3 Things We Learned, Providence 66 St John's 68

Friars fight but fall short in NYC + early portal rumblings out of Tallahassee

If you’re looking for a glass half full argument there are plenty of them to make following Providence’s 2 point loss to St John’s over the weekend. Kim English’s team showed an impressive amount of grit to battle back from down 20 to tie the game with less than a minute to go. Many teams at this point in what is a lost season would’ve packed it in, so it was nice to see that the Friars didn’t. Jabri-Abdur Rahim continued his stellar play (more on him in a bit), and Christ Essandoko had his best performance of the season (albeit a low bar, but still). Personally I have no time or desire for moral victories, but I recognize that many fans do, and there were definitely a couple of them for all to see at Madison Square Garden on Saturday afternoon.

The glass half empty argument would be one that is primarily centered around two things we have seen since November from this team. First, a lack of a true point guard simply kills Providence at crucial points in the game. It’s not just the turnovers, although 17 of them in a game is horrific and Providence is 255th in the country averaging a shade under 13 turnovers a game.

Second, the complete and total inconsistency of this team, from the players ability to score right on through to the head coach’s lineups. Justyn Fernandez plays two great games against Villanova (17 points, 5 rebounds, 4 assists in 26 minutes) and Georgetown (5 points, 2 blocks, 1 rebound in 15 minutes) and then plays 8 minutes against Seton Hall and just 12 on Saturday. Ryan Mela provides one of the few bright spots this season and has consequently seen his minutes decrease in every game since the win against Butler on January 8th (I’m dead serious - 33 minutes against Butler, 32 against Seton Hall on January 11th, 24 against Creighton, 22 against Georgetown, 15 Against Seton Hall last week, and 5 against St John’s on Saturday). Call me crazy, but I just do not understand Kim English’s playing time philosophies. With the previous head coach at Providence at least we knew what we were going to get, perhaps we didn’t agree with it, but you knew Cooley was going to run his 7 trusted guys for 30+ minutes a game. Even if it meant never developing freshmen and running his guys into the ground at least there was a strategy that fans could wrap their heads around. There are plenty of words to describe the rotations this year, but ‘strategic’ is not one that comes top of mind.

Alas, it’s been a long season Friartown. Here’s 3 things we learned from another hard fought L for Providence hoops.

1. Jabri Abdur-Rahim has finally rounded into form.

Providence essentially needs a career best performance (Saturday’s volunteer was JAR) any time they want to have a chance at beating a decent team, and often times that isn’t even enough! That is not a sustainable recipe for success, however JAR gave it his best effort on Saturday afternoon. The senior grad transfer had the most productive game of his career, finishing with 27 points (9-12 FG, 8-11 3PT, 1-2 FT).

It’s a shame that JAR got off to the worst shooting slump of his career to to start the season, and I do sometimes wonder if one of two of those non conference losses would’ve gone the other way if Abdur-Rahim was able to give the Friars anything until a few weeks ago. Alas. I can’t honestly put a ton of blame on the kid after he dealt with the shocking death of his uncle and mentor just weeks before the season started. Some things are just way bigger than college basketball, and this was one of those things.

What does JAR’s resurgence mean for the Friars long term? Not much to be honest, but it does give me a little bit more faith in Kim English’s talent evaluation going into an offseason in which he will again rely on the transfer portal for 2-3 impact players. Between JAR, Bensley Joseph, Wesley Cardet Jr and Christ Essandoko, English’s first transfer portal haul was…. not great. To be fair it looked a lot worse prior to JAR’s recent breakout, but when you compare it to some of the portal hauls that Cooley was able to bring in, with the likes of Justin Minaya, Al Durham, Noah Horchler, Bryce Hopkins, Devin Carter…. well, you get the point.

Regardless, for reasons bigger than basketball, it’s been great to see JAR heat up as the season hits the home stretch. Maybe, just maybe, he do it a few more times at MSG when the Friars return next month for the Big East Tournament.

2. A proven point guard will be a top priority in the offseason.