St. John's vs Providence analysis: The Friars' Crossover Examination

The Friars lost to St. Johns at home and that marks their second loss of the Big East conference schedule. They lost to a very talented St. Johns team that is finding their way back on track after an impressive win, which gives the Johnnies their first victory in conference play. This game reminded me of the the Friars last game against Georgetown when Providence couldn't make a jump shot even if their hopes of making the NCAA tournament depended on it. The Friars defeated Georgetown, but the Hoyas do not have the offensive weapons that St. Johns has. When Rysheed Jordan and D'Angelo Harrison are playing well, and the Red Storm shoot over 50 percent from the field, there is essentially nothing a team could do besides focus on the next matchup.

Kris Dunn and LaDonate Henton played well as usual, but the Friars needed more contributions from the rest of their starters. Carson Desrosiers played an average game, but I am specifically talking about the two freshman Jalen Lindsey and Ben Bentil. When Jalen committed to Providence, I was ecstatic, but so far he has not lived up to they hype. He has basically classified himself as a three point shooter even though he is the second-most athletic player on the team behind Kris Dunn. He only scored three points against St. John's and your starting shooting guard needs to make more than one field goal the entire game.

Objective Observations

• Four of the players in the Red Storm's starting lineup had 17 points or more. D'Angelo Harrison and Phil Green IV both had twenty. Providence had two players score over seventeen in the starting lineup and Tyler Harris was the only other player to score in double digits coming of the bench.
• The Friars significantly out rebounded the Johnnies with the Friars having 44 and the Red Storm only having 29.
• .St. Johns had a terrific offensive performance and shot about 51% from the field compared to the Friars shooting 39%.
• St. Johns had an unbelievable three point field goal percentage with 59% and the Friars shot a poor 29% from beyond the arc.
• St. Johns and Providence both had 25 free throw attempts but the Friars only 14 of them and the Johnnies made 19.
• Providence and St. Johns took care of the ball and both teams only had 10 turnovers.

What does this mean?

St. Johns out-shot Providence, and that was essentially the reason for the win. Both teams roughly had the same amount of blocks and steals but the Friars could not knock down enough three's to stay in the game. When St. Johns was winning 42-30 at the half, I knew it would be extremely difficult deficit to overcome considering everyone on St. Johns could not miss and there was nothing Ed Cooley or the Friars could do about it. When four players on one team score 17 points or more, it's almost a guaranteed win.

Even though Providence does not have enough shooting weapons to shoot almost 60% from three like St. Johns, I do think they are perfectly capable of shooting at least 35% from behind the arc and the Friars are looking offensively challenged over the past few games. The Friars just need to convert open jump shots and when they do, they are capable of beating any team in the conference.