Providence Friars Look to Take Next Step in 2017-18

Providence’s 2017-18 season is just 4 days away with the season kicking off, along with everyone else in college basketball, on November 10th. The Friars will play their first game of the season on campus at Alumni Hall. It will be the first non-exhibition game that Providence has played at Alumni Hall since 1972, the year before the Dunkin’ Donuts Center — then the Providence Civic Center — opened downtown. The preview for the 2016-17 season read much differently than this one will. Providence was picked 9th out of 10 in the preseason Big East Coaches poll last October, only to finish 3rd and make a school-record fourth straight trip to the NCAA Tournament. The 2017-18 season is expected to result in a fifth consecutive trip to the Big Dance. But with increased expectations come increased pressures. The college basketball odds  provide perspective on how different this season is being viewed. The Friars have odds of +15000, or 150/1 to win the national championship. Heading into the 2016-17 season the Friars’ odds were not quite as good at +28000, or 280/1.

The possibility of Emmitt Holt coming back to contribute to this year’s team sounds increasingly less likely. If Holt doesn’t come back at all this season, or returns after a prolonged absence it will be a big hit for the Friars. Holt’s importance on the court is clear. He would be a returning starter and Providence’s second leading scorer and rebounder behind Rodney Bullock. But Holt’s importance off the court and in the locker room cannot be overlooked. Ed Cooley has gone out of his way to mention the latter aspect about Holt numerous times over the last several weeks. Holt not only remains unable to play, but the big man with the big smile remains off campus as he continues to heal from abdominal surgery.

Jalen Lindsey is another critical returning player for Providence dealing with an injury. The senior had his best overall year last season and shot an impressive 46% from beyond the arc while providing rebounding and excellent work on the defensive end, usually going head-to-head with the opponent’s best player. Lindsey’s MRI revealed no structural damage, but he is being held out of practice this week leading up to the season opener and there’s a very real chance he misses at least the first game on Friday.

Expectations for Providence are high. Kevin McNamara wrote about that over the weekend in the Providence Journal. A big reason is that the team that outperformed last season’s expectations largely returns intact, though Holt’s status being very much up in the air hasn’t been factored in by many of the preseason predictions being written nationally. Making the NCAA Tournament is never a given. Injuries happen and sometimes teams don’t get on track. But I believe the 2017-18 Providence Friars will be dancing, though my personal expectations have taken a hit due Holt’s likely unavailability.

“A blemish on our program is we haven’t gotten to the second weekend [of the NCAA Tournament],” Cooley said during this year’s Big East Media Day at Madison Square Garden last month. “Hopefully we can do that. That’s our goal.” Before news of Holt’s illness I was a believer that this Providence team would almost assuredly going to make a run to the Sweet 16 or further. Now I’m less vigorous of a believer, but that doesn’t mean it can’t or won’t happen.

The biggest buzzword about Providence this season has been “depth” and there’s no doubt the Friars have it in spades. But it became clear quickly how fast depth can be erased by a few injuries when Providence played this preseason without Holt and Lindsey, plus Maliek White and Drew Edwards missed an exhibition game each.

The two areas where Providence has the most depth are at the wing and guard positions. Behind Lindsey are other wings Alpha Diallo and Isaiah Jackson who are more than capable of picking up the slack. Diallo is a likely starter in his sophomore year and both he and Jackson are extremely versatile, something Cooley has valued in recruiting.

At guard you have Kyron Cartwright who figures to be at or near the top of the Big East in assists again. He also has a chance to climb the Providence all-time assist leaderboard and finish ahead of Providence legend Ernie DiGregorio who is 2nd behind Vincent Council. Council’s record 725 assists is likely out of Cartwright’s reach coming into this season tied for 12th with John Linehan at 450. Makai Ashton-Langford has played alongside Cartwright at times in Providence’s exhibition games and he figures to be one of the better freshman in the Big East this season. White will be used as a scoring punch off the bench, Cooley recently indicated. That should be a role that White can thrive in as he’s more of a scorer than a lead guard at this point anyway. Add in Drew Edwards who is back to 100% after struggling to come back from offseason knee surgery in the summer of 2016 and the guard depth allows Cooley to pigeonhole these players into specific roles that can maximize their strengths and help the team the most.

Up front the Friars will be young beyond Bullock. Bullock is the leading returning scorer and he was named to the Big East preseason Second Team last month by the league’s coaches. He has largely been ineffective in the preseason, save some good second half minutes against UConn. Don’t let some poor performances in exhibitions games cloud your view of Bullock. He’ll be very good in his final year of college basketball. He won’t ever become the fiery, vocal leader that fans might want in a senior, but Bullock will produce. He also may see himself playing some minutes at center with smaller lineups that Cooley has mentioned he wants to try in order to pick up the pace on offense. Sophomore Kalif Young has started at center in Providence’s three exhibitions games, so pencil him in as the starter for the game against Houston Baptist. He had a better freshman season than many anticipated and he spent the offseason changing his body to shed some fat and add some muscle.

Cooley referred to the trio of Young, Nate Watson and Dajour Dickens as a “three-headed monster” after the UConn game in late October and said “we need all of them to contribute.” Holt going down means more minuets will be needed from Watson and Dickens than expected. Watson has impressed with his burly style and Dickens has shown more than many people expected at this point, but it’s important to remember they are freshmen and will make freshmen mistakes.

Having those three young big men does all Cooley to roll with the hot hand, to a certain extent, and play matchups more than he may have last season. There will be games when Watson rips the rim down for a few earth-shattering slams and some games where he commits 4 fouls in 10 minutes and struggles. Dickens will swat some shots into the stands some nights and get beat repeatedly in the pick and roll in others. Young is slightly more experienced, but even he will have some off nights. That’s the deficit of not having a senior up front in Holt.

Providence will be good. They will make the NCAA Tournament. How far they go will largely depend on how quickly everyone finds and embraces their role. The non-conference schedule has some landmines and Big East play is always a meat grinder. The Friars open league play on the road for the third straight season due to a conflict at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center with Disney on Ice, so they are at a disadvantage there. Last season the Friars fell at Xavier and at Butler and were largely non-competitive in both games. Cooley said at Big East Media Day that his team “wasn’t remotely close to ready to start the [Big East] season last year.” Cooley’s teams have generally been better as the season goes on, evidenced most recently by their 6-game winning streak to close out the regular season last year. Look for that to be the case again as the younger players get folded into the lineup and the freshmen get comfortable with the speed of college basketball.

Look for Providence to take that next step and get to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament this year. Then, as Cooley said at Big East Media Day “we just want to get there first then get lucky.”

Preseason predictions: 21-10 (10-3 OOC, 11-7 Big East); NCAA Tournament 7 seed

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Mike Hopkins

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