Two Seasons Into a Slow Erosion, The Friars Have Lost Their Way

I started writing about Providence basketball in December 2009. That was twelve years after I stepped foot on campus as a student and twenty since I first made my way into the Providence Civic Center, an afternoon that forever cemented my love of college hoops.

I can’t even estimate how many articles I’ve published over that time — not sure I even want to think about it, honestly.

My best guess is in the vicinity of 150-200 articles a year. Since moving to Substack in 2021 the count is well over 1,000 now. The pace hasn’t really changed since the first article went live after a six-hour round-trip drive to Wolfeboro, NH fifteen years ago.

Through those years, I’ve logged a lot of miles, spent countless hours, and planned so much time around away games, postseason tournaments, and recruiting events. I’m under no illusion that spending the past few Thanksgiving nights on postgame press conferences or flying out to Pittsburgh to cover an exhibition game wasn’t a little obsessive.

But I’ve loved it.

I’ve loved everything from the 5 p.m. tips against Stonehill to the NCAA Tournaments. There’s not much that has kept me away from the AMP/Dunk/Civic Center over the past 25+ years, but following Monday’s inexcusable loss to Marquette, I came to a decision I’d never seen coming.

I was sitting out the Georgetown game on Saturday.

There was a family commitment I’d have to miss to attend in person, and after seeing the lack of defense and late-game execution that continued in Milwaukee, I was okay with not prioritizing a PC game and watching it at home.

Sure, there was a bit of FOMO when I attended The Providence Crier’s live show on Friday night (a great time with great fans), but there genuinely wasn’t much of me that felt the typical level of desperation when missing a Friar game — never mind one against Georgetown and Ed Cooley.

The game unfolded in a most predictable manner. The Friars pushed an 18-point lead to 21 early in the second half. When Jaylin Sellers went waltzing to the rim for a dunk to make it 59-39 Friars with 13:04 on the clock, it looked like Georgetown had given in. Cooley would suffer the indignity of losing for the third straight time in Providence — with a team stuck in the basement of the Big East.

But thanks to a flurry of second-half turnovers, a return to non-existent defense, and the sidelining of the team’s best player (a freshman, yes, but their best player and their energy-giver), Georgetown found life over the next five minutes.

When Vince Iwuchukwu hit a 3-pointer (he hadn’t made a three prior to Saturday) to cut the lead to 64-55 with 8:42 on the clock, seemingly everyone knew what was coming.

A Georgetown team that shot 1-23 (!) in the second half of its 56-50 loss at DePaul outscored Providence, 56-35, in the second to take home an 81-78 victory.

It was a victory that would have felt improbable had it not been so damn predictable.

The Hoyas shot a ridiculous 67% from the field over the final 20 minutes and made 8-13 (61%) from three. All of this came after Georgetown put up just 25 first-half points and made 1-12 beyond the arc.

For all of the buzz Cooley’s return causes in Providence, this game became far less about him, and more about how far the Friars have fallen despite such strong NIL and fan support.

And there isn’t a part of me that wishes I was there to see it.

The Benching of Jamier Jones

Kevin McNamara@KevinMcNamara33

Jamier Jones played 1:37 of the final 11 minutes and 9 minutes of the 2nd half. Kim English: "We get to see him every day. We know the freshman lapses that happen to everybody. You try to avoid them when you can."

9:59 PM · Jan 24, 2026 · 9.33K Views

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24 Replies · 29 Likes

Entering Saturday’s game against Georgetown, Jamier Jones had the best plus-minus number of any Providence regular. In fact, few were close:

• Jones: +124

• Oswin Erhunmwunse: +117

• Stefan Vaaks: +42

• Corey Floyd Jr.: +11

• Jason Edwards: +6

The same holds true for conference play. Here are the top five in Big East games:

• Jones: +35

• Oswin: +25

• Vaaks: -11

• Powell: -19

• Floyd: -20

Numbers aside, the eye test would suffice to understand his impact.

Jones has been outstanding, and likely the most impactful frosh PC has had since LaDontae Henton averaged 14.3 points and 8.6 boards in the 2011-12 season. He’s certainly the most explosive this century.

Saturday marked the tenth consecutive game in which Jones has scored in double figures, and he was the tone-setter in the first 25 minutes — knocking down a pair of early threes, stuffing home a tip dunk, and throwing down a vicious slam over the 7’1 Iwuchukwu.

Jones was benched for apparently not following the scouting report on a Jeremiah Williams drive late in the second half. He then followed that up with a turnover.

But for a Friar team that was on its heels for the final ten minutes of the game, they certainly could have used Jones’ aggression to stem the tide.

“Those guys are freshmen,” Kim English said when asked of the decision to sit Jones for such a long stretch, while fellow frosh Stefan Vaaks struggled through a 3-14 shooting day. “Jamier, especially, he’s a freshman and he’s obviously uber talented. We need him and he gets to play through a lot of mistakes.”

“Jeremiah Williams is a driver. He’s a right driver, he’s a right driver, he’s a right driver. He had a right drive and-1 layup on Jamier. (Then) we had a play called, Jamier went in one-on-three and got the ball knocked out and dove and took himself out of the play. We sat him at the end of the Creighton game because we get to see him every day, we know the freshman lapses that happened — and they happen to everybody when they’re freshmen. You try to avoid them when you can.”

Yes, Jones was fresh off a bad decision in the late going at Marquette, putting up a shot immediately following an offensive rebound with the Friars up four at the one minute mark. Still, the tradeoff of a bad decision or two for his otherworldly aggression, confidence, defensive impact, and physicality felt like a fair exchange when PC was reeling against Georgetown.

Jones muscled his way to a bucket with 5:12 on the clock to push Providence’s tenuous lead back to six at 69-63, but went to the bench soon after. PC would score just two field goals the rest of the way.

So now what?

Providence is 2-7 in Big East play and 9-11 overall. A brutal two-year stretch hit its absolute low on Saturday by losing to Cooley and the Hoyas in such horrific fashion.

With 11 games left prior to the Big East Tournament, the season has slipped away and is unsalvageable for a team that doesn’t defend and can’t execute in the closing minutes.

With a roster that sources indicate was paid upward of $10M, there’s no other way to describe this season than an abject failure.

Saturday had less to do with Ed Cooley than it did the erosion of the program over the past two seasons.