PROVIDENCE – As the Big East schedule nears the halfway mark, every team is searching for wins to shout about. Geoff McDermott and the Providence College Friars say they’re anxious to raise a bit of an uproar of their own.
Many Big East teams already own marquee victories that have helped
catapult them into the Top 25. Providence, despite a 13-6 overall
record and 5-2 mark in the Big East, is not one of them; not just yet,
anyway.
The Friars may be off to a fine start in league
play but they’re set to enter one of two demanding stretches left on
their schedule. Beginning with a home game against Syracuse on
Wednesday, PC plays four straight games (the game against the Orange,
followed by games at UConn, vs. Villanova at home and at West Virginia)
against teams that were ranked in the polls at some time this month.
PC lost to two ranked teams (Georgetown, Marquette) in the last two
weeks, but more stiff tests lie around the corner.
"After
losing to Marquette, we get a great chance to bounce back by playing
more ranked teams. They’re all great teams, so it’s a big opportunity
to get some key wins," McDermott said.
The beauty (or
curse) of the Big East this season is the incredible depth of
nationally-regarded teams. If you’re like Providence — in search of a
victory to improve your postseason resume — this is your league.
If the Friars were to sweep the next four games, they’d vault into the
Top 25 themselves. If they lose all four, they’ll sink into the Big
East’s second division.
So far PC has taken care of
business against the lesser lights in the conference. While wins over
the likes of Cincinnati and Seton Hall weren’t easy to come by, it’s
the ones that come against the Big East’s first-division teams that the
Friars crave. A good barometer to gauge how well a Big East team is
faring in a quest for an NCAA tournament berth is how you play against
the nine teams that have been ranked this season.
PC is
0-2 against those top-tier teams. Louisville (4-0) and Marquette (3-0)
are off to perfect starts. Some teams that are ranked have yet to do
much against the elite, either. That group would include Syracuse
(1-3), Notre Dame (1-3) and Villanova (0-3).
Friar coach
Keno Davis is happy not only to get more chances to test his team
against some of the Big East’s best, but also to do so at home and with
his players carrying plenty of confidence.
"You’ve got to
look at it as a great opportunity every time you get a chance to play
those teams with numbers in front of them," he said. "The more we can
play loose and free and not worry about any pressure on us (is good).
We’ve put ourselves in a great position early in this conference
season. Now we should enjoy the opportunity to play teams that nobody
thinks we’re going to be able to beat."
After PC
outlasted Seton Hall in overtime last week, Davis spoke about his
team’s offensive ability. The Friars have averaged 78.7 points in seven
league games and are putting up points against everyone thus far.
Defending is another story, however. PC is allowing 73.7 points, and
keeping bigger, stronger teams like Syracuse and Connecticut off the
boards looms as one of this week’s major challenges.
"We’ll see how many of those teams we can knock off. If we’re able to
do that, we’ll be a dangerous team," he said. "A team that’s able to
get to the free-throw line and a team that can shoot the three can beat
anybody on a given night."
Tickets remain for Wednesday’s
Syracuse game and the Feb. 4 game with Villanova. Davis says he’s
counting on a full house for both games and for the final three home
games against Rutgers, Notre Dame and Pittsburgh.
"It’s
an incredibly trying schedule," he said. "I think what hopefully will
help us is we have a stretch here without any games until we play
Syracuse on Wednesday. We can use this time to get fresh legs and work
on some things in practice so we can give great effort and challenge
some of the top teams in this league."
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