Friars Need to Stay Focused as Exam “Break” Nears

With just one game standing between the Providence student-athletes and Fall semester final exams the Friars need to keep their eye on the ball through Saturday afternoon. After a 3 game losing streak Providence responded on Wednesday to knock off their in-state rival University of Rhode Island in a game that felt comfortably in control most of the time despite the score being pretty close most of the way.

But as the 5-4 Stony Brook Seawolves come to the Dunkin’ Donuts Center on Saturday afternoon for a 12pm tip off the Friars need to avoid a letdown and finish this pre-exam portion of the non-conference schedule strong. For some of the players the reality of balancing basketball and school work has become second nature as they have been doing it for a few years. But on a team that has 5 true freshman, 6 if you count walk-on Tom Planek, this will be their first rodeo with semester final exams during their season. It’s something that doesn’t get talked about enough. ESPN college basketball analyst Fran Fraschilla tweeted this out last week following some of the notable national upsets like NJIT beating Michigan in Ann Arbor:

Too often fans think of players as just athletes and they forget or just outright dismiss the fact that they are also students and must attend classes while managing their time even more carefully than the average student who is deciding if he or she should go drinking on a Thursday night instead of studying. Yes, the players have excellent resources available to them in the form of academic advisers but it’s still difficult to handle practice, meetings, film study, travel and games and still be able to focus enough on homework and papers and exams to succeed on the academic side of things.

The week of exams technically begins on Saturday with a two “Reading Days” followed by the beginning of final exams on Monday, December 15th for Providence College’s infamous Development of Western Civilization as well as graduate and School of Continuing Education finals. For those not taking “Civ”, as the students call it, or graduate/SCE finals the first day of potential final exams begins the following day on December 16th and runs through December 19th.

Providence’s next game after Stony Brook will be a week later on December 20th and that matchup against the UMass Minutemen will mark the second to last non-conference game of the 2014-15 season for Providence and their final home game before beginning Big East play on December 31st against the Creighton Bluejays.

Sitting at 7-3, its critical for the Friars to not slip up again in games they should win. The Miami (FL) game at the Barclays Center on December 22nd will likely see the Friars as underdogs against the currently 20th/21st ranked (AP/Coaches) Hurricanes but it will be an opportunity to get a good win on a neutral court to help the Friars’ resumé come March.

While Providence’s players need to stay focused on basketball for another day or two before jumping into studying the fans also need to try to have some perspective that these are students too and not just athletes. Ed Cooley won’t let his players forget either one.

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