Friar Basketball Newsletter: AJ Reeves Shines in Black & White Scrimmage, how PC has fared against preseason expectations, reflections on the early days in the Big East, Bynum looking to bounce back

Providence hosted its Black & White scrimmage on Friday night and the biggest takeaway was the solid play of the backcourt. We saw an aggressive Brycen Goodine, a scoring outburst from Jared Bynum, and much of what makes Al Durham so valuable. The star of the night, however, was senior AJ Reeves. Reeves went for 31 points on seven 3-pointers and was in rhythm all night. Subscribers can read all about Reeves’ performance and everything else from Friday night.

The Big East will hold its annual Media Day this week, which inevitably leads to fanbases across the league claiming their program is disrespected in the preseason coaches’ poll. So, which teams truly overachieve and underachieve in comparison to October predictions? Here’s a look at how Providence has fared against preseason expectations since the realignment of 2013, and details on which teams deserve more (or less) respect.

The Big East was an unkind place to Providence in the earliest days of the league. Craig Leighton takes a look back at the first few years of the Big East and what that looked like for PC at the time.

Jared Bynum scored 22 points and knocked down four 3-pointers in Friday’s scrimmage. A return to form for him would go a long way for the 2021-22 Friars. Here’s a comparison of how he shot in a variety of situations at St. Joe’s versus last season for Providence and how the point guard situation will be interesting to follow this year.

We have been posting highlights of Justin Minaya since the summer. Here’s an extended look at his game.

Craig also touches on a variety of topics in his latest “Here and There in Friartown” article.

Lastly, the third episode of our four-part podseries on the 2003-04 Friars was posted last week. In this episode the players talk through the Big East portion of the schedule and what eventually led to the four-game losing streak that ended what was such a promising season. They give a lot of terrific insight.

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