Friars True Test Starts Tonight
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
They’re (11-2) through their first 13 games and we still really don’t know how good they are. The Providence Friars took care of business out of conference with the exception of losses to LaSalle and Boston College. The problem is that there were too few good tests for this team.
Playing the Eagles at Conte Forum was one of those good tests and PC made it interesting down the stretch but was unable to pull out the victory.
They hosted Alabama from the SEC but the Crimson Tide is down this season standing at just (6-6) through their first 12 games.
The URI game was supposed to be a good barometer for PC. But, as we have learned in the months of November and December, this may not be one of Jim Baron’s best teams down in Kingston.
So what have we learned about these Friars? Well, for one, they can take care of business against lesser opponents. The problem is, with their Big East season starting tonight at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse, there won’t be too many “lesser opponents” on their schedule over these next 18 games.
But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Expectations were low for the Friars coming into this season.
Providence went (12-19) last year and had a nightmare of an offseason. Assault charges against freshmen James Still an Johnnie Lacy was soon followed by the dismissal of the program’s best player – Jamine “Greedy” Peterson for alleged wrong-doing with an AAU team on campus.
Providence was selected to finish 13th in the 16-team Big East in the preseason coaches’ poll, a ranking some felt was too high.
So what do they have to lose? Not much. Many felt that the Friars would struggle to win 11 games all season, much less before heading into conference play. They have been playing many of their home games in front of a few thousand die-hard fans at the Dunk. So they should be playing loose, so-to-speak, because they are really playing with house money.
Tonight, it’s 5th-ranked Syracuse. Next Tuesday they face 6th-ranked Pitt. Nine days after that they play a tough West Virginia team in Morgantown before hosting two more ranked teams in Louisville and Villanova. And these are just the highlights of the first 8 games of their Big East schedule.
Regardless of what happens, this team has already exceeded expectation and six or seven wins in the Big East would be a solid building block for a future that looked quite dismal only a few months ago.
After the Christmas gift that was local product Ricky Ledo committing to PC, the once dismal atmosphere surrounding the program has taken a 180-degree turn.
An upset over undefeated Syracuse tonight and this team may force local sports fans to start paying more attention to them sooner rather than later.
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