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Here and There in Friartown

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News, notes, and opinions while waiting for the raising of the Big East banner this Saturday at the Dunk.

  • Let’s see now. Back in the day one of the top shooting guards in the country, Rodney Monroe, chose to play at North Carolina State over Providence College. The Friars wound up with Eric Murdock as a consolation prize. A few years ago Tyler Harris chose North Carolina State over PC, but he ultimately changed his mind and became a Friar after his freshman year. This year power forward Abdul Malik Abu picked North Carolina State over the Friars and as a result Ben Bentil became the Friars consolation prize. If PC keeps on losing out on players to NC State the Friars will wind up back in the Final Four sooner rather than later.
  • This year’s Mohegan Sun Hall of Fame Tip Off is going to wind up being huge for a number of reasons. All four of the high major teams (PC, Florida State, Notre Dame, and UMass) could be right in the thick of the battle for NCAA tournament bids at the end of the season. Joe Lunardi currently has two of these teams in the “last four in” while the other two are not far off. Win two games at the Mohegan Sun tournament and you have a big leg up on dancing in March. Lose two games and you have extra work to do. In addition, these games will go a long ways to determine how conferences are ranked in the RPI. If PC could go 2-0 against two competitive ACC teams the Big East would get a big boost in their conference RPI. If both Notre Dame and Florida State go 2-0 the ACC gets a huge boost in RPI. This could be very significant come tourney time.
  • PC actually plays four games against ACC teams this year as Boston College and Miami are also on the schedule. Going 3-1 against ACC teams would be a huge boost for the Friars heading into the Big East season.
  • After watching Tyler Harris on Saturday it is quite evident that he put in a lot of work during the offseason. Not only is he bigger but he also seems to have a little more spring in his legs. He was much more active on the boards and I think he is going to wind up being a bigger matchup problem for opposing small forwards this year.
  • I watched Gerard Coleman’s Georgetown College (KY) team take on Kentucky on Sunday and it was not pretty. He seemed intent on driving to the basket and getting his shot rejected by one of Kentucky’s several big men. Coleman wound up going 1-9 from the floor as his Georgetown team got slaughtered by the Wildcats. I think the lesson learned from this is that if a player is going to transfer somewhere he should be darn sure what his situation is going to be like at the new school as a coaching staff is not going to give  a transfer a lot of time to prove himself before they move on to someone else.
  • For home games this year PC  has moved the band to the same side of the Dunk as the students. The band has always been really enthusiastic at games and hopefully this enthusiasm will rub off on the students.
  • While listening to the Ed Cooley radio show tonight Coach Cooley mentioned that he wanted to see 9,000 Friar fans out in force at the Mohegan Sun in a couple of weeks. It is really a great opportunity for the Friars to have a distinct home court advantage for two very important games against Notre Dame and Florida State. It would be great to get as many Friar fans out there as possible.

email Craig at Craig.Leighton@friarbasketball.com

follow Craig on twitter: @CraigL78

2 Comments

  1. Chris Primini

    November 11, 2014 at 3:11 am

    Poor Gerard Coleman. I hope he finds his way to c level euro team someday.

  2. Torrel Harris

    November 11, 2014 at 7:16 pm

    NCAA tournament is the plan, In Jesus name. Amen

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