In many ways, this season has been the perfect storm for students at Providence College. Their college experience has been altered by the pandemic in ways that many of us could never imagine, and now with their Friars off to the program’s best start in 50 years, it feels like the student body is celebrating not only the on-court success, but simply the opportunity to take part in it all again.
The Friars, now 21-2 on the season, are feeling it on the court — and they are hearing it from a student section gone wild in 2022.
Ed Cooley kicked off his press conference following Saturday’s win over DePaul with extensive praise for the home crowd and its student section: “Wow. I have no words to explain the appreciation that I have for our fans, our students — Wow, that was — my head is really pounding. I couldn’t talk to the players a foot in front of me. In this game they really helped us because we were dead in the water. We really were.”
Cooley continued, “We didn’t play our best. I thought they inspired us…We couldn’t have gotten over the hump without this crowd and without the support we got today.”
As was the case during Providence’s last home game against Marquette, the student section was banged out an hour prior to the game. They nearly drowned out the undergrad singing the National Anthem (see above), and helped will PC to a victory on a night in which the Friars didn’t play well for long stretches.
There’s been something special about the Dunkin Donuts Center experience this year. Of course that comes with the type of season Providence is having, but for the second time this season I got chills during the National Anthem on Saturday night.
I can’t speak for why this year has been so special for others, but to me it’s been the combination of this experience (and so much else) having been taken away from us over the past couple of years. For it to return in this manner has been special.
I wondered if I’d ever see the Dunkin Donuts Center like this on a nightly basis. Prior to Cooley’s arrival I was skeptical.
I enrolled at Providence in the fall of 1997. We enjoyed an uptick in student and fan interest midway through the 2001 season, and the Dunk was consistently great for all of 2003-04, but in the 14 years in between when I first became a PC student and when Cooley took over the program, I genuinely doubted if we’d ever see something like this:
But Cooley and Athletic Director Bob Driscoll shared a vision, and this is the result.
“The student support has been the best I have seen in my 21 years in Friartown,” Driscoll shared on Sunday morning. “It’s a testament to the culture we have built over the years where everyone takes pride in being a Friar. The saying ‘Us, We, Together, Family, Friars’ is real.”
Craig Leighton, my fellow writer here at Friar Basketball for the past nine years, has enriched my Friar fandom with stories of students trudging their way through the Blizzard of ’78 with pots and pans in hand to go see PC take on mighty North Carolina, or how the Civic Center crowd was so unhinged against #1 Michigan in 1976 that the cheers became an indescribable screech, almost to the point of a whine that rose to the rafters and shook the building to its core.
I desperately wanted that.
Of course, I’ve experienced my share of insane crowds in Providence — Texas in 2004, shocking #1 Pittsburgh, a court storming against #3 Villanova that resulted in a collapsed press table as students leapt over and around us in 2018.
But this year is somehow different — to me, at least. Those were wonderful games and moments, but this season it feels like we are celebrating the experience of not just winning, but getting back some of what we lost the last two years.
I can’t imagine what it is going to be like on Tuesday when Villanova comes to town.
Providence has won eight straight Big East games, could very well be ranked in the top 10 this week, and the Friars welcome the program that has been the standard bearer in not only the league, but perhaps all of college basketball, over the past decade.
It’s been a long road in getting here in a number of ways, but a dream season couldn’t have come at a better time.
Providence's Student Section Has Taken the Dunk to Another Level This Season