Remember Me? Georgetown Prep Product Jared Bynum has a Career Day Back Home

As Providence struggled through a 13-13 campaign a year ago, there were more than a few pockets of the fanbase questioning if Ed Cooley and his staff could develop players.

Of course, that was overlooking the fact that in Cooley’s first ten years of coaching in the Big East a Friar had been named the league’s most improved player in three separate seasons (Kadeem Batts in 2013, Ben Bentil in 2016, and Kyron Cartwright in 2017).

Those questions have been put to bed (well, at least for another year) after a season in which Providence has seen dramatic improvement from Noah Horchler, Ed Croswell, and Jared Bynum.

I’ve spent the past week or so wrestling with if either Bynum or Horchler is Providence’s next best shot at the Big East Most Improved Player award this season.

This is certainly no knock on Horchler, but Bynum’s turnaround is starting to border on astounding.

Bynum’s probably through hearing about last season by now, but following an afternoon in which he scored 27 of his career-high 32 points in the second half (on 7-8 shooting from 3-point range), it’s time to take one final look back to fully grasp where he came from.

He shot 31% from the field, made just 5-42 from beyond the arc (11%), and he was 0-17 from 3-point range through the Friars’ first seven games last year.

5-42.

Against Georgetown on Saturday, Bynum started 6-6 from 3-point range.

Bynum shot the ball well as a freshman at St. Joe’s, but obviously saw those numbers dip last year:

• In 89 spot-up opportunities as a freshman, Bynum averaged .933 points per possession, good for the 56th percentile nationally. He scored on 41.6% of those chances.

• During his first year at PC, Bynum had 41 spot-up possessions, with his numbers falling to .659 points per possession (17th percentile), while scoring on 26.8% of those opportunities.

• Bynum finished in the 61st percentile nationally in points per possession on all jump shots as a freshman (.975 PPP), versus the 17th percentile last year (.667 PPP).

Bynum was improved from last season, but not significantly so, this past November. Then he seemed to flip the switch after returning from a month away due to injury in the Big East opener against UConn. Bynum had nine points, six rebounds, a pair of steals, and a momentum-shifting 3-pointer in Hartford. At the time, PC fans would have taken that type of effort on any given night from Bynum and run with it.

He had other plans, apparently.

Bynum should get serious consideration for Big East Player of the Week after he made 4-5 three pointers and scored 18 points at St. John’s, and followed that up with his 32-point explosion against the Hoyas.

It’s gotten to the point in which it is fair to ask if Bynum has become Providence’s best offensive player since conference games kicked off. In 11 Big East games, Bynum is leading PC in scoring (13.8 points per game), assists (4.4), and steals (15), and he’s hitting threes at a 51% clip.

He has also become a bail-out option late in the shot clock and a big shot maker — as evidenced by his last-second three at Xavier, a 30 footer at St. John’s to put PC ahead with under three minutes to go, and again on Sunday when the Friars were sputtering before Bynum and Nate Watson asserted themselves in the second half.

Georgetown didn’t make a serious push at Bynum when he played on their doorstep at Georgetown Prep. He committed to St. Joseph’s out of high school because they showed him more love than other schools in pursuit, including some high majors.

After Phil Martelli was let go at St. Joe’s, Bynum hit the open market again, and he landed with the Friars in a spring in which Cooley and his staff got transfer commitments from Luwane Pipkins, Horchler, and Bynum.

As Bynum buried three after three on Sunday afternoon there had to have been supporters of the downtrodden Hoyas wondering how Georgetown missed on him not once, but twice.

Georgetown’s loss has been Providence’s gain, and Bynum has turned into one of the biggest turnaround stories in recent Friar memory. He went from losing any semblance of confidence in his jumper a year ago to a pick-your-poison threat capable of beating teams from deep, off the dribble, and with the pass.

In a season filled with surprises, Bynum’s emergence has been perhaps the biggest — and most impactful. Georgetown had no answers for the hometown kid on Sunday, and after Bynum made big play after big play over the last two weeks, Big East head coaches will have to focus on containing a player they didn’t bother to defend on the perimeter last year.

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With his seven 3-pointers on Sunday, Jared Bynum joined a pretty exclusive list of Friars with 7+ threes in a game:

• Donta Wade: 10 (vs. Notre Dame in 2000)

• Donnie McGrath: 9 (vs. Virginia in 2005)

• Ernie Lewis: 8 (vs. American in 1986)

• Delray Brooks: 8 (vs. Villanova in 1987)

• Delray Brooks: 7 (vs. Georgetown in 1988)

• Billy Donovan: 7 (vs. Miami in 1987)

• Eric Murdock: 7 (vs. Pittsburgh in 1991)

• Trent Forbes: 7 (vs. Arizona in 1992)

• Michael Brown: 7 (vs. Syracuse in 1995)

• Jeff Xavier: 7 (twice: vs. Harvard and Florida State in 2007)

• Bryce Cotton (vs. Boston College in 2012)

• AJ Reeves (vs. Siena in 2018)