Dec. 13, 2029: #10 ranked Providence Friars (6-0) vs #6 ranked Boston College Eagles (6-1) at Silvio O. Conte Forum in Chestnut Hill, MA
3rd Assistant Coach Jeremy Anderson (scouting)
Another very tough opponent and again we’re the underdog. Hopefully our home court advantage will give us a chance against the Friars who are led by freshman phenom SG Zack Watkins who is averaging a formidable 35.3 ppg and 7.3 rpg. Another freshman, PG Moses Adams is averaging 21.7 ppg and 6.7 apg. Watkins was the #2 ranked recruit and Adams wasn’t far behind as the #9 ranked recruit last season. An amazing recruiting class. Providence is averaging 89.5 ppg (best in the country) and only giving up 61.7 ppg (30th best) while pulling down 36.3 rpg (12th best), dishing out 21.0 apg (7th best), and getting 6.7 bpg (6th best). Because Watkins and Adams are scoring so prolifically and combine to shoot 60% of the Friars FG’s, no one else on the team has a high scoring average, including Omari Aura, Coach Aura’s son. He’s started every game at SF but is averaging just 5.5 ppg.
But…we’re a better team than the Friars have thus far faced this season. We can’t expect to stop Watkins and Adams, but hopefully can keep them from breaking out while avoiding our starting guards getting into deep foul trouble and focus on dominating inside. Glen Robinson is a top-flight defender. We typically have him subbing in at SF and SG. But against Providence we’re not going to play Glen at SF as we usually do, so that we can dedicate him to subbing at both SG and PG in relief of Corey Graham and Bobby Grannum to try to limit Watkins and Adams. We’ll also start the game playing man-to-man defense 100% of the time since playing zone might let Watkins and Adams get free too much. If we execute all that, I believe we’ll have a good chance of winning this tough non-conference rival game. Of course it would definitely help if we can get Watkins and Adams into foul trouble.
Damn! Adams hits a jumper on Providence first possession and even while double-teamed, Watkins sinks a 3 on their next possession. The Friars hit just 5 of 15 FG’s, but 4 of those from beyond the arc while we made just 1 of 12 FG’s and we fall behind 16-4 after 8 minutes of play. Watkins picks up his 2nd foul with 11:20 to go so fortunately goes to the bench, but not before scoring 8 points. Hitting just 2 of 14 FG’s and 4 of 10 FT’s, we fall behind 26-9. Our offense finally comes out its slumber and led by SG Corey Graham and PF Danny Toliver we cut the Friars’ lead to 6 points before fading in the final few minutes of the half to trail 39-30 at the break. Adams and Watkins scored 26 of the Friars’ 39 points. We hit just 30% of our FG’s and 25% of our 3’s. Providence dominated the boards 23-15. We had no points in the paint, no 2nd chance points, and no fast break points. Coach Aura blisters the guys in the locker room.
Midway through the 2nd half we’re still only hitting about 30% of our shots and we trail 61-43. Miss after miss and miss. Bad shooting is a disease infecting our entire team. We get trounced 76-55. We were outshot 43% to 32%, we hit just 13% of our 3’s, we were out-rebounded 39-31. We were called for 19 fouls while Providence was called for just 12. That resulted in the Friars going to the line 11 more times than us.
We “held” Zack Watkins to 25 points and Moses Adams to 18 points. Out only player to score in double figures was SG Corey Graham and he had just 12 points and he hit just 3 of 10 FGA’s and missed all 5 of his 3PA’s.
Providence now has won both games against us since they became our non-conference rival. Grumble, grumble, grumble.