Thank you for reading Friar Basketball. We're ready to keep it rolling now that Big East play is here!
With the Big East season around the corner, Craig and I wanted to thank all of you who have either chosen to subscribe to our site, or join the email list. The transition to Substack, and switching to a weekly newsletter, have been really energizing for both of us, and we hope you have enjoyed the content since we switched to this platform in July.
Many of you either subscribed or joined our email list after the season started, so we wanted to highlight some of the content that was posted over the summer and early fall that you may have missed. We also wanted to share some of the content that was previously posted for subscribers only to give those of you who haven’t subscribed yet a sense of what you can find at the site.
We can’t wait to cover the program throughout what should be an exciting year (and beyond), and genuinely appreciate all of you who take the time to read our content. Thank you so much for reading Friar Basketball!
Kevin and Craig
Craig is in the midst of writing his personal reflections on being a Friar fan – a fandom that spans back to the 1960s. Craig has written about the program in the ’60s, ’70s, and most recently up to the Final Four team of 1987.
One of my favorite articles from the series was when Craig wrote about the early ’70s. Providence was at a bit of a crossroad heading into the new decade, but that all changed with the arrival of Ernie D. and later Marvin Barnes. Not only does Craig write about how the program evolved under Dave Gavitt at the time, but also how the opening of the Providence Civic Center changed so much. It’s a really fun look back. I also enjoyed seeing the video of Led Zeppelin playing at the Civic Center.
When the NCAA changed its rules regarding name, image, and likeness, I interviewed Providence Athletic Director Bob Driscoll shortly after to get his perspective on the rule and to see how PC would approach such a seismic shift.
We were thrilled to partner with Bill Ricci and Mike Whalen of The Friar Podcast on a four-part podcast series on the 2003-04 Friars. We were fortunate enough to interview Ryan Gomes, Donnie McGrath, Sheiku Kabba, and Marcus Douthit, as well as assistant coach Bob Walsh for this series. If you haven’t had a chance to listen, here is the first episode. We are planning a similar project for next summer, and will have something more immediate coming soon.
Finally, from a recruiting perspective, we tracked Quante Berry closely after he signed with Providence and played with Bobby Maze Elite on the Under Armour Association circuit. Here is a breakdown of every game he played on the UAA circuit, and here are impressions of Berry, as well as a number of other players we had watched at UAA and the Nike EYBL circuit.
This is just a snapshot of what you can expect to read as a subscriber going forward.