PC Looking to Get Big East Record Even Against Seton Hall
Robert McMahon, Sports Columnist
PC Looking to Get Big East Record Even Against Seton Hall
Besides the decisive win, there were lots of great takeaways:
- PC had more assists than turnovers: 10-8;
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST- PC crushed Butler on the boards 43-25, including grabbing 14 offensive rebounds;
- PC shot 48.6% from the field as it faced only a casual Butler defense;
Freshman forward Ryan Mela from Natick, MA, justified his starting role in the game with a breakout game: 10 points on 5-9 shooting, 15 rebounds, and 4 assists.
The emergence of 6’9” Mela is huge for PC, given their struggles in the low post all year. And he played almost the entire game—34 minutes. Given his spare parts role all year, I was pleasantly surprised with his endurance. He played more minutes against Butler than any Friar. PC fans have to be encouraged by his play in the Butler game going forward.
Next up, the Seton Hall Pirates. The Friars will entertain the Seton Hall Pirates on Saturday afternoon at 5 PM at the AMP. The Big East schedulers have provided a big gift with back-to-back home games for PC with struggling Butler and Seton Hall.
The Pirates just won their first Big East game Wednesday night against DePaul 85-80 in overtime. This is not the powerful, confident team from last year, which went 25-12, 13-7 in the Big East regular season, and won the NIT championship. This year’s roster is a shadow of last year’s team. The Pirates lost 6 of their top 8 scorers, including all Big East team player Kadary Richmond, who hopped over the Hudson River and the East River to play for Rick Pitino at St. John’s.
As seen in this week’s tale of the tape chart, Seton Hall can’t score. They are scoring the fewest points of any Big East team at a measly 63.2 pts/game. This is a result of a high school-level field goal shooting percentage of 40.4%/game. They also have very little height and do not grab many offensive rebounds, and total only 34 boards/per game.
Their leading scorers are two guards—Isaiah Coleman at 15.0 pts/game and Chauncey Jenkins with 10.9 pts/game. Coleman also leads them in rebounds at 5.1/game.
Because of the Pirates' scoring issues, they are constantly looking for a hot hand in every game, so they have 10 players who average double digits in minutes played/game.
PC fans may see former 4-star recruit of Ed Cooley, Garway Dual, in the game. Remember when Coach English took over for Cooley. one of his first activities was to convince Cooley's recruit Dual to keep his commitment to Providence. English flew out to LA to meet with Dual, who was being recruited by a variety of Big East teams by then.
Coach English won the battle in convincing Dual to come to PC, but his freshman year with PC was less than stellar. He played 18 minutes/game, but he couldn’t shoot, hitting only 33% from the floor. He transferred after last season to Seton Hall who lost 11 players to graduation and transfer. They were eager to sign Dual, but so far, his shooting woes have continued, averaging only 3.6 pts/game while shooting 40% from the floor, including 12% from behind the arc.
Saturday's game against Seton Hall is a game that should bring PC to the .500 level in the Big East and help them build confidence for next week’s tougher Big East opponents in away games with Creighton and Villanova.