, well, pretty ordinary; the Big East pre-season poll by Cooley’s colleague coaches gave PC a 5th place ranking, kind of a courtesy ranking, solidly behind Creighton, Xavier, Villanova, and UConn.
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And this year’s early games—ones that didn’t include cupcakes like Rider and Columbia—didn’t bode well. Decisive losses to Miami and TCU exposed PC’s lack of team play, and the defeat to a very average St. Louis Billiken team was downright shocking. You had to wonder if Coach Cooley’s chemistry could get this new group of Friars to even a 5th place Big East finish.
But here we are coming up to mid-January and PC is on a 9-game win streak, a first-ever perfect 6-0 start in the Big East, and finally getting some respect by the national pollsters who this week all had PC in the top 25 rankings. So, why am I feeling a tad nervous, like this PC team has weaknesses that are yet to be exposed?
I should be feeling pretty good. Right? PC is shooting the ball well at 79+ points per game at a 47% field goal rate, thanks to lots of buckets in the paint from Bryce Hopkins and Ed Croswell. The inside shooting of those two guys draws lots of opponent fouls, allowing PC to be 5th in the country in free throw attempts at 25.7 per game. The Hopkins-Croswell duo has also powered PC to average 40 rebounds a game which is 2nd in the Big East and 23rd in the country. And, they have beaten two tough Big East foes, Marquette and highly ranked UConn. With a 6-0 Big East start, many Friar fans are dreaming about a Big East regular season championship repeat.
But I’m feeling uneasy. Here are some landmines that have me concerned.
Dependence on Free-Throw Attempts. So, why is this a concern? PC is getting a generous number of free throw opportunities in its home court games at the AMP. PC’s two biggest wins this year are Marquette and UConn—both at the AMP. In the Marquette game, PC had an unbelievable 49-19 edge in free throw attempts; in the UConn game, PC had 35 free throw attempts; UConn had just 19 free throw attempts, sending UConn coach Hurley into a whining frenzy. In its three Big East home games, PC is averaging 39 free throws; on the three Big East road games, however, PC free throw attempts drop to an average of 25.
PC won’t admit it, but those free throw numbers are the definition of home cooking from the referees. PC has tough upcoming Big East away games in hostile environments—Creighton, Xavier, Marquette, and UConn. The Friars won’t have home cooking in any of those places when it comes to foul calls, and consequently, wins will be tough to come by in those games.
Thin Bench Scoring. With the loss of all five starters from last year’s team, it took a while for Cooley to figure out who his starting five was. And it has taken a lot longer to get those five players—Bryce Hopkins, Ed Croswell, Devin Carter, Noah Locke, and Jared Bynum—to work together, to understand each other’s role on this team, and how to win close games.
It has been an extended and necessary nurturing process for Cooley’s starting five, but the downside consequence has been felt on the bench. The starting five collectively averages 60 pts per game, the bench only about 19 pts per game, one of the lowest averages in the Big East. Three bench players—Alyn Breed, Cliff Moore, and Jayden Pierre--are gradually increasing their number of minutes played. Breed, of course, is a seasoned veteran, but Moore and Pierre will need to mature quickly when starting five players face foul trouble or injuries in Big East action.
Jared Bynum’s Injury. While Bynum has had his ups and downs with shooting percentage, his role on the team as the point guard has been one of the keys to PC’s success so far. In the first half of the UConn game, he went down with what was described at that time as a “left side torso” injury. Pretty vague, but in any case, he missed the St. John’s game and PC’s offense and defense in the first half was pretty ragged. Alyn Breed and Devin Carter took turns running the offense. The Friars salvaged a victory against the Johnnies, but the game was much closer than it should have been. PC needs Bynum back in the lineup to keep PC winning close games.
Turnovers. Not surprisingly, five new starters have produced a slew of turnovers as the players learn where they are supposed to be on the court. PC is averaging 13.2 turnovers, which is actually a big improvement from the early games of the year. But still, PC turnovers have created shaky finishes for many of its games. A telling statistic so far this season is that PC’s assists and turnovers are almost equal. The Friars will steady the hearts of its fans if they can get turnovers down to 9 or 10 a game.
While these are concerns that can derail PC in some of their upcoming Big East road games, this year’s version of the Friars is on balance really, really good, and perhaps better than last year’s team, thanks to Cooley’s patient coaching. Hopkins and Carter are two of PC’s most athletic players to ever put on a Friar uniform. And, of course, we have frenzied Friar fans creating an electric atmosphere in the AMP the rest of the way this season.
The Friars have 14 Big East games remaining, seven at the AMP and seven on the road. A record of 10 wins and four losses seems possible in these games, giving PC a 16-4 Big East record and an overall regular season record of 24-7. A Big East regular season championship repeat is not out of the question. Look for the PC rankings in the polls to steadily go up. And look for Friar fever to also go up across Rhody. Let’s all savor this season, each and every game.
Bob McMahon is the former Director of Parks in the City of Providence and a lifelong fan of PC Friar fan.