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Friars Excellent First Half Not Enough to Beat Huskies in Storrs

The Friars and the Huskies both went 0-3 in their holiday tournaments this past November. UConn righted the ship, winning 7 straight heading into Sunday’s tilt against the Friars. PC on the other hand has struggled mightily since Atlantis, losers of four of their last 6. It seemed like the Friars were outmanned going into this one against the back-to-back National Champion Connecticut Huskies. We break down the game below, as a undermanned Providence fought valiantly, but ultimately came up short.

Crier’s View: #8 Marquette Rout Providence at the AMP

For Friar fans thinking the team could have a spirited effort and score a top-10 victory over Marquette to end 2024, they had another thing coming Tuesday night. The Friars came out looking ok but it didn’t last long as Marquette would ratchet up the defensive intensity. The rout was on. PC would start the game scoring ten points in the game’s first three minutes. The Friars would only score 10 more points for the remainder of the first half and found themselves in an insurmountable deficit at the break, trailing 47-20.

Friars Look to Cash Out Final Non-Conference Game: Face St. Bonaventure at Mohegan Sun

The Friars started their week opening Big East play by defeating the DePaul Blue Demons 70-63 in overtime, but will finish the week with their final non-conference matchup of the season.

PC (7-4, 1-0) will travel down to Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, CT to take on St. Bonaventure in the Hall of Fame Showcase early evening on Saturday with a 5pm tip time. The Bonnies are off to their best start since 1970 with a record of 9-1 with their lone loss coming at the hands of Utah State in the NIT Season Tip Off tournament. Head Coach Mark Schmidt has got the team rolling despite being projected to finish 10th in a 15-team Atlantic-10. They’re a team full of guys from the portal and are led by Chance Moore, a big guard with bounce who originally started at Arkansas. With their good record and stout defense, the Bonnies are 55th in the NET. Thus, this would be a quad 2 opportunity for the Friars on a neutral site.

The Friars have to win this one for their at large resume considering opportunities squandered thus far, but the Bonnies will also have something to prove with Friars being certainly a jump in the competition they’ve played thus far. We should be in store for a fun game between these two teams.

Friars Open Big East Play at Depaul

After dropping their rivalry game against URI in Kingston on Saturday, the Friars have a quick turnaround to gear up for the opening of Big East play. The Friars will be in Chicago Tuesday night for a tilt against DePaul. While typically viewed as an easy win in a league where there aren’t many “gimmes”, the DePaul Blue Demons are under new ownership and that’s former Butler and Ohio St Coach Chris Holtmann. Holtmann has a team full of transfers that have played well up until this point with a 7-1 record on the year. PC certainly got a jolt with the return of Bryce Hopkins last Tuesday in a convincing win over BYU; however, with PC dropping the game to Rhody they are all of the sudden staring at a 6-4 record and likely needing a great Big East showing to get an NCAA Tournament at-large bid. If they want to start conference play strong, it starts Tuesday night at Wintrust Arena. Let’s get to it.

Friars Host BYU in Big East/Big 12 Battle

The Friars (5-3) are reeling. After a trip to Atlantis that found the team come up empty in the win column, they now return home to try to respond against a tough opponent. BYU (6-1) will make the trip to Providence for a 8:30pm tip against the Friars Tuesday night. When the Cougars visit the AMP, it will probably be the Friars last opportunity in the non-conference to secure a good resume win. The Cougars are a high powered offense averaging 87.4 ppg thus far on the year. The Friars will have their hands full in what is maybe as close to a must win game in December you can find.

Friars Come to Atlantis Empty Handed, Drop Finale to IU 89-73.

It was going to be a tough ask. The Friars after losing to Davidson in a game that ended around 10:30pm had little time to adjust with a 11am tip the next morning against an IU team that presented matchup problems for PC. The Friars preformed better on offense but couldn’t string together enough stops or made hoops to put real game pressure on the Hoosiers. PC was led by Jayden Pierre who had 22 points, Corey Floyd Jr chipped in with 14 points and Jabri Abdur-Rahim also had 14 off the bench.

Subpar Showing with Another Slow Start Leads to Confounding Loss to Davidson

Despite the loss against Oklahoma in the Friars’ opener in the Battle 4 Atlantis, sentiments from the fanbase about the team were mostly positive. After seeing Oklahoma subsequently take down Arizona, you talked yourself into a nice bounce back against Davidson. How wrong we were.

The fan sentiments have all changed after the Friars had another slow start and never found a true response in a 69-58 defeat to the Davidson Wildcats. The Friars really struggled offensively for a good portion of the game and by the time they (somewhat) figured it out it was far too late.

Defensively the Friars were bludgeoned by backdoor cuts all night. For Davidson the buckets came easy. It looked like they were running a simulated practice. For the Friars, everything looked like a struggle all night, which is not a recipe for success and a rather jarring performance out of the Friars.

All the warning signs and issues we’ve talked about at The Crier came to a head last night.

Friars Drop B4A Opener vs OU 77-79

The Providence Friars weren’t able to start Feast Week the way they wanted to. They dropped their opener in the Battle4Atlantis against the Oklahoma Sooners 77-79 on Wednesday night. The Friars were led in scoring by Wesley Cardet with 17 points and, the backcourt duo of Bensley Joseph and Jayden Pierre each had 16 points. PC was able to knock down 12 threes but it wasn’t enough to get past the Sooners and their ball hawking defense.

We detail how the loss transpired below.

Battle4Atlantis Friars Viewing Guide

The Friars will be competing in the Bad Boy Mowers Battle4Atlantis tournament for the first time in program history this week. Whether you’ll be spending your Thanksgiving in Paradise Island or at home watching the games we got you covered with our viewing guide for the tournament. We will provide brief scouting reports of each team and possible tip times for the Friars.

Friars Beat Delaware St by 30, Improve to 5-0

In their 5th game against low-major competition, the Friars finally put together a complete game for 40 minutes. PC raced out to an early lead, would take a 13-point lead into the half, and would cruise to a 78-48 victory Tuesday night at the AMP. Freshman big man Oswin Erhunmwunse would lead the Friars in scoring with 13 points, but it was a balanced scoring attack that saw ten dudes tally points. The Friars continued to show their stout defense holding Delaware St to no more than 25 points in each half.

It was a good close to the early part of their schedule before they head to the Battle For Atlantis.

Friars Defeat Hampton, Move to 3-0

The Friars were able to take care of business on Tuesday night against Hampton University, but they certainly didn’t make it easy on themselves or do themselves any favors with the metrics.

https://twitter.com/providencecrier/status/1856493303421690190?s=46&t=jxSpiAPB3PvC74snCH-rvQ

PC would start the game with a 8-0 run and then see their offense turn off with the Pirates taking advantage and closing the half of a 30-14 run to take an 8-point lead into the half. The Friars would come out of the break outscoring the Pirates 15-4 to retake the lead, but Ivan Thomas’ squad wouldn’t go away with a variety of timely three point shots. However with the score tied at 47 with 7 minutes to play, the Friars would lean on their defense and score some key buckets route to the 60-51 victory.

We detail what transpired last night and offer thoughts.

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Game Preview: Providence vs Hampton

The Friars will be back in action on Tuesday night when they host the Hampton Pirates and a few familiar faces. Former PC assistant coach Ivan Thomas is the man in charge at Hampton this season, and he brought with him Friar standout guard Kyron Cartwright and student manager Jack Manning to his coaching staff.

This certainly wont have the same feel as the last time a former coach visited the AMP and really the focus is on the Friars building off of their 27-point win over Stonehill, as they continue to gain on court cohesion. Here’s some of the things we are looking for out of the Friars in game number three.