As Big East play heats up, Providence continues to find its identity

Ed Cooley’s Providence team was thought to have dropped off this season, but Friars have quickly resumed past identity as a tough customer on any given night. (Photo by Bob Dea/Daly Dose Of Hoops)

Even in the wake of one of the most successful seasons in program history, with a Big East Conference regular season championship and Midwest Regional semifinal appearance in the ensuing NCAA Tournament, insiders and cynics alike still found reason to doubt Providence going into the 2022-23 campaign.

The skepticism was warranted, though, with many puzzled as to how Ed Cooley would replace the experience and reliability of veterans the likes of Nate Watson, Noah Horchler and Al Durham, despite maintaining a significant portion of last year’s core that was so instrumental in helping the Friars reach the second weekend of March Madness for the first time since Pete Gillen took the program to the doorstep of a Final Four in 1997. But at 9-3, and more importantly, 1-0 in Big East play following a gritty victory at Seton Hall this past Saturday to open the league slate, Providence is discovering more about itself and its identity with each pass and each shot attempt, and it projects to be more of the same in comparison to past Friar teams: Unforgiving, undaunted, relentless.

“I thought we grew up,” Cooley said following a 71-67 road triumph he likened to a mid-1980s Big East battle for its physical and hard-nosed nature. “I was really proud of our maturity. I’ve been on our group a lot about emotional and mental maturity, about togetherness. During one of our timeouts, I talked to our staff and I said, ‘Wow, there’s only one guy out there from last year.’ That’s been resonating, and I thought we grew up (Saturday). I thought we showed a lot of toughness, I thought we showed a lot of togetherness, which we’ve been trying to preach. I thought our physicality in the second half, we were two different teams. Any road win, you celebrate like you just won the lottery.”

Providence ramped up the energy after halftime Saturday against Shaheen Holloway’s Seton Hall team that is still trying to perfect its own mantra, seizing control of the game with an 18-4 run out of the intermission that caught the Pirates sleeping and forced them to scramble just to keep up with the blue-collar Friars. And in Ed Croswell and Bryce Hopkins, a pair of transfers who are on track to becoming the latest in a long line of incoming talent who have made Rhode Island their second career stop and left as more polished players and young men, Cooley struck gold with a two-headed monster that outscored Seton Hall on their own over the final 20 minutes.

“Ed’s been around,” he gushed. “Bryce continues to emerge and grow and develop right in front of our eyes, like we said he would. I’m proud of the guys more so from a father’s perspective with respect to how much we’re growing and developing. One of the things we pride ourselves on is close games. We practice late-game situations, and you’ve got to be prepared for those moments. I was just proud of our resilience and how we responded.”

Croswell, the 6-foot-8 Philadelphian by way of La Salle, has emblazoned his own image on a culture of focused, determined players on both sides of the basketball, imposing his will both against opposing teams and in practice.

Ed Croswell’s Philadelphia toughness has blended seamlessly with his Providence teammates, willing Friars to 9-3 record. (Photo by Bob Dea/Daly Dose Of Hoops)

“It creates a sense of urgency,” Croswell said of his approach to the game and its infectious effectiveness on his teammates. “It’s win or go home in my mindset every game. It’s a rough conference to play in, and every game, I want to win. I want my teammates to feel successful, too, in that process, so that’s the way I’m thinking and that’s how I want my teammates to respond.”

When Providence is not uniting against the rest of the Big East, it is Hopkins — the Kentucky transfer and Friars’ leading scorer — who draws the unenviable task of guarding Croswell in practice, an assignment in which Croswell proudly cited his winning record when the two are matched up one-on-one. But when the two are drawn together for the same cause, competitiveness has more often than not bred a fire that few teams have been able to extinguish.

“I feel like we’re a dynamic duo,” Croswell said of his relationship with Hopkins. “We bump heads a lot, but we came together against Seton Hall and I feel like we’re going to be something people can’t really mess with in the Big East. It’s going to be hard for people to match up to moving us. Two competitors working together like that, coming into the game, you’re not going to be fazed by much because you already experience it in practice.”

Hopkins, who seldom played last season as a freshman under John Calipari, is seeing his first real game action in nearly three years, with a majority of his senior season in high school curtailed by the pandemic. The lack of seasoning in comparison to his competition has not diminished his game, though, as the swingman has blossomed to average nearly 16 points and nine rebounds per contest while also shooting 49 percent from the floor to become the latest exhibition of Cooley’s master stroke when it comes to player development, a trait where he and his staff have silently gone about their business to be mentioned among the nation’s best in the discipline.

Few knew what to expect of Bryce Hopkins entering season, but Kentucky transfer has become Providence’s leading scorer and rebounder in latest example of Ed Cooley’s knack for player development. (Photo by Bob Dea/Daly Dose Of Hoops)

“We’ve said it the whole way,” Cooley said of Hopkins’ maturation. “I don’t think everybody’s seen the best Bryce Hopkins yet as he’s learning and growing, and when you go from a senior in high school the COVID year — played eight or nine, 10 games — goes to his next school and didn’t play, yet that player is emerging in front of everybody’s eyes nationally. His teammates know that, and his teammates are feeding off of him. He’s got a lot of Ryan Gomes in him, he’s got a lot of Jared Dudley in him, probably more athletic than those two guys. But he’s just a versatile guy, and we as the coaches have to move him around and put him in positions to his strength.”

On a roster that also possesses the skilled and steady hand of Jared Bynum at the point guard spot, along with two more guards capable of affecting the balance of a game in Devin Carter and Noah Locke, as well as the rim protection of 6-foot-11 Clifton Moore, the ability to have an X-factor becomes a more precious commodity. That is where junior guard Alyn Breed — whose Powder Springs, Georgia pedigree yielded a past diamond in the rough for Cooley and the Friars in the form of Kadeem Batts — fits in to provide a reliable and unflappable voice that will only serve his outfit well as the season continues on.

“Breed, his entire career, has stepped up in the moment,” Cooley proclaimed. “He may not have played a lot of minutes, yet that kid, he’s as good as we’ve had here at Providence — since I’ve been the coach — as far as finishing games. For whatever reason, he just makes late free throws and we trust him in that moment. He’s calm, he’s never rattled. Sometimes I want to rattle him, yet he’s never rattled, and I think that plays into it. It’s a credit to his emotional toughness.”

Such toughness has already positioned Providence — even after just a dozen games and only one within the confines of its conference — as a formidable foe and tough out on any given night once again. The credit for the team’s composition will largely be directed toward Cooley, although the longtime skipper reiterated he is merely a game manager, so to speak, relying on his young charges to direct themselves in such a way that he can handle most situations with aplomb.

“I’ve been coaching a long time, and you’ve got to trust your players,” he advised. “Players win games, coaches manage them, but the players have to put you in position to manage the right way, so I’m proud of my players for how they put me in position to manage the game.”