Providence College Non-Conference Schedule

In a recent ESPN article, written by Eamonn Brennan, Providence is listed amongst 10 schools with the “Worst out of conference schedules” in the country. Before Brennan dives into the article, he mentions, “I understand many of these schedules are constructed in order to help teams along in their development, and also — let’s just be honest about it — inflate win totals. Even so, these are all high-major teams. They could all do better.”

Providence was not the only Big East school to get knocked by Brennan, as Pittsburgh, DePaul and Rutgers were also included as having one of the weakest non-conference schedules in the nation. With all of this being said, what does this mean for this year’s squad?

Ultimately, this was the first season that Ed Cooley was able to sculpt his own schedule, outside of any scheduling contracts that the school had previously signed. Taking into account that this team enters the season with just seven scholarship players able to play in the first semester, Cooley needed to schedule games with this in mind.

Brennan mentions “the schedule as it is, is downright brutal, with Mississippi State and BC and then a bunch of really cupcake-y low majors (NJIT, Bryant).” Few would argue that Brennan’s criticism is ill warranted, however looking at the big picture, Cooley is doing the right thing. What good would it do, for this team to travel to a major opponent’s home court and get squashed by 20? 30? Building confidence in the non-conference will be much more beneficial, as PC opens up Big East play against preseason, number one ranked, Louisville on January 2nd.

Looking ahead to future years, if Cooley can continue to build this program and get it back on its feet, bringing in major teams to play at PC should become a little easier than in the past. To find the last time a ranked team visited the Dunkin Donuts Center, you would have to go all the way back to December of 2006. It was then, that 7th ranked Florida made the trek to Providence. At that point in time, one could say that the roster was fairly similar to what we have now. A young team, laden with a ton of underclassmen and only one senior, Herbert Hill then, Vincent Council now. Against the eventual national champions, PC fell to the Gators by a final score of 85-67.

The following season, 2007-08, marked the last time the Friars played a ranked team in any location, as they hooked up with Arkansas in the Puerto Rico Tip Off. In this game, the Friars wound up taking a 67-51 upset win over the, then 18th ranked, Razorbacks. As this team continues to develop, PC fans are surely looking forward to PC ditching a few of those “cupcake” matchups, like NJIT, Colgate or Holy Cross. At PC media day, I asked Coach Cooley what his thoughts were on future schedules, he had this to say:

As our program continues to develop, and it’s not just us wanting to play certain teams, those teams need to be willing to come to Providence. We just haven’t found the right opponent who is willing to go home and home. I won’t sacrifice Providence College going somewhere 2 years and the opponent only coming here once. Those days are long gone, were going to move past that and become one of those elite teams in the country.

It is certainly encouraging for PC fans to hear this type of mindset Cooley possesses. Cooley doesn’t want the Friars travelling to hostile environments consistently, during the non-conference, without those same teams coming to Providence the following year. Nor does he want to schedule games against weak opponents, similar to this year, but he has to work with what he has. And what he has right now is a young team that needs to build confidence.

One player that Cooley has already pointed out as lacking confidence has been Josh Fortune. Cooley explained, “Josh’s athleticism is going to surprise a lot of people. He’s been able to handle the pressure in practice but one thing that I think is really important for him, is to have confidence. Josh lacks confidence right now, and it’s my job to make sure that he always feels confident”. As mentioned earlier, the types of teams that PC will play in the non-conference, allows for players like Fortune, to gain some experience and inherit the fearless attitude that Cooley often preaches.

This season Providence will be traveling the some 5 minutes to play at Brown for the first time in history. While this game won’t carry much leverage to journalists like Brennan or the NCAA tournament committee, but Cooley feels that this type of game will prepare his young team for matchups ahead. “I think we need a competitive road game, we want to put our players in an environment that is similar to an environment that we will see in Big East play. Villanova for instance, it’s a really tough place to play, and scheduling a game like this will give our players some practice for a game like that”. When asked if this type of thing would happen again in the future, where Providence would play at Brown, Cooley responded, “I’m not sure”.

With the annual Mal Brown scrimmage occurring on Saturday afternoon, next up on the schedule is PC’s first exhibition game against Assumption College. This is the second straight season that PC takes on the Greyhounds in preseason action and last year’s matchup finished with a 64-51 Friars victory over their Division II opponent.

Email Craig Belhumeur – craig.belhumeur@friarbasketball.com

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   October 22, 2012 at 4:34 pm

   I kind of thing Holy Cross is a good game. They don’t have Big East talent- but they always play as a unit- talented teams that are finding themselves acn learn some things from teams like that-
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