PC Basketball Focus Quickly Turns to Next Season

Friday, March 22, 2024

Robert McMahon, Sports Columnist

 

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PC Coach Kim English PHOTO: GoLocal

While there are almost 80 Division 1 basketball teams focused on their upcoming NCAA or NIT tournament games this week, the Providence College coaching staff is quickly shifting gears to next season. The “transfer portal season” has begun with over a hundred players already signed up looking to find new teams for next season.  Which players in the portal to “audition” to be a PC Friar for next season is a daily discussion among the PC coaches.

Before looking at next year’s needs, here are a few final comments on this year’s PC hoopsters.

Despite not making the NCAA tournament, most Friar fans have to be reasonably pleased with this year’s 21-14 PC team.  A new coach, Kim English, coaching in one of the toughest basketball leagues in the country; the adjustment of losing a long-term and familiar coach, Ed Cooley; the loss of a star player, Bryce Hopkins, two games into the Big East season—did most PC fans think this team would win 21 games and be on the verge of an NCAA selection on the final weekend of the season?

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While it is easy to accuse the NCAA selection committee of “snubbing” the Friars, frankly, PC was a marginal choice by the time Selection Sunday rolled around.  Too many wins against La Salle Bakery cream puff teams—Milwaukee, Columbia, Lehigh, Sacred Heart—did them nothing when the NCAA selection committee looked at PC’s resume for the year.  And the wins against a mediocre URI team and an underperforming Brown team at the time gave PC nothing at the end of the year.  An unfortunately for the Friars, four of their Big East wins against DePaul and Georgetown impressed no one.  That’s ten wins with not much to show the NCAA selection committee.

More importantly, critical losses, that should have been wins—the first game against St. John’s, the embarrassing first game against Xavier, and the second head-scratching loss against Villanova.  Circle any one of those games as wins, and PC might have been playing at least in the First Four play-in games of the NCAA.

Talent-wise, this was a really thin PC basketball team.  Once Hopkins left the lineup, you only had two predictable double-digit scorers—Oduro and Carter.  After that, it was anybody’s guess as to who would step up.  In most Big East games, Coach English played only 7 players, and English used the two reserves reluctantly.  Ironically, the lack of dependable scorers on this PC team turned Devin Carter into the Big East Player of the Year.  He had to be herculean in many games to give PC a chance to win.

 

Looking at next year…

The projected loss of Devin Carter to the NBA is a massive PC loss for next year.  At this point, only forward Bryce Hopkins and guard Jaydon Pierre are legitimate Big East-caliber players on next year’s team.  Even Hopkins and Pierre struggled on different aspects of their game this season. Hopkins shot 19% from beyond the 3-pt arc and only 65% from the free throw line.  Pierre barely shot 40% in field goals and, in many games, produced as many or more turnovers as assists.  The rising sophomores, Coach English recruits, Rich Barron and Garway Dual, are still very much works in progress.  Cooley recruit 6’-11” Rafael Castro has yet to find his role on the team. And the other existing big guys, Donovan Santoro and Eli DeLaurier are still largely unknown quantities going into next year.

The needs for next year are substantial—guard scoring, ball security, inside scoring to supplement Hopkins, and rebounding. PC’s recruiting in the last several months has produced two intriguing big guys. Anton Bonke, a 7’2” junior college transfer from Eastern Arizona, is already enrolled and has practiced with the team since January.    He’ll be a rim protector and rebounder at both ends of the court. His scoring touch will hopefully develop before the Big East part of the schedule.  PC announced in January a commitment of Oswin Ehrubnmwunse, a 6’9” top 40 recruit from Nigeria who is presently at Putnam Science Academy and who plays AAU ball.  He is technically a 2025 recruit, but he may re-classify to 2024 if he can improve his academics. The “Big O” was recruited by a dozen major Division I teams.

Ryan Mela, a 6’6” small forward from Natick, MA, signed with PC in 2023, and a product of the Under Armour Association League, is a good shooter with a high basketball IQ and will see playing time even as a freshman next year. Justyn Fernandez, a 6’5” sophomore transfer from George Mason and a 4-star recruit before that, arrived with Coach English, but was injured early in the season and was red-shirted.  Still recovering from his knee injury, Fernandez’s contributions may not be seen until the 2025 portion of next year’s season.

The transfer portal will receive lots of interest from the Friars who will be in need of proven experienced players next year given the present group of players and the unknowns of the new committed recruits. A scoring guard and a proven small forward scorer will be high priorities.  

Next year’s schedule will be an enigma for the Friars.  They know that they need a tougher non-conference schedule to bolster their resume come Selection Sunday, but the roster-making process in the early part of the season will require early winnable games to get playing time for a variety of players.  The schedule will need as much thought as some of the transfer portal decisions.

As we all watch NCAA tournament games over the next few weeks, it will be tempting to imagine PC’s 2024-25 edition playing at this time next year.

Bob McMahon is the former Director of Parks in the City of Providence and a lifelong Providence College Friar fan.


 

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