Game Notes & Preview: Providence (0-0) vs. Harvard (0-0) 11/14/15

Where: Dunkin’ Donuts Center – Providence, RI

When: 7:00PM

How: Fox Sports Networks (Don Orsillo & Tarik Turner)/WEEI 103.7 FM and Friars.com (John Rooke and Joe Hassett)/FriarTV

Game Notes

• Providence is 77-11 all time in regular season opening games, including an 80-8 record in home openers.
• Providence is 5-0 all time against Harvard with the first game being played on January 20, 1932. The Friars are 2-0 against the Crimson at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center with the wins coming in back-to-back seasons (2006 and 2007).
• Providence is 128-49 all time against teams from the Ivy League
• Providence defeated Harvard, 93-70, in their last game on November 24, 2007.
• Providence begins their 89th season of basketball

Game Preview

It’s been a long time coming but the dreaded offseason is finally over and the Providence Friars will return to the court for the 2015-16 season on Saturday against Harvard. Kris Dunn is back and that means Providence will feature one of the best players in college basketball this season. Ed Cooley is looking for his sophomores to take that next step and to see which freshmen can contribute right away. The journey begins Saturday night at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center and Cooley’s fifth Friar team is his deepest. Speaking on a media call for the Wooden Legacy tournament that Providence is playing in over Thanksgiving weekend, Cooley said he’s  “excited to get our season started on Saturday. We have a lot of new faces. We have some guys that don’t have a lot of game experience, so it will be a work in progress for us as we go through the early part of our nonconference games. But we’re excited to play. We’re tired of playing against each other.”

Harvard returns 10 players from a season ago but some of the pieces missing were key one from their 2014-15 squad that won the Ivy League and received a 13 seed, nearly defeating 4-seed North Carolina in the Second Round. The Crimson lose leading scorer Wesley Saunders and leading rebounder Steve Moundou-Missi to graduation and the biggest unexpected loss is that of returning leading scorer and point guard Siyani Chambers. Chambers tore his ACL over the summer. Tommy Amaker has lined up a very impressive recruiting class for 2016 that includes 4 players ranked in the top 150, but those recruits won’t be able to help out this season and the Crimson may struggle to maintain their top spot in the Ivy League. Many preseason projections have Harvard finishing in the middle of the pack in the league. Harvard plays Division III MIT in an exhibition game on Friday.

Providence will be favored in this game — probably by more than you would think. The Crimson do have an inside threat in junior Zena Edosomwan who attended Northfield-Mount Hermon prior to matriculating to Harvard. Edosomwan scored 21 points in Harvard’s exhibition win over McGill. They also have another New England Prep alum in freshman Corey Johnson who is a sharpshooter from Vermont Academy. The Friars should be able to score fairly easily against Harvard who is lacking in perimeter defense without Chambers. The key will be rebounding and defending the 3-point line. They rebounded decently against Stonehill in the exhibition but were lackluster in their 3-point defense.

The probable starters according to the game notes are:

• Kris Dunn – Junior
• Junior Lomomba – Junior
• Jalen Lindsey – Sophomore
• Rodney Bullock – Sophomore
• Ben Bentil – Sophomore

The Friars may struggle for stretches of this game as they are integrating the young players into their first game action but Kris Dunn will be too much to handle for the Harvard defenders and he will start the season off with a bang. I expect Dunn’s stat line to read similar to the one he had against DePaul in January last season.

Prediction: Providence 77 Harvard 68

Follow me on Twitter @pcbb1917

About Author

Mike Hopkins

See author's posts