This game doesn’t matter.
This game doesn’t matter. Neither does Saturday against DePaul, or next Tuesday against Butler. The road trip to Seton Hall? Also meaningless.
The next game that matters is Creighton at home, on March 1st. Win that game, and suddenly all of these results are crucial… if they were all wins. Even then, it can all be rendered moot if Xavier stumbles down the stretch at Butler or home to Providence.
Any blink at all during that stretch – which is every one of Xavier’s remaining games – and there is nothing that can be done in any of the other games that will make up for it. By capitulating entirely down the stretch at Nova, Xavier crapped away the privilege of a bad result at any point going forward. Anything short of winning out means the Muskies need the auto bid or I have to actually break down and google what the heck the Crown is.
Not unlike Xavier, Providence has seen its season collapse under the weight of injuries. Their ceiling was never as high as Xavier’s, but a healthy Bryce Hopkins could have seen them building an at-large resume. Instead, he popped in at the start of December, averaged 17 PPG with a 113 ORtg in 3 games, and once again succumbed to a season-ending injury. I get as salty as the next guy watching someone dropping big numbers on my favorite team, but it’s hard to feel anything but bad for the kid.
As if that weren’t bad enough, Georgia transfer forward Jabri Abdur-Rahim was averaging an ultra-efficient 7.2/2.6/0.6 when he went down a couple weeks ago. He wasn’t going to lead them to the mountaintop, but his absence leaves Providence in dire straits in terms of just being able to cobble together a rotation.
Anyway, this is a Q2 game that is likely to stay there unless it falls to a Q3. Providence season lies in ashes. Xavier’s is on life support.
This game doesn’t matter. But it might.
Team fingerprint
The good news from the Xavier perspective is that Providence’s offense has plenty of weaknesses, sitting sixth in the league. The bad news is that their biggest strength is offensive rebounding, where they’re third. They’re also shooting 38% from behind the arc in Big East play, and they take more than 42% of their shots from back there. They’re pretty bad at getting to the line and protecting the ball, sitting 10th in the league in both categories. They do plenty of undermining their own attempts.
The defense is worse. They’re right in the middle of the league in defensive rebounding and keeping opponents off the line. They force an EFG% of 49%, which is a solid number, but… they ruin it all be being absolutely incompetent in forcing turnovers. They just don’t do it; 12.9% TO rate in league play, which somehow isn’t the worst in the Big East. They’re a strong perimeter defense when it comes to three-point shooting, but it somehow doesn’t connect at all to getting their hands on balls.
Players
Starters
| Starting matchups | ||
|---|---|---|
| Jayden Pierre | Point Guard | Dayvion McKnight |
| Junior | Class | Senior |
| 6’2″, 185 | Measurements | 6’0″, 188 |
| 12.8/2.7/3.2 | Game line | 9.9/2.5/4.5 |
| 42.3/35.4/80 | Shooting line | 40.9/34.8/77.8 |
| Pierre has developed into a solid three-level scorer, though it’s worth noting that his numbers take a big step back against better competition. He’s not an awful distributor, but he has some serious ball security issues for a point guard. He’s not a great defender and can be foul prone. He doesn’t get to the line a ton, but he’s reliable when he gets there. | ||
| Bensley Joseph | Shooting Guard | Ryan Conwell |
| Senior | Class | Junior |
| 6’2″, 188 | Measurements | 6’4″, 215 |
| 12.3/3.8/2.9 | Game line | 15.5/2.7/2.4 |
| 42.3/40.9/81.6 | Shooting line | 41.7/38.7/80.2 |
| After spending the first three years of his career at Miami (FL), Joseph is spending his final season at Providence. He’s probably their most reliable scorer at this point, and he’s a really good three-point shooter. He’s a ridiculous 17-27 from deep against Seton Hall and Butler and a still excellent 16-43 against the rest of the conference. He is definitely the first option for this offense right now. | ||
| Corey Floyd Jr. | Small Forward | Marcus Foster |
| Junior | Class | Senior |
| 6’4″, 210 | Measurements | 6’5″, 215 |
| 9.4/4.6/2 | Game line | 8.4/4.9/1.8 |
| 45.8/30.4/80.9 | Shooting line | 42.2/43.8/76.9 |
| Floyd is the fifth-most efficient offensive player in the conference, but it’s not in a way that is doing too much for the Friars. He doesn’t shoot much or particularly well, but he never turns the ball over and does really well in getting to the line and indeed once he is there. He’s more than occasionally present on the offensive glass. He might not win a ton of games for his team, but he’ll almost never lose one. | ||
| Rich Barron | Power Forward | Dailyn Swain |
| Sophomore | Class | Sophomore |
| 6’5″, 220 | Measurements | 6’8″, 220 |
| 5.1/2/0.4 | Game line | 10/5.1/2.3 |
| 37.9/37.5/54.5 | Shooting line | 56.6/23.1/83.5 |
| There’s not any part of how Kim English drew up this season that involves Rich Barron starting in this slot. He’s kind of glue guy adjacent without having particular talents that help him fill in when a starter goes down. He’s not a great rebounder, doesn’t distribute, and was shooting 31% from deep before his 7-9 supernova against Butler. He doesn’t have much of a usage rate, and no wonder. | ||
| Oswin Erhunmwunse | Center | Zach Freemantle |
| Freshman | Class | Senior |
| 6’10”, 220 | Measurements | 6’9″, 227 |
| 5.7/5.5/0.2 | Game line | 15.5/2.7/2.4 |
| 69.8/0/43.2 | Shooting line | 41.7/38.7/80.2 |
| By block rate, the best rim protector in the league. He’s also a sensational rebounder on both ends and a very efficient offensive player. He’s shooting over 70% in conference play. Setting teammates up is not his job, which is good, because he only has 5 assists in 24 games. He commits over 6 fouls per 40 minutes, which isn’t great. |
Reserves
Basically none, as illustrated above. In addition to Abdur-Rahim and Hopkins, Providence has lost the 9.3/3.5/0.8 that wing Wesley Cardet was offering.
They’ve also occasionally been missing the 15 MPG offered by 7’0”, 290-pound sophomore Christ Essekondo. He bounces in an out of availability; if he can go tonight, expect a good rebounder whose offense is plagued with turnover issues and whose defense is blunted by foul trouble. He’s productive enough, giving 4.4/4.2/0.7 per game when healthy.
Other than that, the bench is basically down to an inefficient 4.6/4.6/1.6 from freshman wing Ryan Mela, a handful of minutes from 6’10” freshman Eli DeLaurier, and 2.8/1.2/0.4 brought to the table by Justyn Fernandez as a small forward. It’s tough out there.
Three questions
-What happened to Ryan Conwell? He lit up Nova in the home leg for Xavier, noteworthy not just for its efficiency but its volume. He shot 13 times and got to the line another 14. At Nova, he was 1-5 from the field and 0-2 from the line. Xavier cannot afford to have its most effective perimeter player be so completely anonymous; one more such performance and he might as well save it for Madison Square Garden.
-Can Xavier play on the road? The Muskies are 2-7 in true road games, and one of those wins was at DePaul. The other was at Marquette, which was a sensational result, but the rest have been losses that followed a fairly familiar pattern: Xavier fails to bathe themselves in glory early, fights the game to something around a coin toss with 8-10 minutes to play, and then completely dissolves down the stretch. Only in the Creighton and Georgetown games did Xavier not have a 50+% win probability in the second half, but they were tied with Creighton and down one to Georgetown with under ten to play in both games. There’s a whole mess to unpack there at a later date, but for now Xavier needs to figure out their road woes in a hurry.
-Is Zach Freemantle entirely healthy? The season looked dead and buried when Freemantle went down in the Shootout, but he was back on the floor just three games later. The effort and toughness have been there, but some of the consistency has not been. He has been more of a volume scorer than a dominant player since his return, and in particular some of his signature game from the 8-12’ range seems to be failing to click. With the clock ticking on his college career, Teaneck’s finest seems to be committed to wring every last bit out, even if he’s not 100% while he does it.
Three keys
-Finish it out. How many times are we going to watch this team stumble down the stretch? It looked like that had figured something out in gritting Nova, Marquette, and UConn wins across the line, and certainly a little bit of terrorism by Brian O’Connell could be blamed against St. John’s. That’s why the dissolution at Nova was such a gut punch; the rotation that we interpreted as turning a corner morphed neatly back into looking like a team chasing its tail. If Xavier is blessed with a lead late on, they have to keep the pedal down.
-Do some work on the glass. I’ve gone on record as being a huge Dailyn Swain guy, but his 4/5/2 in 15 minutes last time out made his spot on the floor look up for grabs. John Hugley IV didn’t bathe himself in glory by checking in, stumbling around on offense until he turned it over, and then checking back out, but he may be necessary to win this game. Providence relies on second-chance points to win; if he can shut down the offensive glass for the Friars, he should earn some run.
-Find a third scorer. Is it Marcus Foster feeling his way into the game? Dailyn Swain slashing through from the wing? John Hugley IV looking like a three-level threat? Dante Maddox Jr knocking in half a dozen increasingly comical shots? Wherever it comes from, Xavier needs to get some consistent production that doesn’t involve forcing the ball through Zach Freemantle or Ryan Conwell and hoping they can make something happen. The Muskies can’t afford another loss; it’s all hands on deck right now.