NEW YORK — The somber stoic silence on the face of David Duke walking to the team bus deep inside the bowels of Madison Square Garden just before midnight Wednesday explained the seriousness of the situation for the Providence College basketball Friars.
The Friars were rudderless without production from All-Big East second team selection, who managed just seven points on 2-for-9 shooting in a not-so-stunning 70-62 loss to DePaul in the opening round of the Big East Tournament.
Vowing that “there will be some changes coming” in the Friar program, PC coach Ed Cooley was restless, but resolute about the future, even though his teams have won just one NCAA Tournament game in his decade of the reins.
Without Duke and despite a 17-point, seven-rebound effort from the Friars’ other Big East selection, Nate Watson, PC’s energy tank was low without the former’s production.
“One, if the guard who was guarding him or if we switched, we could crowd him,” New Bedford native son and DePaul coach Dave Leitao said of contending with the Friar junior guard.
Duke had scored 41 points on 13-for-30 shooting in the Friars’ five-point overtime win and 10-point win over DePaul during the regular season. The Providence native also had 18 rebounds and 10 assists in those two games.
In round No. 3 at MSG, Duke shot 0-for-4 from 3-point range and was limited to three rebounds over 35 minutes, getting to the free throw line just four times.
The Friars lost in the opening round of the Big East Tournament for a 22nd time, leaving their all-time BET record at 24-37.
“If we could take away what he likes to do with the right hand and going left and force him into a second defender that may limit some of the things that he is really good at,” Leitao said of the Blue Demons’ effectiveness at defending Duke.
“Our guys gave him only nine shots and every jump shot that he took was contested. I trusted that it was going to work. I’m sure he didn’t have his best game and I’m sure that we had a little bit to do with it.”
Over 14 seasons and 16 games at the Big East Tournament, DePaul has won just four games, and the Blue Demons had won just four games all season.
“It can be heart-breaking if you don’t play well,” Leitao said of the Friars’ fate in losing in the first round. “I’ve had 14 years of being on the other side.”
For Cooley and the Friars, the warning flags had been raised long ago.
“He (Duke) was trying really hard, their game plan was good,” Cooley said of the Blue Demons rendering the Friars rudderless. “Our defensive alertness, our attention to detail, our communication, the soul searching starts on the defensive end. “We were going through the motions.
“It’s sad,” Cooley added. “It’s been a trying year for everyone all over the place, in the country. There’s some soul-searching we all have to do. It wasn’t a season I’m proud of.
“It just wasn’t the year that I thought that we would have. There’s a lot of disappointed people, our expectations for our program remain high, our standards are high.”
This was a Friars team that lost 10 Big East games and had fashioned just a 5-10 record away from Alumni Hall. The Friars were ranked eighth in the Big East in scoring offense (69.8) and shooting (.430), and 10th in 3-point shooting (.320).
Even worse, the Friars’ trademark defensive principles were lacking as 15 opponents scored 70 points or more; 13 foes out-rebounded PC, and the Friars had the seventh-worst field goal defense (.436) in the Big East.
“Their physicality, they beat us up on the glass, we didn’t match their intensity,” Cooley said. “Team toughness, defensive toughness, that’s been inconsistent all year. We didn’t have a lot of chemistry on the floor, which I’m really surprised at. I thought we knew what we wanted to do.
“It was one of those years where we didn’t have enough consistency top to bottom to be a worthy team night in and night out. It wasn’t meant to be for the Friars this year. We have to come up with a lot of different answers, because what we did was not Friar-like.”
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