PC’s Cooley “Gets It!”
Thursday, January 05, 2012
Night and day. That is the difference between the Providence Friars under head coach Ed Cooley as opposed to his predecessor Keno Davis.
If you have watched the PC Friars play at all this year, you have to agree that this team is coached. In my opinion it is very well-coached, but clearly this team is being coached, which is more than we can say for what happened here the past few years.
That last statement was not meant as a personal attack on Davis. I actually found him to be a nice man and wanted him to succeed at PC. However, his teams did not appear to be well-coached at all. The same cannot be said about Ed Cooley.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTWednesday night’s game against top-ranked Syracuse at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center was just another example of everything that Cooley is doing right.
Providence College clearly does not have the horses to hang with the #1 team in the country. Yet PC gave the Orange all that they could handle. In fact, Hall of Fame coach Jim Boeheim said after the game, “I think Eddie has done a remarkable job with this team. We were almost lucky to win.”
Cooley, for his part, appreciated Boeheim’s comments but said after the game, “We’re 0-3 in the Big East and I’m pissed off! I’m not in it for a congratulations loss, I appreciate that and it sounds sincere, but I want to win.”
What Friar fan doesn’t love hearing those words come out of their head coach’s mouth?
But it’s more than just the fact that Cooley says all the right things. More importantly, he does all the right things.
When he took the job he made it clear that it would be his way or the highway, a lesson that Kadeem Batts learned the hard way having to sit out the first semester despite being eligible by both school and NCAA standards.
Then there’s the product on the floor. Unlike last year when PC played no defense whatsoever and just ran up and down the floor, the Friars are playing a much more structured and disciplined brand of basketball this season.
They are actually putting in the effort on the defensive end of the floor where Cooley mixes up his defenses from game to game and possession to possession adjusting to his opponent and the situation.
On offense, his players are sharing the ball which seemed like a novel concept to many of them at the start of the season. It has all led to a far better brand of basketball at the Dunk.
Beyond the X’s and O’s, Cooley is also doing many of the little things that it takes to rejuvenate an otherwise downtrodden program.
During the game he not only coaches his players, but he also coaches the fans when to cheer, when to get loud, when to fire up his team or put pressure on the opponent.
He also calls timeouts at the right time. Sometimes those timeouts are to scold his players for not doing their jobs and he has shown that he is not afraid to get in their faces and scream at them when they are not getting the job done.
But the flip side of that is that he also calls timeouts to praise his players when they deserve such praise or need a boost.
Case and point was when PC trailed 69-57 in the second half against Syracuse and went on a quick 5-0 run to cut it to a single digit deficit at 69-62. After his team made a bucket to pull to within 7, he called a quick timeout before the Orange could in-bound the ball. When his players jogged to the bench, he high-fived all of them with a tremendous passion.
A week and a half ago, Providence College was throttled by St. John's 91-67 in their Big East opener down in New York. Cooley expressed his disgust with the way the team played saying that they reverted to their form of a year ago. He also vowed that things would change immediately beginning with practice the following morning at 6am. There is no doubt that his message was received by his players as the team held 12th-ranked Georgetown to a season-low 49 points in their next game. That's coaching.
These are the things that have me convinced that Ed Cooley is most certainly the right man for the job at Providence College.
When Bill Parcells was the head coach of the New England Patriots back in the mid 90’s, he had an expression that he used to describe some of his better players who worked hard and performed at a high level. He used to say that player x, “gets it!”
Watching Ed Cooley for his first 8+ months on the job at Providence College, it is my opinion that the man “gets it!”
NOTES:
-Rumors were circulating around the Dunk that freshman guard Kiwi Gardner may be no longer be with the program. Those rumors are simply not true. Cooley told GoLocalProv.com after the game that Gardner was told to go home to Los Angeles and enjoy the holidays with his family since he has been ruled ineligible to play by the NCAA. A source also said that Gardner did very well in his first semester at PC despite the NCAA saying that he did not have the proper credentials coming out of high school to be eligible to play as a freshman at PC. Because of the NCAA's ruling, Gardner cannot practice with the team or sit on the bench during their games. However, he is expected to return to Providence before the start of second semester.
