Tough to be a media darling if you can’t stay at the dance.
South Dakota State was destined to wear Cinderella’s slipper for as long as possible, provided they got by the first test on their dance card Thursday in Buffalo, NY. Providence, however, was an unwilling dance partner.
The 4th seeded Friars stepped all over the feet, toes, arms, and legs of the 13th seeded Jackrabbits, using a defensive effort previously unseen on their campus in Brookings, SD this season. PC prevailed 66-57, and advances into the NCAA Tournament’s second round Saturday against Richmond.
“They (PC) play really physical, they’re really long at pretty much all five positions, and they do a great job on defense trying to take away what they want to take away,” said SDSU’s Baylor Scheierman, the Summit League Player of the Year. “They were pretty good at it.”
Indeed, after a back and forth affair in the game’s opening nine minutes, the Providence defense began to assert itself. Down 17-15 with 11:32 to play in the first half, the Friars managed a 9-2 run following a Jared Bynum three-pointer for a 24-19 lead, and finished the period outscoring the Jacks 7-4 over the last 5:41 to take a 31-23 halftime lead.
South Dakota State entered the tournament as the nation’s leading three-point shooting team at 45%, and PC’s defensive effort limited the Jacks to 33%, 5-15 in the half.
“At the end of the day, we just wanted to get stops,” PC guard Jared Bynum said. “Going into the half we had a good lead, we wanted to build on that lead, and we had a pretty good first four minutes. Credit to them, though. They’re a good team.”
After a Scheierman three (he led all scorers with 18 points and 10 rebounds) to open the second half, Providence answered with AJ Reeves, Justin Minaya and Noah Horchler scores to stretch the lead to double digits at 40-29, with 16:22 remaining. That lead eventually grew to 14 following a Horchler three before the Jacks jumped back into the fray.
It was still an 11-point PC lead until Doug Wilson and Zeke Mayo responded with back-to-back scores, and a three from Alex Arians pulled the Jacks within five. The Friars never lost the lead – even as SDSU closed to within 56-53 with 2:36 remaining.
They’ve been in similar situations this season. A lot, in fact.
“Our style is win,” Friar coach Ed Cooley said, “and if it’s by one, it’s a W. If it’s by 30, it’s a W. All we try to do is get to the finish line, and we talk to our guys about embracing in our preparation close games, and you have to talk it into existence. The practice (over the years) has helped us.”
The clinching moment came with the Friars nursing a 3-point lead at 60-57 with :59 second left. Bynum took a three from the left wing that missed its’ mark as the shot clock neared zero but got a bump from SDSU’s Doug Wilson to send him to the line…where he canned three free throws for some breathing room.
From there, the defense rested. But not until the clock read 0:00.
“We wanted to be real physical, and run them off the three-point line, make sure we were defending,” PC’s Al Durham said. “You know, get up in them and we were physical at offense, too. We wanted to play at the rim and in transition. We executed our game play and came out with a win.”
“What a St. Patrick’s Day, huh?” Cooley said. “Lucky charm. We’re still here.”
And still dancing.
TOURNAMENT NOTES
The Friars were led by Durham and Noah Horchler with 13 points each, with Horchler also grabbing nine rebounds, and Bynum scored 12. The PC defense held the Jackrabbits 14 percentage points below their normal field goal average, both on two’s and three’s.
A 41-32 advantage on the backboards, including 11 offensive rebounds, contributed considerably to the cause. Scheierman’s 18 led the Jacks, while Wilson and Arians each scored 13. But South Dakota State had zero points from its’ bench…PC outscoring them 19-0. SDSU was the nation’s #2 scoring team (behind Gonzaga), but they were held 30 points below their per-game average.
As for the ‘media darlings’ tag attached to the Jacks, it clearly caught the attention of the Friar players. “We hear the noise that everybody says,” Durham told the media. “We knew what we were capable of. We knew when we were coming in, we were going to have an edge, fire, and chip on our shoulder. We came out, played our game and just proved the whole world wrong.”
The Friars will advance to Saturday’s second round against the Atlantic-10 tournament champ Richmond Spiders – as the 12-seed they upset Big 10 champ and 5th seeded Iowa 67-63. The Spiders feature the play of junior forward Trey Burton, who just happens to be the son of former Friar Quinton Burton – who played on PC’s NCAA teams of 1988-90.