Providence College Friars
“This is the year, Danny.”
(Cue basketball season.)
“I just don’t think they’ve got it this year, Danny.”
And so went the refrain for the first 18 years of my life. Shivering walks through downtown Providence, R.I., on days, not unlike the ones College Park had this weekend, brought me from the blustery snow-swirled streets of Federal Hill after fried eggplant and ravioli at Angelo’s, to section 111 of the Dunkin’ Donuts Center — once just the Providence Civic Center.
Like much of the rest of the state’s residents, I can claim expertise on few things outside of Rhode Island’s borders but most things within them. And the modern era of Providence College men’s basketball might just be one of the latter. Although every Joe Ricci north of Warwick (I don’t confer with Rhode Island Rams fans other than my mother) would probably say the same.
John Linehan, Ryan Gomes and MarShon Brooks each racked up All-Big East honors before me. Coaches Tim Welsh — who did a clinic at my elementary school — Keno Davis and Providence native Ed Cooley all did their best to bring the Friars back to national prominence, back to the caliber of Big East founder Dave Gavitt or now-Louisville great Rick Pitino and their legendary ’72 and ’86 Final Four runs.
But each year: disappointment.
Like the oddest combination of the battered Terrapins football fan base and the “there’s always next year” Red Sox faithful, Friars fans kept coming back, but always knew in their hearts that true greatness was fading away in the days of yore or was tantalizingly out of reach reserved for decades down the road.
But it wasn’t now.
Upsets of No. 1 Pittsburgh in 2009 and No. 8 Villanova in 2011 pockmarked an otherwise consistently “not quite there” program, better defined by a dramatic 79-77 overtime loss to Texas in 2004 or a 66-58 loss to No. 12-seed Pacific in the first round of the NCAA tournament earlier that very year.
And now, my lovable losers are now my Nonconfriends. The Terps and Friars square off tonight — in an unholy 10 p.m. tip — in the final of the Paradise Jam down in the Virgin Islands.
Wicked cool.
A LOOK BACK: Seems the Terps are playing off a script. Again coach Mark Turgeon’s squad got off to a slow start, falling behind to Northern Iowa by seven early in the first half. Guard Nick Faust got the Terps back into it with a three-point play and a steal that led to a slam on the other end, and the Terps began rolling. And while the Panthers locked down on leading Terps scorer and hair model, forward Jake Layman, beard model and forward Evan Smotrycz started lighting it up, scoring 20 points with three 3-pointers.
COMING INTO THE CARIBBEAN: The Friars are one of five teams in the nation sitting at 6-0, gathering three USA Today votes in the most recent coaches poll. With four wins in the friendly confines of the Dunk’ and another two coming at the Paradise Jam, Providence has yet to face much in the way of a hostile atmosphere. Their road through the tournament has been undeniably tougher than the Terps’, as they took down a 3-2 Vanderbilt squad in the first round and a 3-3 LaSalle team that marched into the Sweet 16 as a No. 13 seed earlier this year. After two years under Cooley and a practically full top-10 recruiting class from 2012 now in its sophomore year, the Friars are looking to be relevant yet again, this time in the new-look Big East.
STRENGTH: Ice Cotton. Senior guard Bryce Cotton has been the Friars’ crutch for two years. Last season, he occasionally quietly poured in 20 or 21 and occasionally took over for more than 30. Cotton led the Friars in scoring in 18 games, averaging 19.7 points. Whether the result of a nagging thumb injury or having other potential scorers around him, Cotton isn’t getting his obligatory 20 quite so much this year, with his usual three-point stroke being not quite as money this year. However, Cotton exploded for 28 against Marist and Boston College, so the Terps will need to keep a close eye on him and mess with his mojo early.
WEAKNESS: Sarcastic Rhode Islanders — Terps fans do it, too — love to cheer for awkward, nonathletic walk-ons and nonrotational players. (Where the Terps had Dave Neal, the Friars had Ray Hall.) And this season, Friars faithful have had the opportunity to do just that. Walk-on forward Ted Bancroft and British teddy bear forward Lee Goldsbrough have seen increased minutes this season as a result of a short Providence rotation. The Friars offer seven players significant minutes but don’t go much further. Where the deep bench — ninth through 11th men — is concerned, forwards Damonte Dodd and Jonathan Graham should have the upper hand on the likes of Bancroft and Goldsborough if the top tier grows tired.
CAMPUS CONNECTION: So Cotton’s a shoot-em-up high-volume guard with a knack for giving the Friars the bulk of their offensive production. Sound familiar? Well it just so happens that Cotton is from the same town — Tuscon, Ariz. — as Terps fans’ old friend, and recent European playboy (would link to his Twitter but things have gotten lewd over there since his drug-tested College Park exile) Terrell Stoglin.
Cotton and Stoglin locked horns in a 2010 bout between Palo Verde and Santa Rita high schools. Each led their respective teams in scoring, with Stoglin racking up 25 points for Santa Rita and Cotton getting 29 for Palo Verde. With the game tied at 70-70 during his team’s final possession, Stoglin was called for a travel after a timeout miscommunication. Cotton proceeded to shoot the game-winning basket with 1.1 seconds remaining to give Palo Verde the win.
And the rest is history. Cotton went on to lead the Friars; Stoglin went on to reportedly fail three drug tests for the Terps. The fine folks over at the Tuscon Citizen wrote a nice story on the game back in 2010 with an accompanying slideshow.
FUN FACT: Whether its Bleacher Report, Scout, LIFE or some smaller publication, the nameless Friar mascot is widely considered the creepiest damn thing to ever terrorize the youth of the Ocean State. And I’m no exception. Despite this obvious crime against humanity scampering the sidelines, the Providence athletic department says the friar is a “rather jolly fellow who, with a wide smile and even wider belly, resemble[s] the lovable Friar Tuck from the Tales of Robin Hood.” If I were a more impressionable youth, nightmares of this monstrosity’s creepy countenance leering into my deepest being would have plagued my childhood. Thankfully, for much of my early years, the Friars used a Dalmation — fittingly black and white and reminiscent of Dominican friars being the “watchdogs for the Lord” — as their mascot.
My advice: Bring back the dog. And keep that thing away from me and my children.
TERP CONFIDENCE LEVEL: Five out of 10. This one’s a toss-up. Between my slightly torn allegiances and the fact that neither of these teams has done much in the way of extraordinary wins, it’s going to be a tight one. But you can bet I’ll be watching.
NEXT NONCONFRIEND: Regardless of who comes out on top of the Paradise Jam, the Terps will be back in friendly Comcast Center to take on in-state foes Morgan State on Friday. But until then, remember your roots, keep your friends close and your Nonconfriends closer.
