The Uninvited: How Providence's Run to the Big East's One Seed Has Been Filled With Questions, Asterisks, Discredit, and Doubt
The postseason is here and Providence has a chance to answer all the questions -- once and for all
With the Big East regular season title already in hand, Providence headed to Villanova for its final conference game with nothing to lose last Tuesday night.
The #9 Friars and hosting Wildcats (themselves ranked #11 in the country) played down to the wire for the second time this season. Providence trailed by 14 points at halftime, then stormed back to tie the game nine minutes into the second before the two teams went shot-for-shot over the game’s final 11 minutes.
It was clutch shot making at its best over the final five minutes, as the two teams combined to bury jumpers on six consecutive possessions at one point.
As they seemingly always have against everyone since the Big East reconfigured in 2013, Nova pulled out the victory in the end, winning 76-74.
When Providence re-watched the film their collective stomachs likely turned at some ill-timed turnovers, but all things considered — going on the road against Villanova without second-leading scorer Al Durham (out with a sports hernia), coming off of a celebration after clinching the regular season title two nights earlier, and fighting back from a sizable first half deficit — the Friars and their supporters had to feel okay about this one.
They got some light ribbing from the Villanova student section, who held up signs with asterisks on them — a reminder that while PC finished the season half a game ahead of Nova in the standings, they did so while playing 17 conference games to the Wildcats’ 20 — games that were cancelled and never made up due to Covid issues within PC’s program two months ago.
These same Villanova fans likely put the asterisks away a season ago, when they finished 11-4 in Big East play to close the season ahead of 14-6 Creighton for first place in the league.
But that was Villanova, the league’s decade-long superpower, and there was little questioning of their legitimacy, or how they would have fared had those five cancelled games been played. They live atop the Big East perch, and the narrative heading into this season was that Jay Wright’s club may finally have a conference opponent ready to battle them for that top spot on a yearly basis.
That team is from New England, but it sure wasn’t Providence.
Providence isn’t supposed to be here at all.
The Friars are 24-4 overall and 14-3 in the Big East. Little PC has been flirting with a top ten ranking for the better part of a month, and is now headed to Madison Square Garden this week as the Big East Tournament’s top seed.
It should be one of the best stories in college basketball this season: a school with an enrollment of about 4,000 students blowing the roof off of their arena on a nightly basis to support a team of veterans who collectively have played in one NCAA Tournament game? A group that finds new ways to win every time they step on the floor? The unlikely story of the hometown coach, who had to scrap for every last thing he has, leading Providence to new heights?
It’s a story that should write itself, but in 2022 — with a media mentality that is less about covering the story than being a part of it, and with social media giving fanbases instant access to each other on a 24/7 basis — pettiness and denigration are at an all-time high.
As a result, Friar fans have spent almost as much time defending their team as celebrating it this season.
In the minds of so many, Providence isn’t supposed to be here. And the school’s history since the inception of the Big East backs that up.
There was the Final Four run of Rick Pitino and Billy D. in 1987, and PC was an overtime away from returning ten years later behind Austin Croshere and God Shammgod.
Since 1997 though, Providence has won just one game in the NCAA Tournament. They have been ranked in the AP poll in four seasons since the Elite Eight run of 1997.
The Friars were a feel-good story for the first month of this season after roaring out to a 10-1 start in non-conference play. That stretch included wins over a talented Texas Tech team in early December (in which PC was without All Big East point guard Jared Bynum), and a 63-58 win at Wisconsin without Johnny Davis. Davis has since become one of the top five to ten players in the country this season, and both Tech and the Badgers have legitimate Final Four aspirations.
The narrative surrounding the Friars started to change when Providence visited UConn to open Big East play.
The Huskies were without star big man Adama Sanogo, but nonetheless, it was Christmas come early in Hartford. #20 Connecticut was recruiting and playing at a high level, and this game — their first conference game in front of fans as a member of the Big East since 2013 — was set to serve as a celebration of all things Connecticut basketball. It was The Night The Huskies Were Officially Back, and Providence was fortunate enough to be in the building for it.
Only PC didn’t get that memo. The Friars ripped off a 17-1 run and led by double figures for the first 14 minutes of the second half before surviving a few bad decisions and a flagrant foul late to hold on for the win.
Next, PC returned from an 11-day pause (due to Covid issues within Georgetown’s program) to take on a Seton Hall team ranked 15th in the country. The Pirates were returning from a three-week layoff of their own, and were without the services of big men Ike Obiagu and Tyrese Samuel.
Similar to their win at UConn, Providence led by as much as 13 in the second half before Seton Hall made it close late.
“I'm just glad we were able to play. We beat an undermanned, very talented team,” Ed Cooley said after defeating Seton Hall.
The Friars were 12-1 after knocking off Seton Hall and UConn — two teams viewed as potential Final Four sleepers and Big East contenders.
For quite a while, Dan Hurley and Kevin Willard were both vocal about taking shorthanded losses, and soon enough the lucky narrative was born.
Two games after the Seton Hall victory, the Friars took a 30-point beating at Marquette. They were dubbed frauds by halftime of that one. All the work they had done through a 13-1 start to the season was suddenly negated.
It didn’t help that their NET ranking and KenPom rating were badly hurt by the Marquette blowout, as well as their inability to beat the likes of New Hampshire, Central Connecticut State, or St. Peter’s by a big enough figure to please the metric gods.
A week after the Marquette loss, Providence had a Covid outbreak of its own and missed three games — a tough stretch that would have included trips to Creighton and Seton Hall, with a return game against Connecticut sandwiched between the two.
The Big East was unable to reschedule those three games due to parameters they had previously set for making up games. Somehow the narrative then became that PC was dodging teams to preserve its conference record — as if they hung up when Val Ackerman called and decided to no-show.
“The lucky thing is understandable, seeing all the key players who did not face them — Johnny Davis, Sanogo, Obiagu — and the close wins. I just hope that the NCAA's NET limits the margin of victory’s importance going forward,” said Kevin McNamara of WPRO and KevinMcSports.com.
The close wins McNamara is referring to? The Friars won six of their conference games by five points or less, and had a seven-point victory that came in triple overtime versus Xavier.
Of course, it didn’t help matters that Ken Pomeroy has a luck rating and Providence sat atop of it for much of the season. Those looking for confirmation had it from one of the most respected statisticians covering college hoops.
“We, Kevin McNamara and I, spoke with Ken Pomeroy early this season. He is vastly misunderstood,” said John Rooke, the long-time radio voice of PC Basketball.
“I don't agree with much of what he does, but what he does is not intended for ‘polling’ purposes. He's a stat geek. Just because PC doesn't rate well in some of his metrics doesn't mean the Friars are, say, 10 points worse than UConn or Xavier. It literally is a comparison of like stats or trends. It can't measure heart, desire, or will. Because Vegas goes nuts with it, everybody tends to believe it's an actual measuring stick of ability. It is not that.”
Still, the urgency with which so many labeled PC lucky, and later questioned not only their success, but their integrity in terms of making up games they have no role in rescheduling, has been anything but subtle.
The Friars have heard the noise.
Has Ed Cooley paid attention to it?
Yes.
He.
Has.
“We just wanted to stick it to everybody,” AJ Reeves (who missed a month of action in January with fractured fingers) said following a win over Creighton that clinched first place last weekend. “But it wasn’t so much everybody else, we were just trying to prove to ourselves that we could do this.”
And that’s just it, these narratives have done nothing to dampen the feeling in Providence, and they’ve seemingly been far less of a motivator to this group than working toward a goal they started together — well before all the talk started.
“We knew what we had in our locker room. We knew the type of talent we had,” Reeves said when reflecting on the team’s rigorous summer together last year.
“We just felt like we were doubted a lot. We’d win a game and they’d be like, ‘Oh, they were missing a player.’ It’s still hard to win a basketball game. And we won how many of them?”
Even this week, when the AP pollsters had Providence ranked 9th in the country, there was one writer that had PC (24-3 at the time) 25th in his poll.
“People who vote look at the name, they don’t look at the substance,” Cooley said when asked about the doubters in late January. “People who vote look at what we’ve done in the past, not the substance.”
When asked about some of the criticism directed PC’s way, Athletic Director Bob Driscoll said, “I pay no attention to it, but here’s what it is for me. No one ever thought we would be this group, and I always believed we could because that’s just how I think.”
He continued, “We are not The Little Engine that Could anymore. We’re a ‘have.’ I expect to be in the top 10. I expect to compete for Big East championships, and compete for national championships… You should give credit where credit is due, and if you can’t do that, then you’ve probably never really been in the arena.”
While the Friars have handled the questions of their legitimacy with class, and by continuing to win, there’s another factor at play: for every negative Tweet about the Friars, there is an endless legion of Friar Fanatics ready to pounce. They don’t do so quietly.
Anyone who stepped foot in the Dunkin Donuts Center over the past two months felt the passion of this fanbase — and those who write negatively about them certainly heard it.
Throughout much of the season there were critics waiting for the bottom to fall out. Now that the postseason is here, the final hopes for those looking to discredit the Friars are early exits in MSG and the NCAA Tournament.
Whether it has been fueled by the cynics or not, everyone in and around this program has had an edge this season. It’s an edge they’ll carry into the postseason.
As Providence assistant coach LaDontae Henton told The Friar Podcast recently, “This is probably one of the most competitive groups I’ve been around. They take these games personal. Each player literally takes it personal — their matchup, the other team, things people are saying about the group.”
“I believe we can win every game that’s out there. Any and every game, I’ll put my guys up against yours, and I believe in my guys every time. We’ve got some dogs in there.”
This season has certainly become personal for Providence and its fanbase.
The postseason is now here, and over the next two weeks they’ll have a chance to shut everyone up for good.
Excellent article.
A very inspiring read, Kevin! I'm pumped!