Providence Friars wake up too late, lose to Marquette, 79-68

The Providence Friars played their third game in three nights and it showed. The Friars were playing for their NCAA tournament lives the last two nights. They had an emotional win over Georgetown and their former coach, Ed Cooley, on Wednesday night. Thursday night, the Friars beat nationally 8th-ranked Creighton following a hotly contested second half.

The Creighton victory may have punched Providence’s ticket to the Big Dance. But it may have cost the Friars a chance at defeating nationally 10th-ranked Marquette. Marquette was playing without last year’s Big East Player of the Year and Rhode Island native, Tyler Kolek.

Providence was like a car that had run out of gas. At some point early in the second half, they found a gas station and put in about ten dollars of gas, but it wasn’t enough to finish the trip. At the end, they ran out of gas again.

Providence fell behind by 17 points, 35-18, with just over three minutes before halftime. They showed some signs of life at the end of the half and managed to cut the lead to 42-31 at the intermission.

Marquette shot 55% from the field in the first half, including 5-of-8 from three-point range. Some of it was Marquette’s hot shooting, but much of it was sloppiness on defense by the Friars.

Freshman Garway Dual fouled a three-point shooter in the act of shooting, not once, but twice in the game – including a foul with one second left remaining in the first half. Dual, as well as Ticket Gaines, were off balance a lot of the times on defense and trailing their opposition. They’d either be slipping on the court after some kind of misdirection or nearly falling on the court trying to chase their player around picks.

And let’s talk about Ticket Gaines, briefly. There is no need to embarrass the kid, but, come on, you need to, at least, bury a couple of shots. Gaines was 0-for-9 from the field, including 0-for-8 from three-point range. Absolutely brutal. Enough said about that.

This came off the heels of one of the best team efforts of the season against Creighton. In that game, every player had a stretch of the game that they could fast forward to and watch over and over again on DVR.

Friday night was a different story. Besides Gaines, Josh Oduro was a complete no-show. Oduro averaged 16 points per game this year while taking an average of 11 shots per game. Against Marquette, Oduro fouled out after scoring only 9 points while taking only four shots. Oduro is always a focal point of the Friars’ half court offense, but Oduro, inexplicably, never called for the ball all night and was very passive.

The best thing to come out of this whole week has been watching sophomore point guard Jayden Pierre blossom into a legit scoring threat. Pierre has always been a “pass first” point guard, but he took 16 shots each of the last two games – exhibiting a nice stroke from three and some shifty, stop-and-go drives to the hoop with some impressive finishes. The downside for Pierre in the Marquette game, however, was that he had zero assists.

And then we have Devin Carter. Devin Carter played the first half like a guy that had played every minute of a game from the night before. Carter only took one shot in the first 17 minutes of the game. It was obvious Marquette made a point of making someone other than Oduro or Carter beat them.

The alarm clock went off for Carter in the second half, however. Carter woke up and scored 20 points in the second half – finishing with 27. When Carter hit one of two free throws with just over three minutes left in the game, Providence had drawn within two points of Marquette, 68-66. Marquette looked flustered. They were on the ropes. 

But then Devin Carter took an ill-advised contested three-pointer from near half court on the next possession, and the game was pretty much over after that. Marquette’s Kam Jones (23 points) had a couple of key buckets in the last couple minutes of the game to seal the victory.

The question now is if the Friars have done enough to earn a NCAA tournament berth. Providence finishes the season with a 21-13 record. They were 10-10 in the Big East. They had no losses this year that could be considered “bad losses.” They won six games against Quad 1 teams. They deserve to sneak in.