Bracketology 2021: Western Kentucky, Seton Hall among week’s biggest losers

Providence Friars

Is this the year Ed Cooley’s program finally breaks through? The roster is made up for it, but thus far, the performance hasn’t been there.

The Friars suffered two blowout losses to probable tournament teams this week in Indiana and Alabama, and frankly, did not look competitive. In between those two defeats was a one-point win over Davidson, and thankfully for them, they got that win, otherwise, we’d be headed towards a repeat of the 2019 non-conference season where Providence dug itself a ridiculous hole when the inexplicably went 6-6 against an average non-con schedule. We still might be headed that way.

Outside of Nate Watson (18.8 Pts, 5.2 Reb, 0.6 Ast) and David Duke (18.0 Pts, 5.2 Reb, 2.8 Ast) Providence has looked anemic offensively and the defense hasn’t picked up the slack like it has been able to in the past.

Cooley also can’t be happy about his teams’ rankings in two key categories. In their 3-2 start, the Friars rank 229th in assists and 214th in rebounds nationally. This is the sign of a team that is just not getting the basics right, something Providence typically excelled at when Alpha Diallo was at the controls.

Look, I still think this is an NCAA tournament-quality team, but this start is eerily similar to last seasons’  and that is extremely alarming. They do, however, have an opportunity Wednesday against an undefeated TCU team to show that this is just a rough start due to pandemic complexities before they embark on a challenging Big East slate.

Providence had a great opportunity to get resume-building wins against really good teams this week and the failure to do so lands them on this list and currently on the wrong side of the bubble.