An Opportunity Slips Away for Providence Against Villanova at the AMP

Saturday afternoon against Villanova had the makings of one of those special days in Providence.

Seeking a win to solidify their NCAA Tournament hopes, Kim English’s group came out of the gates flying by knocking down seven first-half 3-pointers, and shooting nearly 54% in the opening 20 minutes.

But a veteran Villanova team hung around behind six made threes of its own, before dominating the second half and silencing what had been one of the more electric Amica Mutual Pavilion crowds of the past few seasons.

The culprit? It’s hard to point to one single thing.

The offense went five minutes without a bucket to kick off the second half, and the defense was torched to the tune of 57% shooting and a 7-10 effort from beyond the arc by the Wildcats after halftime.

After Providence took a 35-28 lead late in the first half, Villanova ripped off an 15-2 run to forge ahead, 43-37, — a lead that eventually stretched to 59-44.

Following a massive road victory at Xavier a week and a half ago, the Friars had four games remaining, most likely needing to win two more to put themselves in position to return to the NCAA Tournament for the third consecutive season. It started with a road game at Marquette — a game that felt, in some ways, like house money, but quickly went bust after the Golden Eagles kicked that one off on a 27-4 run.

That left Villanova at home, a road trip to Georgetown, and the season finale at the AMP versus perhaps the best team in the country in Connecticut to pick up two more wins.

Villanova/PC on Saturday felt like a play-in game in many ways. Nova was left for dead a month ago, but wrapped up February with a 5-2 mark to save their season, and solidify the future of head coach Kyle Neptune.

Nova’s metrics were sparkling in February. Their Offensive Rating was a solid 111.2 (71st percentile in the country), but it was on the other side of the ball where they shined. The Wildcats’ Defensive Rating of 94.4 ranked in the 99th percentile in the nation in February.

Still, it wasn’t unfair to question if they had benefitted from a softening of their schedule. Those seven games included a loss to Xavier, a blowout at the hands of UConn, two wins over Georgetown, an impressive beatdown of Seton Hall, a win over struggling Butler, and a home victory versus PC in which they held the Friars to 16 first-half points.

In the rematch, their defense suffocated Providence in the second half to the tune of 26% shooting from the field and 3-13 from deep.

Villanova also benefitted from a throwback game from fifth year senior Justin Moore. If you hadn’t been paying close attention to Nova this season, the performance of Moore wouldn’t seem all that surprising. Prior to injuring his achilles, Moore was one of the most dangerous scorers in the Big East, but this season has been a struggle.

He is averaging 10.2 points per game, shooting 39% from the field, and making 31% of his shots from three. Here is Moore’s game log over the past month and a half:

Moore shined on Saturday, making 4-6 from beyond the arc, with each 3-pointer feeling more timely than the last. He also picked PC apart when they threw double teams at him in the post — a surprising decision considering English and his staff essentially never double opponents.

“Justin Moore likes this building. No doubt about it,” English said afterwards.

After the Friars cut the lead to 66-60 with under three minutes to play, Moore put the final nail in the coffin with a corner three.

So now, Providence enters the final week of the season likely needing to defeat Ed Cooley and Georgetown and Dan Hurley and Connecticut to position themselves for an at-large bid.

There’s no shame in an 18-11 mark and 9-9 record in this conference in the wake of losing Bryce Hopkins in early January (while Jayden Pierre being limited with the flu yesterday made an already thin roster even thinner), but to be so close and lose in the manner they have over the last two games has been disheartening.

It felt like this team would somehow find a way to win against a fellow bubble team in Villanova in the building they were 50-5 in over their previous 55 games.

The formula after Hopkins went down seemed to leaning heavily on Devin Carter and Josh Oduro offensively, and hoping that a top-ten defense could withstand the loss of Hopkins, who took significant defensive strides forward and helped clean the glass this season.

PC’s Defensive Rating post-Hopkins is 108.5, which ranks in the 58th percentile in the country. Respectable, but not the same group that had Defensive Ratings of 90.4 versus Wisconsin, 97.0 against Kansas State, 94.3 versus Georgia, and 81.0 in the Big East opener against Marquette.

The numbers below tell the story. PC’s season rankings are on the top line, the last eight games are below.

English sounded more disappointed than annoyed in his postgame press conference, and shared a simple message to his team following Saturday’s game: the Friars still have an opportunity in front of them.

“The beauty of this league is we still control our own destiny, with two great opportunities in front of us.”

There isn’t any room for in-between in the week ahead. The next six days will be either exhilarating for Friar fans or gut-wrenching. They’ll be going up against two coaches and fanbases that would love nothing more than to hand Providence’s NCAA Tournament hopes a death knell.

Amid all of the noise surrounding the NCAA Tournament, English will have to keep his team focused on one game, one half, and one possession at a time. That starts Tuesday at Georgetown.