On paper, at last, the final game of the BIG EAST Tournament’s opening-day tripleheader between No. 6 Providence and No. 11 DePaul didn’t figure to be much of a battle.
The Friars had already swept the season series from the Blue Demons, were solid favorites to make it three straight over DePaul in Wednesday’s opener and were coming at the Demons armed with two of the top four scorers in the league in senior bigman Nate Watson and stellar junior guard David Duke. A pair of BIG EAST Second Team picks, no less.
Duke finished the regular season as the conference’s third leading scorer, averaging 17.2 points a game and was second in assists with 4.8 helpers per outing. Watson placed fourth in scoring (16.8 ppg.) and had seven games with 20 or more points this season.
But there’s more. Providence was coming off an inspired victory over then-No. 10 Villanova in the Friars’ regular-season finale last Saturday while DePaul was just finishing up a February/March that saw them post just a 1-6 record along with a trio of postponements. In fact, the Blue Demons had just one win since Jan. 23, a span of 46 days.
So clearly, momentum going into the tournament was on the Friars’ side.
But who needs momentum when you have Charlie Moore and Javon Freeman-Liberty?.
The Blue Demons played like anything but a four-win team as the duo of Moore and Freeman-Liberty combined for 42 points as DePaul shocked the sixth-seeded Friars, 70-62, at Madison Square Garden. The Blue Demons (5-13) move on to face No. 3 UConn in the quarterfinals Thursday night at 9 p.m. The Huskies swept the season series from DePaul, winning 82-61 in Storrs on Dec. 30 before edging the Demons, 60-53 in Chicago on Jan. 11.
“We talked the last couple of days about aggression as a result of being in a one-day tournament,” DePaul head coach Dave Leitao said. “We had an understanding that if we could do certain things, because we played them well twice, if we could clean up a few things that we didn’t do as well, that we’d have a great opportunity.”
Much of the second half saw neither team able to pull away from the other with DePaul’s 47-40 cushion providing the largest advantage before things began to get a lot stickier down the stretch. Twice Providence (13-13) was able to pull within a point before finally forging ties on two occasions, the last coming at 53-53 with 8:04 to play after a jumper by Jared Bynum.
But then DePaul began to pull away. Slowly at first, as they still led by just a single point (55-54) with 5:59 remaining. But then Moore and Freeman-Liberty began to team up to put the game away.
With DePaul holding a 58-55 lead, Moore tossed in a slick reverse layup for a five-point Blue Demons lead. Less than a minute later it was 62-55 when Moore drained a jumper with 3:20 to play and the Friars were on the ropes. A layup by Courvoisier McCauley made it 64-56 with 2:40 to go and for the second consecutive season, DePaul was going to win its opening-round game.
A jumper by Freeman-Liberty opened the lead to nine (66-57) with under two minutes to play before four Blue Demons free throws in the final 44.6 seconds - with two of them from Moore - iced the victory.
The duo of Moore and Freeman-Liberty shot a combined 17-of-30 and combined for 14 rebounds. Not a bad outing for Freeman-Liberty, who missed the previous five games being in the concussion protocol.
““It was a big boost to have Javon back,” said Moore, who finished with the same stat line as Freeman-Liberty, 21 points and 7 rebounds. “He’s a great player and we play well with each other. It just felt great out there. We were all staying aggressive and we all did a great job on the defensive end.”
When Moore and Freeman-Liberty weren’t torturing Providence, the Friars were doing it to themselves as they missed 14 free throws in the game. Nate Watson led Providence with 18 points and 9 rebounds while Noah Horchler chipped in with 17 points and 7 rebounds.
But there was just no stopping Moore and Liberty-Freeman on this night and now DePaul gets to play in the quarterfinals Thursday. It’s a trip the Blue Demons didn’t get to make after upending Xavier in the first round in last season’s tournament thanks to Covid cancelling the remainder of the event.
“It’s a great feeling but it’s (just) another game,” Moore said. “It’s a different day tomorrow and everybody is going to forget about this game come.tomorrow. So we just got to come out there with our hard hats on and play a great UConn team. They’re great defensively so we just got to attack them and play defense like we did today.”. .