Providence's Bilal Dixon, center, goes up with the ball against Connecticut's Alex Oriakhi, left, and Ater Majok during the second half Wednesday night in Providence. Dixon had 11 points and 12 rebounds. (Courtesy of AP Photo)

I guess you could say the Providence College Friars bounced back adequately after their humiliating overtime collapse to USF on Saturday. Yes, your PC Friars did it again, upsetting the 19th seeded UConn Huskies 81-65 tonight at the Dunk. The Huskies led for almost all of the first half, relinquishing the lead in the final minute and invigorating the rowdy and eager Friar faithful. Ultimately, it was an outrageous 24-8 run by PC to end the game that left the mighty Huskies in a tailspin and put the Friars back on the map in the Big East. Here are your Friar Five Points:

[Versatility on Offense]- The Friars have been a 3-shooting team all season and they came out in the first half with that in mind, attempting 17 shots from behind the arc (making 5 for a 29.4% success rate). That all changed down the stretch, as PC finished the game with 44 of their 81 points coming in the paint, a number which belies their reliance on it in the second half, when Jamine Peterson and co. took out an entire season worth of frustration on the rim. Actually, the Friars final successful jump shot of the game came with 13 minutes left, when Sharaud Curry hit one to make the score 51-44 Friars. The remaining 30 points were dunks, lay ups, and free throws. Curry and Vincent Council seemed to run the same play over and over again; dribbling around to draw an extra defender, then making the extra pass to the open man in the paint. The Huskies were stifled. The game was a picture-perfect demonstration of what Coach Keno Davis has been looking for all season from this team. With versatile big men like Greedy that can shoot 3’s and control the paint, this is the way PC will beat the best teams in the country. UConn Coach George Blaney explained the difficulty his team had with the PC offense:

“With Providence, it’s more about they keep the floor so spread and you have to stay out on 3 point shooters a lot. And then we just couldn’t contain the dribble in the second half and they just kept going by mostly our guards and causing our bigs to come over and help too early and that freed up the rebounding.” And on that note…

[Rebound Differential]- The numbers are pretty clear on this one. PC out-rebounded UConn an astonishing 53-38, and perhaps even more impressively, 24-12 on offensive boards. As a result, 21 Friar points came on second chances. Again, the Friars just played their game here, exploiting their advantages to an extent that we haven’t seen all season. Peterson, one of the strongest rebounders in the Big East, was at it again, leading the team with 14 rebounds, 6 offensive. UConn coach George Blaney offered an explanation as to how PC got the best of his big men:

“We could not contain the dribble and that just annihilated us because the bigs kept coming to help and then they would slip in offensive rebounds. We got outrebounded 53-38. That never happens to our teams and we really have to take the blame for that.”

[Defense?!]- While offense has consistently been a big part of PC’s success this year, defense has never been it’s strong point. Providence has allowed 81.9 PPG this season, good for 2nd worst in the conference. That’s why the Friars’ success on defense in the second half came as such a surprise, as PC finished the game with a whopping 14 steals (led by Peterson and Council, both with 4) and caused the usually dominant Huskie offense to commit 19 turnovers. UConn’s go-to man, Jerome Dyson, he of the 19.1 PPG (5th in the Big East), was shut down completely after hitting two 3-pointers in the first three minutes, held to just 12 points in the game and 3-14 shooting in 36 minutes. When you can hold a future NBA player like Dyson to 3-14 shooting, that’s when you know something crazy is going on.

[Circumstances]- Both teams were coming off crucial games last Saturday night, as UConn upset #1 seed Texas at home and PC blew a 12 point lead in the final two minutes to lose to USF in overtime. Players on both teams acknowledged the impact of those games on this momentous win for PC. Coach Blaney warned his team before the game about taking their off the gas on the road while a jacked up team and their crowd awaited them. Meanwhile, Coach Davis attributed his team’s intensity to the loss at USF:

“If we don’t blow that lead, I think you could make a case that we might not win tonight and that really might help us for the final stretch of the Big East.” And just to be clear about how intensely this Friars team played tonight, let’s look at some numbers. The freshman Council finished the game with 8 assists, 7 rebounds and 4 steals, all career-highs, while spending a large part of the night defending one of the best offensive players in the country in Dyson. Bilal Dixon finished with 11 points and 12 boards, a career-high for him. And let’s not forget Greedy, who probably turned the heads of some NBA scouts tonight, putting up 23 points, 14 boards, and 4 steals, not to mention a complete slam dunk show for the home crowd. Coach Keno was pleased, to say the least:

“I was pretty confident that we were gonna bounce back. I couldn’t have dreamed that we would bounce back like this, that we’d have that much intensity and effort to play not just our best of the year, but our best game of the year by far.”

[Home-court Advantage]- The Dunk was probably shaking on its foundation tonight as the student section willed its team to victory. They went nuts after every dunk, they went nuts when Dyson missed a jumper at the end of the first half to maintain PC’s 36-35 advantage, and they gleefully stormed the court after the final buzzer, fulfilling every college hoop fan’s dream. Coach Keno couldn’t talk about the keys to victory without mentioned them:

“You know we were able to go deeper and I felt like we might have been a fresher team than UConn in the last 10 minutes. You’d have to ask them if they’d agree, but it seemed like we had more legs. Part of that is playing a little deeper, playing a few more players, but part of it’s the crowd.

How did we win last year against Pitt? We had an unbelievable crowd on Senior Night. How do we win tonight? And we won’t win without that crowd. We need it. We need that home-court advantage so as we begin to build a program, we need that crowd, not just when we play UConn. We need it when we play everybody and to help us when we’re struggling and to support us when everything is going well. I think the student section especially was great tonight. I don’t normally notice the crowds during the game, but I noticed our student section tonight.”

So here’s to you, Friar Faithful.

Notes:

-When asked if Head Coach Jim Calhoun would have “given a jolt” to his team had he been healthy enough to be on the bench, Blaney responded affirmatively:

“He woulda given them a jolt, I’ll tell you that. Yeah, I would’ve like to have had him there tonight. That’s for sure.”

-The always classy Coach Keno kept his eye on the prize despite the momentous victory, addressing the team’s ultimate goal after the game and doing his best to keep his players grounded:

“Wins like this, wins last year against Syracuse and Pitt, they’re great. But that’s not enough. We’ve got to build a program. We’ve gotta get better individually and get better as a team so that when we’re winning here, we’re consistently winning and it’s not one year where we make a jump and do well in the tournament, it’s every year that’s our goal to be there. We’re not there yet but I think tonight is a nice step in that direction.”