The Era of Mediocrity Is Upon Us....

[orangecuse]

You’re probably too young to remember but they made the Final Four in 1987 when they were coached by Rick Pitino.

I like Cooley as a coach, but I don’t think he’s taken Providence past the second round of the NCAAs. I’m actually not sure he’s won an NCAA game.

Edit: he’s won 1 NCAAt game. He’s not made it past the 2nd round

I remember '87 vividly, and, as most SU fans, to this day the defeat of that Keith Smart shot in the waning moments of the championship game still hurts and lingers in my soul. I was a junior at SUNY Buffalo at the time. I remember watching that S16 game against Florida in our dorm suite, with rabbit ears, snowy reception and all. That same S16 game that Dickey V went on and on beforehand that frosh Dwayne Schintzius was going to eat up our junior Rony Seikaly. After getting by them, where Seikaly more than held his own, Dickey stayed true to form in the Great 8 game (that's what it was call back then) against Carolina and how another frosh in JR Reid was going to have a field day against Seikaly and company. Wrong again.

Now that I got that out of the way, Providence went 25-9 that year and was a 6 seed in the Dance. They needed overtime to get out of the second round against a power house team in Austin Peay. We beat Providence in the FF as well as twice during the Big East regular season. Providence was good, but they were far from being anything resembling a national power. Actually, that year it was a Cinderella type run for Pitino and the Friars. Cooley has Providence in the same realm, albeit without any significant run in the Dance yet, though they're getting there pretty much annually.