Friar Basketball
Home / General News / What to Make of the Schedule?

What to Make of the Schedule?

kris_dunn2

The Big East released the 2014-15 conference schedule today, and with it comes an opportunity to start detailing how the Friars might make their way back to the NCAA Tournament and highlight what should be significant moments this season.

1. The Friars need to do damage in the out of conference schedule. Not exactly earth-shattering, I know, but unless the Big East sees bounce back seasons from the likes of Georgetown (very likely), St. John’s (talent is there, but the diagrammatically challenged Steve Lavin remains) and Marquette (first year head coach), signature wins could be tough to come by in the Big East.

Consider this: after January 1 last year the Friars played a total of two teams ranked in the 25 — Creighton and Villanova. Nova figures to be a preseason top 10-15 team, while Creighton should struggle to remain in the top half of the league with the departure of National Player of the Year Doug McDermott and a core of seniors along with him.

This is where the OOC schedule becomes critically important. Only card-carrying members of the Cooley World Order have PC winning on the road against what should be #1 Kentucky in late-November, but an opportunity to grab a roadie at Boston College combined with neutral site games against Miami (at Brooklyn on 12/22), Florida State (11/22 at Mohegan Sun) and Notre Dame (11/23 at Mohegan) offer Providence a chance to position itself beautifully for the start of the Big East season. Plus, getting wins over the ACC is good for the soul.

Rhode Island and Massachusetts at home are games this team simply must have.

PC didn’t get much help from OOC opponents Maryland and Vanderbilt last season, while BC fell off of a cliff. Their luck can’t be as bad this season, right?

2. Surviving early February. Providence has a stretch of games eerily similar to early February of 2014 when the season was nearly derailed. Back then they were upset at home against St. John’s, and fell in back to back road games against Georgetown and Xavier before splitting with DePaul and Villanova at home.

Four of those five teams make up a difficult four game test in early February of 2015. PC plays St. John’s at Madison Square Garden on Jan. 31 and stays on the road against Georgetown and Xavier before returning home to host Villanova.

2-2 would be more than okay in that stretch.

3. Big East Championship Rematch. The Dunk was live last January when Providence upset McDermott and Creighton, and a primetime New Year’s Eve tilt to kick off the Big East season against the Blue Jays should make for a terrific night in Friartown. Just how rampant will depend upon where they stand after the aforementioned out of conference schedule, but Providence will be a difficult place to win for the visitors on this night.

4. Return to MSG. With winning comes respect. For years Friar fans grumbled about their team being pushed to Queens, rather than Broadway when taking on St. John’s. It’s funny what a conference title will do. Not only are the Friars returning to Madison Square Garden during the regular season, but this is one of eight Big East games being broadcast on Fox this season.

5. Nova Twice in 13 Days. Not much more to it than that. Two of Providence’s final seven games come against Villanova and they’ll be played in a two-week span from Feb. 11 to Feb. 24. The home game comes on the heels of the three game SJU/Georgetown/Xavier trip, and Providence will hope for a far better showing in Philly this year after last season’s embarrassing 91-61 beat down in January.

 

Twitter: @Kevin_Farrahar

Email: kevin.farrahar@friarbasketball.com

You must be logged in to post a comment Login