Why This Weekend Is Critical for PC and Brown Men’s Hoop Teams

Why This Weekend Is Critical for PC and Brown Men’s Hoop Teams

Providence College is in a precarious position. The remaining portion of their season is full of opportunities and traps. The Friars this season have let so many potential big-time wins slip away and yet they are still on the brink of another trip to the Big Dance.

They are pained by some early out-of-conference losses. No one certainly wants to remember the Penn loss at home.

As far as the rest of the season goes, it starts with Providence College needing to take care of business on Saturday when they host Marquette University.

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Going into the game, PC is 8-6 in the conference and Marquette is 7-6.  A Friar win helps them into a much more solid fourth-place position in the Big East and, if they were to hold serve the rest of the regular season, then a NCAA tournament bid is all but assured.

After the Marquette game, the Friars end the regular season with Villanova away — a tough game and unlikely win. Then, they host Xavier and DePaul — both must-wins.

For the Friars, if they win these three home games a fourth place is assured.

The only problem is consistency. The words "Friars" and "consistency" have not exactly rhymed this season.

 

Big Brown Weekend

Let’s go to the Ivy League. The path for Brown University is a little more complicated. First, the Bears need to finish in the top four to get in the Ivy League four-team playoff. There is very little chance that the Ivy League is getting two teams to the Big Dance, so the automatic bid out of the conference tournament is the only way in.

Presently, Brown is in a complex morass. The Bears have 5 games left in the regular season.

Yale is now alone in first at 7-2. Yale has already beaten Brown twice and Princeton won against the Bears in New Jersey. So, those two teams presently have all the advantages over Brown.

Here is where it really gets interesting.

Brown is now tied for second in the league (6-3) with Harvard and Princeton. Brown is 1-0 against Harvard, but lost to Princeton. Brown plays both again.

The Bears got an ugly win Friday night at Columbia.

Penn is just a game back at 5-4 in the league.

Brown plays at Cornell Saturday night and must grab a road win against the 2-7 Big Red, but on Friday night Cornell took Yale to OT and lost 80-81.

Mike Martin's team needs to take care of business Saturday at Cornell or the path to a top-four finish may become precarious.