Exhibition Game Notes & Preview: Providence vs Baruch 11/4/17

Where: Dunkin’ Donuts Center – Providence, RI

When: 2:00pm EDT (Make sure you set your clock back at 2am on Sunday when it becomes EST!)

How: Friars.com (John Rooke and Joe Hassett)/FriarTV

Tickets: Friars.com

Game Notes

• Providence and Baruch have never played.
• Providence played their first ever exhibition game on December 4, 1920 against East Greenwich Academy. Providence’s first 9 games were exhibitions and they lost all 9. It would be 6 years later, to the day, that Providence played their first official non-exhibition game.
• Providence is 70-40 all-time in exhibition games. The Friars are 9-1 in exhibitions under Ed Cooley, including a 1-1 record this season.
• The Baruch College Bearcats play at the Division III level in the CUNYAC conference.
• Providence enters the 2017-18 season coming off their fourth straight trip to the NCAA Tournament and fifth straight season playing postseason basketball. The NCAA Tournament streak is the longest one in school history. The postseason streak is the 3rd-longest in school history behind the 8 season streak from the 1970-71 season through the 1977-78 season and the school-record 9 season streak from 1958-59 through 1966-67. Overall, Providence has now made 19 appearances in the NCAA Tournament and 19 appearances in the NIT.
• The Friars defeated UConn, 90-76, in their first time out this season when the two teams met at Mohegan Sun Arena for a hurricane benefit game that raised $75,000 for the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund. Providence followed that up with a tough loss to perennial Canadian national champion Carleton last Saturday at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center.

Game Preview

Providence enters their final exhibition game with the plan of playing and coaching as if it’s their real season opener, Ed Cooley said during his radio show on Thursday night. The Friars didn’t play particularly well last Saturday in their loss to Carleton, but Cooley pointed out he used way more lineup combinations in the first 18 minutes of that game than he would during a full regular season game. Providence is expected to be without Jalen Lindsey again and a new addition to the sit-out list is Drew Edwards who hasn’t been practicing due to back spasms. As one of my patrons said in our Slack chat this week, “thank God for depth!” This will be the last chance for Cooley and his staff to tweak things before opening the season on November 10th against Houston Baptist at Alumni Hall. Keep a keen eye on lineups, especially in the first half. I expect to see similar combinations early in the regular season.

The rosters for both teams are:

Providence

Baruch

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Mike Hopkins

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