Providence to Scrimmage Northeastern Behind Closed Doors

Providence will play Harvard in November this season and it will be the 3rd straight November that has happened. The difference this year is that fans, media and TV cameras are allowed to attend the game since it’s part of the official schedule. Harvard had been a “secret scrimmage” opponent for Cooley’s Friars the prior two seasons and that means the game can’t be publicized, score can’t be kept and media and fans are not allowed to attend. Northeastern takes over Harvard’s role this year and the Huskies will travel to Mullaney Gymnasium on November 7th for this closed door scrimmage, per ESPN’s Jeff Goodman. Goodman released his list of all these scrimmages on Thursday.

Teams are allowed to have two exhibition games, two scrimmages or a combination of both. The Friars have opted for 1 scrimmage and 1 exhibition game the last few years. They will play Stonehill for the second straight season in an exhibition at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center on October 31st. Click here for Providence’s full schedule and you can sync it to your phone’s calendar at the bottom of that page.

Colonial Athletic Association media day isn’t until October 27th so we don’t know the preseason league coaches’ poll results but Northeastern finished in a 4-way tie atop the CAA last season with a 12-6 league record. The Huskies ended a 24 year NCAA Tournament drought by winning the CAA Conference Tournament. That earned them a 14 seed in the NCAA Tournament and a Second Round (ugh, thankfully the naming system is going back to what it should be) matchup with 3 seed Notre Dame.

Bill Coen’s squad lost their leading scorer, rebounder and shot-blocker from a year ago in Scott Eatherton but Coen and his staff did manage to bring in some talented freshmen, led by former Boston College commit and New Hampton School product Jeremy Miller. Miller has a chance to start right away for Northeastern. The Huskies are looking for back-to-back NCAA Tournament trips for the first time since they did it in 1986 and 1987.

Coen and Cooley served as assistant coaches from 1997-2006 in Al Skinner’s staff at Boston College. They both left the same year to take their first head coaching jobs. Coen has been at Northeastern since then, amassing a 144-143 record in 9 seasons at the helm. He has won two regular season conference championships (2013, 2015) and one conference tournament championship (2015). Coen and Cooley remain close friends.

Other notable scrimmages are Creighton at Missouri (10/24), Maryland at Villanova (10/31), Georgetown at Pittsburgh (10/31), Xavier vs. Illinois in Indianapolis (10/31), Marquette vs. Stanford in Colorado Springs (10/31), Harvard at Rhode Island (10/31), DePaul at Detroit (10/31), Seton Hall at Penn State (11/6) and James Madison at Georgetown (11/7).

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2 responses to “Providence to Scrimmage Northeastern Behind Closed Doors”

  1. […] ICYMI – Providence to Scrimmage Northeastern Behind Closed Doors […]

  2. George Eskin Avatar
    George Eskin

    How about a report on the scrimmage?

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