Dave of Friars Blog contacted me about a good old-fashioned Q&A exchange ahead of tonight’s game.

You can read my responses to his questions here. The responses to my questions follows:

1. Defense? How’s that going?

We knew coming into the season that Keno Davis was going to run an up-tempo offense that would produce a lot of possessions. So we knew a lot of points were going to be scored against us, but not like this. The top half of the league basically has scored at will against the Friar defense and its just maddening. PC’s man-to-man defense is simply not very good, so Keno is pretty much forced to use the matchup zone for most of the game. Well, that ain’t workin’ lately either, because team after team just gets completely wide open looks from behind the arc.

That’s why in my answers to your questions I joked about the only way for a Providence upset was for Blair to get into foul trouble. Obviously, any team can beat anyone if they have a blistering night from behind the arc. However, that potentially won’t matter — Providence made SEVENTEEN threes against Villanova, and STILL lost!

2. So, Providence had to “settle” on the 2008 national coach of the year, Keno Davis. How about a recap of the coaching search and tortured rejections that led to the hiring. How is everybody feeling about it now? Plus, why didn’t you just hire President Obama’s brother-in-law away from Brown? He could have been wearing a black-and-white striped scarf at the Inauguration for recruits to see.

What a roller coaster that was. First we had the low of a 6-12 season in the conference, followed by the high of firing Tim Welsh and thus having hope, which then led the embarrassment of getting rejected by several coaches. It felt like nobody wanted to coach us. It’s the BIG EAST damnit! I mean, someone willingly accepted the DePaul job. Thankfully, Keno Davis came along and Friartown was once again filled with hope and excitement.

As this season comes to an end, I think everyone is still on board with the direction Keno wants to take the team in. It’s hard to blame him for not getting this group of players who never been able to win to make a big leap. For next year, he has a lot of new faces coming in (2 JUCOS, 4 Freshman). Everyone is real excited to see what he can do with players that fit into his system. There may be some growing pains with the young team, but it will pay off.

As for Craig Robinson? Well, apparently PC needed more time to search, and Oregon State was able to offer him a job right away. I’m happy with Keno Davis though.

3. It seems that Providence has some good to very intriguing players, but they still haven’t seemed to connect as a team — Brooks, McDermott, Curry, Xavier and Efejuku. Is this a lingering effect of the Welsh era, does this go back to just wanting to run and not play defense, or is it something else and I’m oversimplifying?

It’s a complete enigma. Most of these players (McDermott, Efejuku, Hanke, Kale, and Curry) have been STARTING with each other for the past FOUR seasons. You would think they would have had time to gel and play better as a whole. I think part of the problem is that they got so much time as Freshman and showed such promise, that we gave them too great expectations. Curry has been the one who has showed the most consistent improvement as his career progressed (thankfully he’s coming back next year). Jonathan Kale has surprised and has come on real strong for his senior season. However, some of the other players have just been asked to do too much — McDermott is a great rebounder, but is extremely limited on offense and breaks down at the end of each season due to a bad knee. Xavier is a one dimensional offensive player. Efejuku has been dominant at times this season, but other times just coasts along. Hopefully it all comes together tonight, because it’s SENIOR NIGHT for all of them! While it’s disappointing this group hasn’t won as many games as one would like, I would want nothing more than to see them close out their career at THE DUNK with a victory over a #1.

4. Will there ever be a Big East commissh that isn’t tied directly to the Friars?

Just for asking that, the BIG EAST office has dispatched two goons over to your location to go stab you.

5. Which team will make the NCAA Tournament first and why: Providence, St. John’s or Seton Hall?

I’m going to be a homer and say Providence. St. John’s is well, St. John’s. Seton Hall has actually been to the tourney most recently (2006) — Can my reason for them not making the tournament first be because Bobby Gonzalez is a d-bag? Besides, why would top players from NJ pick Seton Hall, when they can be coached into the ground by Fred Hill at Rutgers?

Game predictions you wish to make?

I have a weird feeling that it’s not going to be the blowout I initially thought…I think it’s only fitting if we keep it close for most of the game, with Pitt pulling ahead in the last few minutes. Pitt 82-78.

Thanks to Dave for taking the time and initiative on this. Hopefully the Friars will get a chance to win one game in the B ig East Tournament and make a nice showing in the NIT.