Big East In Review: Providence

Vincent Council had career year this past season, helping usher Ed Cooley era into Providence.  (Photo courtesy of Rumble In The Garden)


Continuing our Big East reviews is the one team who changed coaches prior to last season.


Providence College made the only change in management of the sixteen Big East programs last year, bringing in former Fairfield boss and Providence native Ed Cooley to fix the Friars after three years of Keno Davis were not as successful as the program had envisioned.  After going 15-17 and despite winning just four conference games, Cooley's maiden voyage in the Ocean State truly is a step in the right direction.


Junior point guard Vincent Council, who Cooley told me impressed him the most when I interviewed the coach prior to Providence's Big East opener, did more than just make the motor run for the Friars.  Averaging sixteen points and over seven assists per game, as well as a 2:1 assist to turnover ratio, Council became one of the conference's better floor generals in the process.  Shooting guard Bryce Cotton had a breakout sophomore campaign eerily similar to the numbers posted by former St. John's star Dwight Hardy.  In an unheard of 39 minutes per game, Cotton tied for second in scoring behind Council; averaging over fourteen points per game, while also shooting 38 percent from three-point range and 89 percent from the free throw line.  Council and Cotton become even more critical to the Friars' success next year now that Gerard Coleman has transferred.  The swingman from Boston did have a great second season for what it was worth, as Coleman possessed an uncanny ability for an undersized guard to score as well as rebound.


Up front, the Friars will also lose Bilal Dixon and Ron Giplaye due to transfer, but sophomore Kadeem Batts and freshman Brice Kofane made strides toward the end of the season, which was more noticeable in Batts being that he missed the first half of the season.  Batts and Kofane will be the supporting cast for breakout star LaDontae Henton next season, as the Michigan product will look to improve off a freshman campaign that would have won him Big East Rookie of the Year honors if not for the season put up by Moe Harkless.  Henton's 14-point, eight-rebound averages; coupled with a staggering 39 percent clip from beyond the arc, could make the Rashad Bishop/D.J. Kennedy clone a dark horse candidate for Player of the Year honors, as he is on his way to becoming the Friars' most complete player since Marshon Brooks.


The transfers of Coleman, Dixon and Giplaye would be huge losses for any team to overcome, but the recruiting class that Ed Cooley has attracted to Providence is by far the best the Friars have seen since the Pete Gillen era.  Five-star guard prospects Kris Dunn and Ricky Ledo are among the ten highest-rated prospects in the nation according to Rivals.com, and should provide a Marquette-style three-guard attack together with Council that will give the best teams in the nation consistent fits.  Swingman Josh Fortune and point guard Ian Baker form the rest of Cooley's incoming quartet, with Arizona transfer Sidiki Johnson to join the Friars once the forward becomes eligible in December.  It's been said that a situation needs to get worse before it can get better, and the worst has already come and gone for Providence College as they prepare for what should be a return to glory in year two of the Ed Cooley era.