Ed Cooley’s return to Providence sets up unprecedented event in Big East history

Feb. 12, 2022 was a mid-winter Saturday afternoon in Northeast Rhode Island, with the weather milder than normal and a taste of spring in the air as the Providence Friars were preparing to take on DePaul in a Saturday Big East clash.  For the majority of the college basketball world, this game was off the radar on a day with bigger national games across the sport involving ranked vs. ranked matchups and conference rivalries. 

In Providence, it was viewed as the game. That’s because the only thing that matters around those parts during the wintertime is the Friars. They receive attention like a pro team would. 

No, the national audience wasn’t paying much attention to the 11th-ranked team in the country hosting basement dweller DePaul. The expectation was that Providence would coast to another win in the team’s pursuit of its first Big East regular-season championship in program history. 

I had the good fortune of being on site and calling the game on FS1. What I watched transpire that evening was nothing short of remarkable.

Two hours before the 6:30 p.m. ET tip off, a sea of over 2,000 undergraduate Providence College students filled the seats at Amica Mutual Pavilion, waiting with great anticipation for the game to begin.

Just over an hour before the game, the head coach of the Friars emerged from the top of their section, marching down the stands to greet those students who became as boisterous as they were the entire night. 

At 52, Ed Cooley had his team sitting at 20-2 on the season, the program’s best start to a campaign since the 1970s. A Providence native, this story just hit differently. The Friars are the pro team in the city of Providence, and Cooley is one of their own. 

My broadcast partner, Vin Parise, walked with me to the back hallway for a pregame meeting with now former DePaul head coach Tony Stubblefield. In his first year with the Blue Demons, coming from the Pac-12 as an Oregon assistant under Dana Altman, the vibe inside the arena was certainly different from what he experienced out west. 

“Guys … guys … What the hell is going on out there? It sounds like the NBA Finals are about to begin,” Stubblefield said. 

DePaul was 3-9 in the Big East at the time, but it didn’t matter. Providence could have been playing anybody that night. The 12,513 fans that were on hand were present to watch their team continue what was a historic season, which did in fact conclude with a Big East regular-season championship and the program’s first Sweet 16 appearance since 1997.

The city of Providence was on cloud nine, and as it appeared, so was Cooley. 

He went on to win the Naismith Coach of the Year Award, was the first Providence head coach to ever be named the Big East Coach of the Year, and led the program to 27 victories, the second-most wins in a season in program history. 

The president of the college, Father Ken Sicard, and athletic director, Steve Napolillo, announced a multi-year contract extension for Cooley. 

“Providence is my home and Providence is where I want to be,” Cooley said in the news release. “Not many coaches are able to live the dream of coaching in their hometown and I feel blessed every day that I have this opportunity.” 

What a difference 22 months makes. 

When the Friars take the floor on Saturday afternoon (12:30 p.m. ET on FOX and the FOX Sports app), inside Amica Mutual Pavilion, the standing ovation and deafening cheer that Cooley once heard when walking out of the tunnel will be replaced by a chorus of boos. The pure joy that reverberates in the building when the Friars come out to “When the Saints Go Marching In” will be replaced with a sense of anger and intensity from the Providence faithful.

In the Big East, it is unprecedented that a coach would leave one school in the conference for another. However, that all changed when Cooley made the decision to leave Providence after 12 seasons to become the head basketball coach at Georgetown. In doing so, Cooley took over a Hoyas program that carried a record of 11-50 in the previous two years.

In a span of three weeks, Providence went from putting together one of the best seasons in recent program history to finishing the year with four consecutive regular-season losses, a first-round exit in the Big East Tournament, constant distractions and rumors overtaking the news cycle ahead of a first-round loss to Kentucky in the NCAA Tournament, and then seeing its head coach depart for a conference rival.

In short, Providence diehards felt like they had been betrayed.

Fans are going to feel the way they want to feel – it’s why they are fans – and in the small area of Providence, you’re either with them or against them, one of them or an outsider. It’s part of how Providence College fans have formed one of the toughest places to play in college basketball, going 46-5 in their last 51 contests at Amica Mutual Pavilion.

But one primary reason that anger from Friar fans is so fierce is because of what Cooley was able to accomplish during his time at Providence. When he took over as the men’s head basketball coach in 2011, the program had gone through more off-the-court issues in the previous two years than one could count, as well as owning a combined record of 8-28 in the Big East. Providence was an after-thought in the league, and the country. The program had not reached the NCAA Tournament since 2004, and had reached the Big Dance just seven combined times in the 33 seasons prior to Cooley’s arrival. 

Cooley made March Madness the minimum expectation, taking the Friars to the Big Dance seven times. With Bryce Cotton and LaDontae Henton, he led the program to its second Big East Tournament title in program history and first since 1994 when the Friars knocked off national player of the year Doug McDermott and Creighton to win the 2014 crown at MSG. The NCAA Tournament appearance was the first of five in a row for a program that had not put up that type of consistency in terms of postseason trips since the 1970s. 

In 2022, the program’s magical run to the Sweet 16 shined light on Providence College in a way the school had not seen in decades. The 27-win season was the most for the program since 1973-74.

Cooley probably could have run for governor of Rhode Island if he wished. He was given a key to the city of Providence, and the statue outside the Friars’ practice facility of Dave Gavitt and Joe Mullaney was positioned to add Cooley to it when his tenure was all said and done.

There was such a natural authenticity to the life Cooley had built for himself in Providence. For a guy who was one of nine children, born to a single mother in South Providence, to overcome poverty to beat the odds, go to college and get any jobs he could find before climbing the mountain to one of the most prestigious positions in the area – it’s the American dream personified. 

That is why the abrupt nature of everything that transpired last March sent shock waves through the college basketball world.

Why Georgetown?

There was a desperation present in Washington, D.C., and the type of situation where only a couple of candidates could have been the proper fit for the Georgetown job. For a once-proud program that had the likes of Patrick Ewing, Allen Iverson, Dikembe Mutombo and Sleepy Floyd, the amount of difference from the glory days to where Georgetown basketball currently sits at 8-11 overall and 1-7 in the Big East cannot be overstated. That said, there’s an unlimited number of resources at Cooley’s disposal that Georgetown has committed to get the program right, a top-20 recruiting class slated to arrive on campus next season and a future that looks bright following this first year in the rebuild. Brighter days have to be ahead for the Hoyas. 

But Cooley always had a place in his heart for Georgetown, and it’s ironically a Providence alum that started it: John Thompson Jr. 

A Hall of Fame head coach for the Hoyas from 1972-99, Thompson played for the Friars from 1961-64 before being a third-round pick by the Boston Celtics in the 1964 NBA Draft. While he was coaching the Hoyas, Cooley was a player at Central High School in Rhode Island in the late ’80s. Thompson was connected with Cooley’s high school coach and brought his teams there to practice. Cooley would always find a way to peek his head in, and one time he went up to Thompson, who invited him to sit down and watch practice. A bond was formed. 

“I said, ‘One day, I want to be like that dude,'” Cooley said at his introductory news conference last March when referring to how he looked up to Thompson. “Respect and tradition and legacy is something I dreamed about. I’m not him. I don’t want to be him. But I respect the platform he gave all us young believers.”

There is also a family connection to Georgetown, as Cooley’s daughter, Olivia, attended the university for her undergraduate studies and graduated this past spring.

Cooley has been asked the question a million times, and he will be asked it a million times more: Why? 

Providence was willing to do whatever it took financially to keep Cooley and dedicated as many resources as they had, with close to $5 million per year being on the table. Yes, Cooley’s contract is in the neighborhood of $6 million annually, but finances were not the final determinant. 

“This was about change,” Cooley told FOX Sports. “My daughter being here in D.C. was a motivator and I just felt it.

“Being born and raised in Providence, I’ll always be a Providence person. I’ll always be a Friar. What we did there for 12 years, to leave was really, really hard. But when I did a deep-dive on what was important, I always said yes to everybody, but I always said no to Ed. Coach Cooley did everything, but Ed needed a change. And I thought Georgetown was the place to make that change.

“As hard as it was because it was in-conference, and a lot of people look at that as villainous or betrayal, I hope people give me an opportunity to serve Ed. And that sounds selfish, real selfish. But sometimes change is needed for both sides, and I thought change was needed.” 

The return to Providence

As for what’s ahead on Saturday when the Hoyas visit the Friars, it’s a “gotta have it” game for Providence, which is currently 13-6 overall and 4-4 in Big East play, sitting right around the last four in/first four out mark in Mike DeCourcey’s bracket forecast. The Friars helped themselves on Wednesday as the new coach Kim English notched his best road win of his first season, a double-digit second half comeback leading to a 67-63 victory at Seton Hall. You cannot take a Quad 4 loss when you’re on the bubble. 

It’s unfortunate that Bryce Hopkins, a Cooley recruit who starred for him last year with the Friars and had led the program to an 11-2 start to the season, is out for the year with an ACL injury. Hopkins had a successful surgery in Chicago last week and will have a decision to make about his future this spring. That said, Devin Carter is firmly in the mix in the Big East Player of the Year race, Josh Oduro is a big-time post weapon and the development of point guard Jayden Pierre is key for this team to make a push toward March. 

Georgetown, meanwhile, is coming off a 90-66 loss to Butler on Tuesday in which they allowed the Bulldogs to shoot 57% from the floor. 

But that will all get overshadowed by Cooley’s walk through the tunnel, the pregame hysteria and the plentiful crowd reactions. 

“I understand everybody’s anger in Providence,” Cooley said. “I was born there, raised there and coached there. I’m still going to be one of them, so that made it even harder when people turned their backs. But I get it.” 

No one truly knows what to expect when Cooley comes out of the tunnel on Saturday afternoon dressed in his Georgetown quarter zip. 

Cooley did so much good in Providence. The thought of him ever leaving, especially to a school within the Big East, seemed unfathomable at one point. But he made the decision he felt was right for him, and Georgetown hired the man it wanted. 

The vibe on Saturday in Providence? 

It will be the byproduct of what happens when your greatest love becomes shattered heartbreak, and a wound still so fresh, that stings so badly, because you never conceived what is about to happen would ever be remotely possible. 

But it is reality, and when it comes to Georgetown and Providence squaring off, there will be zero love lost going forward.

John Fanta is a national college basketball broadcaster and writer for FOX Sports. He covers the sport in a variety of capacities, from calling games on FS1 to serving as lead host on the BIG EAST Digital Network to providing commentary on The Field of 68 Media Network. Follow him on Twitter @John_Fanta.

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