“20 in 60”: #1 Cooley’s Second Season Begins Now

There was work to be done in his first season at Providence, and Ed Cooley did it.  Truth be told, the Providence faithful would have been happy with improvement in the classroom, signs of development on the court, and recruiting inroads being made in Cooley’s first year at the helm.

The program had fallen so far prior to Cooley’s arrival, and the cupboard left so bare, that many in Friartown would have been happy to have just seen stability restored at PC.  There wasn’t nearly enough left on the roster to expect much on the floor, while it had been so long since the Friars had been a contender that few expected Cooley to start hitting home runs on the recruiting circuit without evidence of the program being on the rise.

Set against those expectations, Cooley’s first season was a rousing success.  He stressed that his players develop into men, focusing equally on academics and basketball.  It took him mere months to bring in talent that surpassed what Providence had seen in the previous 15 years – then he supplemented that with experienced front court transfers in the second semester.  And while the team didn’t lose any games they weren’t expected to, the underlying theme with the on-court product last year was that while we saw improvements from the likes of Bryce Cotton, and the emergence of freshman LaDontae Henton, it was a team in transition, so the on-court product couldn’t be fairly assessed for another year.

Cotton has improved greatly 

After a first semester this year in which a star recruit was deemed academically ineligible, another impact freshman was sidelined after shoulder surgery, the all-conference point guard went down five minutes into the season, and the league’s top scorer was beset by ankle and knee injuries, Friartown was once again in a holding pattern – waiting to see what an Ed Cooley team would look like when he has all of his options available.

I held off on this article in the preseason, as we wouldn’t get a true feel for what an Ed Cooley team would look like in the first semester – that group just didn’t have enough pieces in place yet.

Today, with the start of the Big East regular season a week away and some of those pieces starting to fall into place, we are closer than ever to seeing what Cooley’s team will look like when he’s got a roster that he’s built.

It’s a roster with solid pieces, and one that will continue to evolve throughout the Big East schedule.  For the better part of 18 months we’ve focused on Cooley as a representative of Providence College, a recruiter, and a stabilizing force for a program that badly needed him.  He’s passed each test with flying colors.

Now, we get a better sense of who he is as a coach and the style of play he’ll look to instill.

That coaching acumen will be challenged, as he’s incorporating Kris Dunn and Sidiki Johnson into the lineup now, and will have to reset once Vincent Council returns from a hamstring injury.  He’ll be doing this over the next two weeks while traveling to Louisville and Georgetown and welcoming the likes of Syracuse to the Dunkin Donuts Center.

Batts figures to be an important piece in 2013

It may be another month before we truly see what a Cooley team looks like, but for the first time in a few seasons Providence should have more than a few pieces in place. Cotton has turned himself into a terrific scorer as a junior, Kadeem Batts has taken a leap this year, while Henton remains a steady presence in the frontcourt.

Dunn has been thrown into the fire early, Johnson more slowly, while Council will give this team the on-court maturity that they so badly needed in Saturday’s loss to Boston College.

That loss forced Providence fans to pump the breaks a bit, and throughout this season there will certainly be times in which PC supporters are hitting the gas one night and slowing way down the next.

Cooley’s fellow Big East coaches didn’t think much of the pieces the Friars have in place, ranking them 15th in the 15 team league in the preseason, but once Council returns there will be enough pieces in place for the Friars to compete on a nightly basis – enough that Providence fans will get a much better sense of Ed Cooley the game coach once the Big East season kicks off.

Email Kevin at kevin.farrahar@friarbasketball.com

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