Monday Mindset: Year 2 of Kim English in Providence and Taking Things to Another Level

We made it. Another college basketball season is officially upon us with 199 games being played by Division 1 programs to tip off the 2024-25 season today. Providence enters their 98th season in program history and year 2 of the Kim English era. It’s sort of funny to think of the Providence College basketball program in era’s based on who was the head coach. But if you talk to PC alumni and Friar fans in general you can often get a vibe for their feelings and perspective about the program based on who the coach or coaches were during their 4 years on campus or when they first started following the team as a fan. For me, the last 2 seasons of Tim Welsh and the first 2 seasons of Keno Davis.

Kim English made a comment on a recent episode of the Friar Podcast with Kevin Farrahar and Billy Ricci where he referenced the 1987 alumni “have an extra pep in their step.” That team that made a magical run to the Final Four under the tutelage of Rick Pitino with star guard Billy Donovan — who will have his jersey retired this season — created such special memories for the students who were at PC during that time. It’s something you notice when you go to alumni events. There are a lot more people engaged and attending from the classes around 1987. Sadly, my class of 2010 is sparsely represented (I hope to see a ton of you back on campus this summer for our 15 year reunion, though!). It shows how integral the basketball program and the success or failure can have on the broader relationship between fans/alumni and Providence College. It’s why the Fr. Smith thought process was bad back then but would be even worse in the 21st century. Providence has been blessed to have a confluence of events and people in place at the right time with Bob Driscoll as Athletic Director and Fr. Brian Shanley as President realizing the need to have high level athletics which at Providence means that men’s basketball leads the way. Getting hometown kid Ed Cooley hired, giving him a few years to set his culture and build his program right before the Big East renewed in 2013-14 allowing Providence to take a larger bite at the apple in a conference of closer peers that led to the great run that Cooley had before throwing his entire reputation away to take the Georgetown job. Enter Kim English. Another fortuitous moment for Friartown. Fr. Ken Sicard succeeded Fr. Shanley and Fr. Sicard has a similar vision for the role athletics plays for PC. Bob Driscoll’s right-hand-man Steve Napolillo now in the Athletic Director seat and the theme of the English Era so far on day 1 of season 2 is taking things to the next level. The program — and the campus for that matter — is unrecognizable from the Welsh/Davis era when I was a student. Cooley’s tenure was when a lot of that change started to happen culminating in the state-of-the-art on-campus practice facility that is the Ruane Friar Development Center. Beyond the nice facilities and campus upgrades, the level of enthusiasm and engagement from fans has been on another level the last several years. Gone are the days of raffling off an Xbox to a student who actually showed up to most games. Season tickets are sold out well before the summer is over.

The season kicks off tonight against Central Connecticut, a team ranked 303rd in the preseason by Kenpom. In the era of offensive efficiency metrics driving team sheet positioning in mid-March you expect that Providence will do their best to run the score up, but it remains to be seen just how healthy the Friars are on November 4, 2024 with Bryce Hopkins 9.5-10 months removed from ACL surgery and other key players like Jayden Pierre and Christ Essandoko missing time in recent weeks with injuries. The expectation is that Hopkins won’t play tonight but everyone else will be available. This team is expected to be a deep one. Assuming health returns and all the expected pieces are playable this could in fact be a team that goes 9-10 deep with a tighter 7-8 man rotation coming into focus when the calendar turns to 2025. Pierre and Essandoko will be key pieces for this team. Pierre needs to step up. He simply has to. Bensley Joseph looks like he’ll be a very good piece but this team will only reach their full potential if Pierre is the lead guard English needs him to be. That opens things up and allows others to play more in their natural positions. While I expect Pierre and Joseph to play together and give each other chances to be off the ball, there are a lot of potential weapons from 2-4 on this team that are best served by Pierre being the experienced, poised and productive point guard. Essandoko looks to fill the Josh Oduro role on this team as a skilled big man that can do more than just sit on the block and shoot jump hooks or dunk. If he stays healthy and produces at the level expected it will take a ton of pressure off other guys and open things up even more for Bryce Hopkins once he’s back in the lineup. There will be more to say about this team after getting some looks at them against regular season opponents. For now I’m thankful we made it to this day. College basketball is back.

Look out for some new and exciting content this season. I’m happy to have Brian Reddy continue and hope to get more contributions on this page from Brendan Desrochers and Chris Thurlow. In addition to this page, the best place on the internet to chat about Friar basketball is the pcbb1917 Discord server. We’ve got a great community on Discord and welcome anyone interested. There are both free — and possible to use a burner #pcbc — and paid (real name required) options to join the Discord server. In addition to the text-based channels available there, we will also be doing “Gamewatches” live in the server where folks can gather to watch games together and comment in real-time. There are also channels for ticket exchanges in the event you can’t make a game but want your tickets to end up in good Friar hands, plus recruiting info, discussion and database to those who live and breath recruiting. Come check it out.