PC Lost “Must Win” Against Nova: NCAA Bid Now on Life Support - McMahon

PC Lost “Must Win” Against Nova: NCAA Bid Now on Life Support - McMahon

Game Analysis

As the first half of the Providence College game against Villanova wound down Saturday, and the Friars with a 37-34 lead, it looked like the start of great week for the Friars to end the regular season.  PC would avenge an earlier season loss to the Wildcats with a win at the AMP and 12,525 raucous fans;  a trip down to DC on Tuesday would dispatch a struggling Georgetown team; and the return next Saturday to the AMP with another raucous crowd to take on #3 UConn for perhaps the biggest upset of the season.

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Instead, the Friars went cold for the first 9 minutes of the second half, falling way behind and ultimately losing 71-60. More importantly, the loss may have ended their chances of an NCAA bid.

Coach Kim English after the game expressed that this Friar team has very little margin for error.  This game proved him right. Ever since Bryce Hopkins went down in early January, the Friars have largely been a two-person team with Josh Oduro and Devin Carter leading the way just about every game.  If one of them struggles, there are not enough scoring answers in the rest of the lineup.  On Saturday, Oduro scored 16 points, his season average, but Carter struggled to score 13 points, 6 below his average.  Some of PC’s losses this season have been because of poor free throw shooting or too many turnovers.  That was not the case with this loss. This loss was plain and simple. They couldn’t find the bucket in the second half.  They shot just 27% in the second half after shooting 54% in the first half.

 

NCAA Chances

Will an expected win against Georgetown and a huge upset win over UConn be enough for PC to get an NCAA bid?  The win against the Hoyas will count very little except get the Friars to the 19-win mark and 10-9 in the Big East.  A win against UConn would be big, but it’s just another Quad 1 win in the eyes of the selection committee.

Another consideration is that PC is 6th in the Big East right now and might finish 7th even with two more wins. Villanova and St. John’s are likely to finish ahead of them at this point. With the Villanova loss, it appears that only way for PC with a Big East 7th place regular season finish to get an NCAA selection this year is to grab at least two wins in the Big East tourney.  One of those wins would have to be a marquee win against either Creighton or Marquette. Even that might not be enough. We all might be looking back at losses to Butler, Xavier, and St. John’s with great regret on Selection Sunday.

 

In Case You Missed It

The Brown men's basketball team has struggled all year, losing games in a variety of ways.  Two weeks ago, they stood at 6-17 for the year and 2-6 in the Ivies. The veteran team, of which much was expected at the beginning of the year, has caught fire winning their last 5 games in a row and now stand at 7-6 in the Ivies.  With one more game against Ivy co-leader Yale (a likely Yale win) next Saturday at Yale, Brown will still finish in 4th place and participate as the 4th seed in the end-of-the-year Ivy Madness tourney. Either Princeton or Yale is likely to capture the Ivy title and the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. In any case, the late-season turnaround is a building block for Coach Mike Martin and the Bown Bears for next season.

While the wins over Harvard 71-68 and Dartmouth 89-67 this past weekend were big for Brown, the story of this weekend was the performance of reserve senior guard, Kimo Ferrari. A backup guard playing his final game at Pizzitola Sports Center, Ferrari entered the Dartmouth game averaging 6 points/game. He saved his best game for his last game on a Brown court.  He scored 39 points on 14-of-16 shooing (87.5%), including 10 three-pointers. It was a magic night for the 6’0” senior from San Deigo on Senior Night at Brown. Do you think Coach Martin went to bed Saturday night wondering if he should have told Ferrari to shoot more over the last 4 years?