The final episode of our podcast series on the 2014 Big East Tournament Champion Friars is available now, Will McNair Jr. highlights, the best of MarShon Brooks' senior year, and more

Billy and I ran into an unexpected scenario as we navigated through when to release the fourth, and final, episode of our podcast series on the 2014 Big East Tournament Champion Friars.

In the Summer of 2022, we interviewed many of the key components of the team that kicked off the revival of Providence basketball — Bryce Cotton, Kadeem Batts, LaDontae Henton, Carson Dersosiers, Ted Bancroft, and now former head coach Ed Cooley.

Coming off of a Big East regular season title, and the program’s first Sweet 16 run in 25 years, we couldn’t have foreseen Cooley leaving, and what that would mean for PC hoops — and our coverage of it.

We had thought about releasing the final episode in February, but by then the team had gotten so hot that we thought a look back might get buried in the excitement of the current season. Our plans to come out with it in March were soon foiled when the Cooley rumors started, and then he left for Georgetown.

So, when would be the right time to release a podcast about the team that kicked off not only a PC basketball renaissance, but the success of the Cooley era? Honestly, there really might not be an ideal time for the foreseeable future, but the players for that team were so gracious with their time that our hope is that there are enough of you still interested in taking a look back and hearing their perspective on the run through the Big East Tournament, and Cotton’s unbelievable 36-point effort against North Carolina in the NCAA Tournament that year.

Here is a clip from the pod of Bryce Cotton sharing why he believes he is “forever indebted” to Providence College:

Since it has been a while, here are all four episodes of the podcast. We want to thank all of our guests, each of whom gave us at least an hour of their time, as well as podcast producer Justin Kanka.

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Also on Friar Basketball this week…

Somehow, there really hadn’t been a great highlight reel of MarShon Brooks’ senior season at Providence. We tried to remedy that by publishing eight minutes of the best plays from his senior year.

Speaking of highlights, I stumbled upon this one of Friar great Jimmy Walker this afternoon:

We also pulled together a look back at some of Will McNair Jr.’s best plays from the 2021-22 season when he played at New Mexico State. The 6’11, 260 pound McNair transferred from Mississippi State to Providence last spring, but we chose to first look back at the season prior, when he put up bigger numbers.

Coming Soon to Friar Basketball!

Billy and I are scheduled to interview Josh Oduro soon for the latest episode of The Friar Podcast, so be on the lookout for our conversation with the center who will play an essential role as he transfers in from George Mason.

We will also have our latest Big East opponent preview with a look at Creighton, and a recruiting update.

Finally, subscribers to the site will have access to articles in which we dig into George Mason games during Kim English’s time as their head coach. The first of those articles will include breakdowns and video from Mason’s closely contested game at Kansas in 2022, in addition to their first five games of last season.

Thank you, as always, for reading!