I don’t know about you all, but I’m ready to turn the page to 2025 as a Providence Friar fan. 2024 brought a Bryce Hopkins season ending injury, a narrow miss of the NCAA tournament, and a rough start to this basketball season. Here’s to hoping 2025 is better across the board for Providence.
Below, Mike and I give our New Year’s Resolutions for the 2025 Providence Friars.
BOC Resolutions
- Youth Movement – Barring a miraculous conference run, which shouldn’t be ruled out should Hopkins return and play in the rest of the games, Providence is comfortably on the outside looking in at the NCAA tournament. With that looking more and more like a reality, I’d like to see English give more playing time to his younger talent to get them developed for 2025-2026 and beyond. This means, for me, more playing time for Mela, Bonke, Oswin, and Barron. Despite the subpar season to date, Providence should have a lot of this roster returning next year. By my count, ignoring transfers out, Providence should return 9 scholarship players next year. For what it’s worth, English leaned more into Mela playing time against St. John’s, so the youth movement may already be in effect.
- Kick Tires on 2025 PG & C Recruit, as well as elite 2026 PG and C Talent to Reclassify – Providence’s 2025 class is already stellar with Jamier Jones and Jaylen Harrell. The missing piece to this class is a true point guard. Not landing Jalen Reece really hurts, and I wish they more aggressively pursued Northwestern signee Jake West. If there isn’t a 2025 point guard they want to bring into the mix, I’d see if there are any Top 50 talents in the 2026 class that want to reclassify into the 2025 class. With Joseph gone after this year, I’m certain Providence will land a PG in the portal, but I’d like to see them double dip with a transfer PG and high school PG. Jayden Pierre will continue to develop, but he’s best served off the ball. In a similar capacity, I’d like to see Providence look to add a 2025 Center or an elite 2026 C that wishes to reclassify. Barring a monumental change, I don’t expect Essandoko to be a Friar next year, and you need to add another big man to this roster besides Oswin and Bonke. Providence is in on a number of elite 2026 bigs, so this may not be out of the realm of possibility.
- Clean Bill of Health for Hopkins – If Bryce can stay healthy, he’ll at least make the rest of conference play interesting. If Providence gets hot, it can lean into the narrative that their resume should be viewed as two separate teams: with and without Bryce. Bryce is impactful enough to lead this team on a run of sorts, but will it be enough? I’d love to be given the chance to see that play out. Also, it’d be nice for Bryce to wrap up his collegiate career on his terms: healthy and playing good basketball. 2024 was a year to forget for Mr. Hopkins due to injury and rehab, and I hope 2025 brings him nothing but success.
- Maintain Halftime Leads – We’ve gone into half several times this year with a lead only to relinquish said lead and lose the game. I’m hoping we can see more of us holding a lead post halftime. It’s been a concerning trend I want to see end.
Crier Resolutions
- More Steals Please- So far on the season the Friars haven’t been able to force turnovers. PC ranks 338th in the nation (out of 364 teams) in steals per game at only 5.1 thefts per contest. Last season Devin Carter alone had 58 steals. The Friars as a team through 13 games only have 66. This has to improve. The Friars should have the personnel to turnover the opposition with guards like Jayden Pierre, Bensley Joseph, Corey Floyd Jr and Wesley Cardet. All four of these guys are below their season averages of steals per game from a year ago. If they can generate more streals they can get out in transition more for some instant offense for an offense that has struggled mightily in the halfcourt. Here’s to more stealing in 2025!
- Better Shooting Within the Arc- Kim English’s offense wants to generate looks from three and at the rim. I don’t have a ton of issue with the Friars offense taking a lot of three pointers, but they need to cash in on the looks the get within the perimeter. They’ve been pretty average from 2-point this year shooting 52.4%, ranking 142nd nationally. Making matters worse they are only making 68.4% from the free throw line, which ranks 271st nationally. The Friars need to not only shoot those at a better clip but they need to get to the line more as well.
- Go on a Run!- Sitting with a 7-6 record with 2024 coming to a close it doesn’t appear the Friars will be destined for the NCAA Tournament. However, Friar fans have unfortunately been down this road before, having to play their best basketball during the second half of the year. In 2020 the Friars were 6-6 at one point of the season prior to going on a huge run where they would’ve been a tournament lock had it not been for the COVID pandemic. Now will the Friars go on a run that saw them set a NCAA record for most wins against ranked opponents in a calendar month? Probably not. As of now, the league doesnt have enough teams in the top-25 for something like that to happen, but I want to see this team fight. If they can put together a good record in the Big East with some quality victories they can be in the conversation for tournament consideration. You’d have to think if Bryce Hopkins plays the remainder of the season and the Friars find themselves on the bubble, the NCAA Selection Committee would certainly take into account his absence when looking at the Friars’ resume. Let’s see this team dig deep and make a run at this thing!