While this is only Creighton’s fourth Big East campaign, they’ve already developed a nemesis and it’s not who you would have expected when they joined the league: the Providence Friars.
They’ve played seven times in three years, and the only time CU beat them is on senior night for Doug McDermott/Grant Gibbs/Jahenns Manigat/Ethan Wragge. The Friars have won five straight, in all manners: blowouts, last-second heroics, late-game rallies.
It’s irritating, to say the least.
If the Bluejays are going to get off the schniede and finally win at game at Dunkin’ Donuts Center — one of just two Big East arenas they’ve yet to win in — this would be the year. Providence was expected to be retooling in 2016-17, but then surprised people with a 10-2 start. The hot start may have been fools gold, in hindsight; five of the wins came against teams ranked 229 or higher by KenPom and three came against teams in the bottom 25 of D1 according to his rankings. When the schedule stiffened, they crumbled.
They’re 1-3 since, with each loss more disheartening than the last. They dropped a 79-67 game at Boston College where they were on the wrong end of a 25-2 run. They suffered an 82-56 thrashing at Xavier, including a 16-2 Musketeer run, for their second-worst loss in conference play during the Ed Cooley era. And they lost 78-61 at Butler in a game where they fell behind big early (45-26 at half). Their vaunted defense was shredded in all three losses, as BC tore them apart with pick and rolls, Xavier scored almost at will (24-33 on two-pointers, 8-20 on threes), and Butler shot well above their averages (18-28 on twos, 8-14 on threes). Their defense was surrendering just 58.9 points per game through 12 games. They’ve given up 77.2 over the last four.
Yikes.
6’8” junior Rodney Bullock leads them offensively with 17.9 points per game. Last year, Bullock was third on the team in scoring (11.4 ppg) and second in rebounding (6.8 rpg), along with a team-high eight double-doubles. He signaled he was ready to take on a bigger scoring load this year early on; he scored 27 points, including a 5-9 performance from three-point territory, at Ohio State on November 17. Through 16 games, he leads the team in scoring (17.9 ppg) and rebounding (6.5 rpg).
Bullock has had a slew of massive performances for the Friars. He posted a double-double with 21 points and 12 rebounds against St. Francis on November 21, on November 30 in a win versus New Hampshire he had a career-high 36 points on 12-21 shooting, including 5-8 from three-point territory, and on December 10 he had 26 points and 10 boards against UMass.
Emmitt Holt, a 6’7” junior, is second on the team in both scoring (13.2 points) and rebounding (5.9) per game. The JuCo transfer from Indian Hills Community College in Ottumwa, Iowa wasted no time getting acclimated to Division 1, scoring 22 points in his debut and adding a double-double (16 and 10) in a win over Memphis. He’s had three double-doubles so far, logging 18 and 10 against Maine and 16 and 11 at Boston College in addition to his big debut against Memphis.
Jalen Lindsey is their third leading scorer at 10.3 points per game, and their best three-point shooter (45.8%, 33-72). He scored 19 against Georgetown earlier this week, making 4-6 from long range, and had a similar game against #7 Virginia in November, scoring 18 on 4-6 shooting from outside.
5’11” junior guard Kyron Cartwright averages 10.0 points and 7.3 assists per game in his first year starting for the Friars after backing up Kris Dunn the last two seasons. Cartwright has dished out 12 assists on two separate occasions this year, and is second in the Big East behind Mo Watson in assists. He scored a career-high 26 at Butler last week, shooting 10-22 from the field and 3-5 from three-point range.
No other Friar averages more than four points or three rebounds a game; the vast majority of their scoring, assists, and rebounds come from their top four guys.
As we’ve come to expect from Ed Cooley’s teams, the Friars play extraordinarily slow — their adjusted tempo of 67.7 ranks 246th and they average 69 possessions a game, almost seven fewer than Creighton. They’ll use a ton of clock before setting up for a shot, but unlike previous Friar teams, they’re not very good at offensive rebounding which prevents the easy second-chance points that were their bread and butter (particularly against Creighton). They grab a board on just 25% of their misses, a steep drop for a team that averaged 36% between 2011 and 2015. They’re almost dead-even with Creighton’s numbers on the glass this year, which tells you all you need to know.
Providence, like St. John’s before them, isn’t terribly big in the frontcourt. Their tallest player is 6’9” Kalif Young, a freshman who plays around 14 minutes a game off the bench. Who draws the assignment of stopping (or more accurately, slowing down) Justin Patton? Bullock and Ryan Fazekas are 6’8”. Holt and Alpha Diallo are 6’7”. None of them can match up physically with Patton, and if he gets rolling like he did against the Red Storm, good luck to the Friars.
Quick Notes on the Friars:
- Head Coach Ed Cooley will look to bring the Friars to their fifth straight post-season appearance for the first time since 1993-97. When Cooley was hired in 2011, the Friars had finished under .500 in six of the 10 previous seasons and had been to just one NCAA Tournament (2004) in that 10-year span.
- The Friars had two players chosen in the 2016 NBA Draft, as Kris Dunn was selected fifth overall by the Minnesota Timberwolves and Ben Bentil was selected with the 51st pick by the Boston Celtics. It’s the first time two Providence players were selected in the NBA Draft in the same year since 1997 when Austin Croshere (first round, 12th) and God Shammgod (second round, 46th) were both picked.
Bluejay Bytes:
- Creighton had 52 points in the paint on Wednesday at St. John’s, matching its most paint points in any league game since joining the Big East. Creighton also had 52 points in the paint last February, also against St. John’s, in a 100-59 romp over the Johnnies. The Jays have not had more than 52 points in the paint in any other conference game since 2004-05.
- Creighton never trailed in Wednesday’s 85-72 win at St. John’s, throwing a lob to Marcus Foster in the opening seconds en route to a 7-0 lead out of the gates. It was just the second time in Creighton’s 28 all-time Big East road games that the Bluejays never trailed. The other? January 20, 2014, in a 96-68 win at No. 4 Villanova. In that contest, Creighton made a three-pointer on its first nine possessions and finished with a league-record 21 trifectas overall.
- Creighton has trailed for just 83:17 of a possible 600 minutes this season, just 13.9 percent of the time. Last Saturday’s loss to No. 1 Villanova marked the only time all season that Creighton has trailed in the final three minutes of any game, and just the second time (along with Oral Roberts) that Creighton has trailed at any point in the final eight minutes.
The Series:
Providence owns a 12-5 lead in a series that dates back to 1961, including a 7-1 lead in Rhode Island. The Friars have won six of the seven meetings since the two became Big East foes, including five straight wins in the series.
The Last Time They Played:
Last February, Creighton dropped a 70-66 decision to the Friars in Rhode Island in a game where Mo Watson was injured and Cole Huff was forced to play the ‘5’ for large chunks at a time due to foul trouble on all of their big men.
They opened a 38-31 lead early in the second half with Malik Albert leading the charge, and then foul trouble changed the course of the game. Geoff Groselle picked up his third and fourth fouls back-to-back and went to the bench; then Toby Hegner picked up his third and fourth fouls in quick succession and joined him. Zach Hanson, playing with two fouls himself, had to limit his defensive aggressiveness with his only backups glued to the bench with foul trouble and Ben Bentil took advantage. He scored 18 second-half points and grabbed eight boards after the break as Providence rallied to win.
Gratuitous Linkage:
There were a lot of questions surrounding the Friar team after their blowout loss to Xavier last week; FriarBasketball.com’s Kevin Farrahar took a look at some of them.
This Date in Creighton Hoops History:
On January 7, 2004, 23rd ranked Creighton rallied from a 12-point deficit in the final seven minutes to win at Illinois State 56-55. ISU tied the game at 55 on a three-pointer by Trey Guidry with 12 seconds left, and Johnny Mathies responded by driving the length of the floor. He wound up with a wide-open look under the basket, and with 1.4 seconds left, was fouled in desperation by ISU’s Vince Greene to prevent a sure-fire game winner. Mathies hit the first free throw, and then missed the second intentionally to rob the Redbirds of as much time as possible. They weren’t able to get off a shot, and the undefeated Jays escaped with the win.
“We knew what we wanted on that last possession,” Creighton Coach Dana Altman told the media after the game. “We were going with Johnny hitting or missing a shot there. We didn’t want to chance a turnover, and Johnny made a heck of a move. It was a good play on Johnny’s part, but you also have to be careful on that because unless you really get cracked, the officials are reluctant to call a foul there. But he went to the rim and got hammered pretty good.”
The 11-0 start was Creighton’s best since the 1942-43 squad began the season 16-0. They’d win one more to move to 12-0, then lose on the road to Greg McDermott’s Northern Iowa Panthers to end their undefeated streak.
Completely Random, Totally Rad Music Video of the Day:
The Bottom Line:
Creighton gets another huge game from Justin Patton, and another big road win.
Bluejays 80, Friars 71