At long last, the wait is over for Corey Floyd Jr.
With a new coaching staff in place, opportunity awaits the redshirt sophomore guard, who has been biding his time for two years.
A season ago, Corey Floyd Jr. endeared himself to Friartown by remaining ready whenever called upon.
Rare is the player who can hit shots with consistency when seeing sporadic minutes, but that is just what Floyd Jr. did in his first year at Providence — knocking down 41% of his 3-point attempts (13-31) despite not seeing shots or minutes with any regularity until the end of the season.
It also didn’t hurt that Friar fans saw the tremendous upside of the 6’4, 210 pound guard, who is now a redshirt sophomore at PC. He can shoot from distance, has possessed terrific athleticism dating back to his freshman year in high school when he was jumping over big men, and is so strong that new head coach Kim English believes he can defend many power forwards in the modern game.
English will be Floyd Jr.’s third head coach in three seasons as a collegiate player, following a transfer from UConn after his redshirt year, and Ed Cooley’s departure in March.
Floyd Jr.’s popularity only grew in the spring when he shared he would return to Providence shortly after the announcement of English as PC’s sixteenth head man, noting at the time that Providence “just feels like home.”
At a time when the future of Providence felt in flux, Floyd’s low-key announcement at English’s press conference was a significant boost in Friartown.
The 2023-24 campaign feels like it will play out so much differently for Floyd Jr. than the past two years. He essentially had his senior year of high school basketball wiped away by the pandemic, and as he told us on The Friar Podcast, that played a significant role in his reclassifying up a year and enrolling at UConn that fall.
He sat out with a redshirt that season, before deciding to transfer to Providence, despite Cooley already having nabbed commitments from Devin Carter and Noah Locke on the transfer portal, with another combo guard in Quante Berry having committed from the high school ranks.
“Ed Cooley was the first to call my parents when he heard my name was in the portal,” Floyd Jr. said. “Coming out of high school, Providence was a very close second, right behind UConn, so as soon as I heard they were still interested in me, it wasn’t that hard of a decision.”
The New Jersey native has always found himself playing alongside talented teammates, dating back to high school when he was at one of the best high school programs in the country in Roselle Catholic, to the summer circuit when he helped Team Final win a Peach Jam championship over Brad Beal Elite in the finals. That Team Final group had perhaps the two best big men in the country in Jalen Duren and Dereck Lively, while Brad Beal Elite featured Brandon Miller and Nick Smith Jr. All four were first-round picks a few short years later. Entering his junior year, Floyd Jr. put up big numbers for Team Final during their title run that summer — averaging 12.1 points per game and shooting .393 from three.
Of course, Floyd Jr. had significant rust to knock off last season after sitting the year prior and seeing inconsistent minutes up until the final few weeks of the 2022-23 season.
Regardless, he produced when given the minutes.
There was the momentum-changing three right before PC and UConn went into halftime of the Friars’ win over the Huskies in January, a pair of significant 3-point makes in the final eight minutes of a comeback win at Villanova, the spark he provided with another pair of threes when the Friars mounted a comeback at home against Xavier in early March, followed by his role in a wild run against UConn in the Big East Tournament.
It felt like virtually all of Floyd Jr.’s shots came from spotting up last season. In fact, 26 of his 47 total possessions came out of spot up opportunities. He was terrific on corner threes, and essentially never took a mid-range jumper:
Opportunity awaits Floyd Jr. with the departure of Locke, and a new coaching staff that has spoken of how he has shot the cover off the ball all summer, to go along with the physical makeup to defend most spots on the floor.
“I didn’t realize how much sitting a year out would affect my overall game,” Floyd Jr. shared. “I had to find my game again, but it came back to me eventually and it was just fun from there.”
After seeing double figures in minutes in just four games by mid-January, Floyd forced his way into more playing time. By the end of January, he saw 16 minutes at Marquette (a game Floyd Jr. said provided a shot in the arm to his confidence), 12 points in 19 minutes versus Butler, and eight points in 12 minutes at Villanova.
Over the final month of the season, he played double figures in minutes in seven of nine games. He also provided Providence’s highlight of the NCAA Tournament with a vicious one-hand slam on a lob from Devin Carter — a dunk that really put his athletic ability on display for the first time as a Friar.
Now, after two years of work away from significant minutes the court, and trying to make the most out of the time he was given, there doesn’t seem to be anything standing in Floyd Jr.’s way in his second year in Providence.
The expectation is that Bryce Hopkins and Devin Carter will, once again, provide All Big East-type seasons for the Friars, and that Josh Oduro will put up numbers in his graduate transfer year.
Floyd Jr. is part of a group of four players (along with Jayden Pierre, Garwey Dual, and Ticket Gaines) whose projection and production could greatly swing the fortunes of the Friars this season. While the expectation isn’t that Floyd Jr. will shoot nearly 42% from three given additional attempts (and likely greater emphasis on opponents’ scouting reports) this season, there is a quiet confidence both inside the program and from those who follow it, that he truly could be one of the surprise players in the Big East this season. There simply aren’t many guards with his strength, leaping ability, range, and years of experience making the most of a role playing alongside great players.
Floyd Jr. is now primed to step into a bigger role for himself.
“I was drawn to him the moment I started watching him on film,” English said to the media after his introductory press conference. “Just his toughness, his physicality, his athleticism, his size, and his spirit — he has a great spirit. He was the first one that fully committed to being here, and that kid, he has me for the rest of his life.”
“He’s a special young man, and I’m really, really excited to coach him.”
It seems like PC has a lot of talent at the guard position. Will there be enough minutes to go around to keep everyone happy?