Mailbag Part 1: Providence Coaches in Their Second Seasons, Reassessing the Portal Class, Stock Watching, and more

We received a little under 20 submissions for our first mailbag, so I am going to cut this down into two parts and do my best to answer everyone’s questions.

Looking forward to this…

Good afternoon Kevin,

I enjoy your insight about our beloved Friars. One question I’m interested in is the development of young coaches. Kim obviously has created a great culture. We’ve seen some struggles like establishing a rotation, offensive flow, and late game situations. Are there examples of good coaches evolving into great coaches after struggling with X’s and O’s a bit in their first few seasons? How did Billy Donovan, Rick Pitino, Ed Cooley, and Bill Self change after their first few seasons?

- JW

I appreciate it, JW. There are all sorts of examples of coaches who took a few years to find their footing and went on to great careers. Everyone cites Jay Wright (no NCAA Tournaments until year four at Nova) or Coach K nearly getting fired at Duke after his third year. There are less dramatic examples.

More locally, Al Skinner going 15-16, 6-21, and 11-19 in his first three seasons at Boston College before ripping off eight NCAA Tournament appearances in nine years was always impressive.

When looking at what they’ve been since, it’s kind of crazy that BC reached the AP top 10 in four of six seasons with Skinner at the helm. No one saw that coming early in his tenure, but they hit early on Troy Bell, Ryan Sidney, then Craig Smith and off they went. Between Bell, Sidney, Smith, Jared Dudley, Tyrese Rice, and Sean Williams, that BC staff kept finding and developing underrated stars. Again, no one saw that coming in Skinner’s first few years there — and he did it all with an offense everyone said was archaic. He was eventually fired in 2010 and the Eagles haven’t made the NCAA Tournament since 2009.

Let’s talk Providence next. In the Big East era, second seasons have been a mixed bag. Pitino famously reached the Final Four in 1987 and Barnes made the tourney his first two seasons behind a pair of NBA players in Eric Murdock and Marty Conlon. Many Friar fans still thought he couldn’t coach well into his Texas tenure. Pete Gillen was 16-20 in the Big East through two seasons (albeit with a bubble team in year two) before reaching the Elite 8 his third year. He was off to Virginia after his fourth season at PC.

Then came the dip. Tim Welsh had a nightmare second season (11-19 in 2000) before miraculously making the NCAAs the following year. Keno Davis took a 19-win team in his first season and finished 12-19 his second, while Ed Cooley changed the direction of the program late in his second year.

Many forget, Cooley was 6-21 (!) in conference games heading into February of his second year, but the Friars finished 7-2 over the final nine games of the regular season to begin the program’s turnaround.

It all started with this buzzer beater by Bryce Cotton:

My biggest concern is how it seems the staff missed on Cardet and Christ. Do you think those are situations where the evaluation was off or the development/fit within Kim’s system hasn’t panned out as expected?

- Dan1284

Wondering how Coach English, with his extensive basketball background could have missed so badly with the St. Joe's pick. You can't compete in the Big East without a dominant center.

- Joe from the Hill

I’m still holding out hope that Cardet will have a strong second half of the season. As I highlighted yesterday, he’s just playing such a different role. The ball was always in his hands at Chicago State and nearly half of his possessions came as a pick and roll driver or in transition. He’s gotten virtually nothing in transition at PC and his pick and roll opportunities are way down, while his spot up usage is way, way up from his time at Chicago State. He’s more slasher than shooter. I’m not ready to say he’s not a system fit yet, but the way he’s being asked to score at Providence is just a lot different.

The evaluation of Essandoko came down to a few things. First, he scorched PC when scrimmaging them last year, and this staff had so much success with Josh Oduro, himself not a leaper or particularly athletic moving laterally. When looking at the upside of Essandoko, he showed better shooting range than Oduro (36% from three last year on limited attempts) and flashed passing and post ability. Get him into better shape and maybe you have shades of what Oduro brought — not quite the feel, but making up the difference with more size and shooting. Oduro’s IQ and drive were simply off the charts and virtually impossible to replicate, however. I’m sure the staff saw a similar offensive profile, and figured the 8/5 Christ averaged a year ago was pretty reasonable for this season.

It’s easy to fall in love with attributes and start to project forward. With an aging frontcourt and Dennis Johnson on his way out of the league at the one, Red Auerbach drafted Michael Smith (a 24 year old wing from BYU) over Tim Hardaway and Shawn Kemp. Red said he played a lot like Larry Bird. He was in Europe two years later.

Bigs are tougher to project out. Previous PC staffs believed Clifton Moore was going to be a “defensive unicorn”, Paschal Chukwu was a future lottery pick, Dajour Dickens had top 40-50 talent, and DeSean White was a top 50 player they had to have.

What kind of adjustments does Christ have to make to be successful in the Big East, and what is his progress report?

- Mark

Christ shared with us when he came on The Friar Podcast last summer that he came into camp over 300 pounds, but had dropped 20. He was pretty open about not being in great shape and said he really wanted to be pushed when he came to PC. We saw what a physical transformation did for Ed Croswell.

Conditioning is part of it, but he would also need to become a 3-point shooter teams respect, while turning into a stronger finisher at the rim. He just hasn’t finished with his left or through contact. Oduro made everyone better with his passing out of the post and short rolls, and that was the one part of Oduro’s game that I’d hoped would be a part of Essandoko’s as well.

Who knows what the portal brings in the spring, but Oswin and Bonke are likely to improve due to their physical traits, youth, and willingness to accept coaching. It’s only going to get harder to keep them out of the lineup down the road.

First time, long time caller here. We’re a season and a half into the Kim English era, are you selling, buying, or holding your stock in the program? What are some things you feel like are going in the right direction, and what things do you think could be improved?

Thanks,

Matt

I like Kim and want him leading this program for the foreseeable future. For me, it comes down to a few things — I think he’s intelligent, relatable to recruits/transfers, competitive, and perhaps most importantly, open to self-reflection and changing how he operates. I’m willing to bet on hungry, bright, and open-minded.

I can’t find it any longer, but Rob Dauster wrote a terrific article for NBC almost a decade ago on Greg McDermott and how he changed his offensive approach earlier in his career at Creighton. We’ve seen what the results were of McDermott’s self-reflection.

The safe bet will always be that a coach won’t work out somewhere, never mind one in his mid-30s in a conference loaded with great coaches and programs. I’m not blind to the offensive numbers of the past year and a half, see plenty of stagnation on offense, and watched the Davidson and St. Bonaventure games with the same frustration as everyone else.

The frustrations of this season don’t erase last year’s 21-win campaign without Hopkins for virtually all of conference play, keeping that team afloat with little depth on the interior, or that the defense has been good throughout his tenure. Plus, retention has been great through two seasons, which is no small feat in the current era of NIL and the portal. Gotta keep kids in-house to grow as a program. I’d love to see a core of Oswin/Mela/Bonke/Barron/Jones/Harrell in a few years supplemented by solid transfers.

And for all we heard about opponents being without players during the great Friar run of 2021-22, Hopkins’ absence isn’t as easy to overcome as some have made it seem. Does St. Bonaventure kill PC on second chance opportunities? Does Zuby Ejiofor get six offensive rebounds in a two-point St. John’s win with Hopkins on the floor? Did Davidson have anyone to match up with him?

GM Kevin,

Do you think this season’s additions were overrated? Doesn't seem like the guys play well together and to that point, the coach is still playing 9 or 10 guys trying to get the right combo.

Thoughts on the future? I know the portal adds an element of free agency each year, in addition to recruiting.

Thank you,

Alan F Crowe

Let’s end part one on this question.

Short answer, yes. But if I’m being honest, I was one of those people that overrated it. As I wrote earlier this year, I saw Bensley Joseph and Jabri Abdur-Rahim as almost guaranteed doubles — veterans who had played in big conferences that came into ready-made roles. Joseph has been a solid addition thanks to his defense, fearlessness, and scoring punch, while I figured that if Abdur-Rahim could score 12 points per game with impressive numbers both beyond the arc and at the free throw line (both makes and attempts) in the SEC he’d transition just fine to playing with Joseph, Jayden Pierre, Bryce Hopkins, Corey Floyd, and so on.

Setting aside the hype train that went off the rails a bit for Cardet last spring, I think he’s been fine — a nine point per game scorer who is shooting 40% from three on almost ten fewer field goal attempts than he had a season ago. There was probably hope that he could go into takeover mode at times, but so far that hasn’t been his game, or role at PC. He’s been a higher-end piece of a wing rotation that’s screaming out for someone to separate themselves from the pack. I expected him to be that guy, but it hasn’t happened yet.

Essandoko has gotten piled on plenty, but when Anton Bonke is getting the start in the second Big East game of the season that pretty much says it all. It’s just harder to find bigs in the portal. PC wasn’t getting Vlad Goldin, Cliff Omoruyi, or Oumar Ballo, and if you take a look at a lot of the centers that were ranked among the top 50-100 transfers last spring (which Essandoko was not) you’ll see a lot of kids coming up short of expectations. Still, there’s a difference between coming up short of expectations and being out of the rotation by Christmas.

Next year’s portal class will be critically important.

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We received a lot of questions, and I’ll tackle the rest in the next day or two. This has been fun. I appreciate those of you who reached out!