Providence wouldn't have won the Big East regular season title and climbed the AP top-25 ranks this winter without key contributions from Nate Watson. The 6-foot-10, 260-pound grad student averaged a team-high 13.7 points for the Friars in 28 games, and his 56.0 field-goal percentage happened to lead the entire conference.
For the first time in school history, Providence played a Big East tournament game as the top overall seed on Thursday. And naturally, Watson stepped up inside Madison Square Garden, scoring a game-high 26 points in the team's 65-61 quarterfinal win over Butler. The 11th-ranked Friars will battle Creighton in the semifinals on Friday.
"Everybody's been calling us the luckiest team in America. Hey, if lucky gets you wins, I'll be lucky any time of the day," Watson told The Zach Gelb Show on Thursday. "We're always seen as the underdogs, and that fuels us, makes us hungrier. We were picked seventh in the preseason poll. We saw that and were like, 'Yo, we've got something to prove.' That's what we did, we proved everybody wrong...
"I think this is the best team I've played on, in my five years here. And we're looking to make some noise, do some dancing in March... So, from here on out, I'm trying to go as hard as I can. Because it's win or go home -- and I'm not trying to go home. We already cut the nets down at the Dunkin' Donuts Center, and I'm trying to cut the nets down at MSG and wherever we play in the NCAA Tournament..."
According to CBS Sports bracketologist Jerry Palm, Providence is currently projected as the Midwest Region four-seed, set to play No. 13 Chattanooga. As for ESPN's bracketologist Joe Lunardi, he too has the Friars projected as the No. 4 in the Midwest, playing the Mocs. Providence finished the regular season with an .857 winning percentage (24-4 overall), their best mark as a Big East member.
The entire conversation between Watson and Gelb can be accessed in the audio player above.
You can follow The Zach Gelb Show on Twitter @ZachGelb and Tom Hanslin @TomHanslin.