Tag Archives: Bryce Cotton

NCAA Tournament

Must Watch Video: Gameday, Pregame and Postgame in the Locker Room

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Links of the Day

#pcbb Links of the Day 3/24/14

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NCAA Tournament

Video: Follow the Friars in the NCAA Tournament – Thursday 3/20/14 #pcbb

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NCAA Tournament

Cooley, Cotton, Batts, Henton, Harris, Fortune, Desrosiers Press Conference and Quotes from 3/20/14 #pcbb

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THE MODERATOR: We’re joined now by Providence College student athletes, Bryce Cotton, Kadeem Batts, and LaDontae Henton:

Q. Hi, Bryce. How much is your ability to stay on the court for so long and be so productive have to do with your mental makeup and just putting your mind that I’m going to do it and never backing down from getting tired or losing your stamina?

BRYCE COTTON: Basically, our team has had to endure this for three straight years, and we’ve always had a short roster. So it’s something that our team hasn’t had to grow accustomed to.

We’re used to it, so we do a good job training our bodies throughout the preseason, and we hope for the best when the real season comes.

Q. Can you talk a little, LaDontae, about the experience of being at the NCAAs? I know it’s a realization of a dream for all of you guys to be here, and you’ve only been here a little over 24 hours, but does this feel different yet?

LaDONTAE HENTON: It has a great feel to it, bonding with my brothers and having a good time with them. Things like this, going into an interview with these guys. It’s just a great experience. We believe we’ll be able to do this during the season. But now that it came true, I’m just happy to be here.

Q. For any of you or all of you, going back to the first half practice, what are the odds that you would be sitting here at this moment and in this tournament?

LaDONTAE HENTON: Like I said before, me and the guys we talk about it all the time during the summer and during the training season, preseason, we knew we’d be able to be here if we just put our mind to it, and we bonded as a team, and we did that. We had great leaders in Bryce Cotton and Kadeem Batts, and they led us to this point.

BRYCE COTTON: Just feeding off of what LaDontae said, we’ve had the same vision from day one, and even though we’ve had a lot of ups and downs and faced a lot of adversity, our team is full of fighters and we never give up. We always believe at the end of the day that we’d get to the top of that mountain.

KADEEM BATTS: Just to add to what they’ve said. We’ve stuck together as a group and preached family all season, and we’ve been a family.

Q. Guys, was there a moment in the season that you thought, wow, we could really do this? Was there a seminal moment in there where you started thinking what you were going through today was completely possible? Kadeem, start with you, if you want?

Continue reading Cooley, Cotton, Batts, Henton, Harris, Fortune, Desrosiers Press Conference and Quotes from 3/20/14 #pcbb →

Game Previews & Recaps

Game Notes & Preview: PC vs North Carolina NCAA Tournament 3/21/14 #pcbb

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Where: AT&T Center – San Antonio, TX

When: 7:20PM

How: TNT (Marv Albert, Steve Kerr, Craig Sager) /WEEI 103.7 FM (John Rooke and Joe Hassett)/Westwood One (Brad Sham and Will Perdue)

Game Notes

  • The Friars and the Tar Heels have met only 3 times all time with UNC leading the series 2-1. The two teams have never met in the NCAA Tournament but their first meeting was in the NIT in 1971 with the Tar Heels taking the game at Madison Square Garden, 86-79. The next time the team’s would meet would be the famous “Blizzard Game” in 1978 (click here for a great story from Craig Leighton of FriarBasketball.com on his recollections as a student and RI resident in ’78) which PC took. The following year, PC traveled down to Tobacco Road for the 2nd half of that home and home and fell to UNC 89-58.
  • The Friars are 14-16 all-time in the NCAA Tournament and this will be their 16th appearance in the Big Dance. Their last win was in 1997 over UT-Chattanooga in the Sweet 16. Their first ever NCAA Tournament appearance was in 1964 when they fell against Villanova, 77-66. Their first ever win came the following year when they thumped West Virginia, 91-67.
  • This season, PC had a 3-6 record against other NCAA Tournament teams with the 3 wins coming against Creighton (2) and Xavier and the losses coming against Villanova (2), Kentucky, UMass, Creighton and Xavier.
  • Bryce Cotton is currently averaging 21.4 ppg and 5.8 rpg. He is trying to become 5th player from a major conference to average 20 or more points and 5 or more assists in a season since 2002. The 4 guys that have accomplished that feat: Jason Williams (Duke – 21.3 ppg, 5.3 apg ’01-’02); Tyrese Rice (Boston College – 21.0 ppg, 5.0 apg ’07-’08); Evan Turner (Ohio State – 20.4 ppg, 5.0 apg ’09-’10); Nolan Smith (Duke – 20.6 ppg, 5.1 apg ’10-’11).
  • PC’s last Big East Championship before 2014 was 1994. The ’94 Friars went on to lose in the first round to Alabama, 76-70. Cotton was the MOP player while LaDontae Henton was named the the All-Tournament Team. The MOP trophy is named after Dave Gavitt. Cotton is the 2nd Friar to ever win the trophy with the first being Michael Smith in 1994.
  • Coach Ed Cooley has never appeared in the NCAA Tournament as a head coach. He has been to the Big Dance 5 times as an assistant coach under Al Skinner. If the Friars win Friday night, Cooley will have more wins NCAA Tournament wins as a Providence head coach than Tim Welsh and Rick Barnes combined in their 5 appearances in the NCAA Tournament as the head man at PC.
  • Cooley is looking for his 58th career win as the head coach at Providence which would tie him for 8th all time with Edward Crotty who reached that mark after 111 games in 7 seasons from 1938-1946 (no team in ’43-’44 – WW2). A win Friday would also be the 150th career win for Cooley in his 8 seasons as a head coach.
  • Providence will be looking for win number 24 Friday night. They haven’t won 24 games since they went 24-12 in 1997.
  • The Friars have never faced a 6 seed before in the NCAA Tournament. They are 4-2 in 6 games against teams with an 8 seed or better (both stats since the field expanded to 64 in 1985).
  • With 4 or more days between games this season, PC is 7-3.
  • Kenpom sees this as a 75-71 victory for UNC.
  • Line opened at PC +5

Continue reading Game Notes & Preview: PC vs North Carolina NCAA Tournament 3/21/14 #pcbb →

Links of the Day

#pcbb Links of the Day 3/20/14

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NCAA Tournament

Thoughts on the Week Leading to the Game

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For many of us, the shock of being the Big East Champions may not have worn off quite yet. For Ed Cooley, the whirlwind has just begun. It’s all good for the program and Cooley is so well liked in coaching and media circles that it makes total sense, but the media barrage that he has already begun has to be taking a toll. I’m exhausted and all I did was drink beer and cheer for 3 days/nights.

Yesterday, Cooley began the media frenzy early by appearing on the Tim Brando Show just after 10am. He followed that up by working with Nike to put together some clips for their Nike Pro Answers series. In the late afternoon, Cooley appeared on Katz Korner on ESPNU around 4:30pm with Andy Katz and former Friar HC, Tim Welsh, called in to “Bracket Busters” on CBS Sports Network and then capped off his media heavy day by appearing on WFAN in NYC with Mike Francesa just after 5pm (who will be moving to Fox Sports 1 simulcast on 3/24/14). He also apparently was over at his home to check on some last minute construction issues early this morning ahead of his family moving back in after the fire in January. There will also be countless calls from print reporters to get quotes for articles ahead of the first appearance by PC in the Big Dance since 2004.

For those who haven’t seen or heard much of what Cooley talks about on these national shows, get ready to hear a lot about the following all week:

  • Cooley’s inspirational weight loss – he’s down over 125 lbs since the summer
  • Cooley’s house fire that has caused his family to live in a hotel for the past 2+ months
  • Bryce Cotton’s amazing career and senior season and how he is still underappreciated.

We, as sports fans, tend to like to put together storylines and give everything a narrative to follow. Sometimes the narrative is accurate – like with Cooley and Cotton – and other times the narrative is just put on a situation to fit our hopes or to make sense of a situation. The narrative for this PC team is a very genuine one. They have had to overcome A LOT of adversity as a team and program over the last year and a half. They are led by a very humble and quiet kid in Cotton and they truly are all about “Heart & Soul” which appears to have been their motto for the Big East season.

Obviously I want them to win on Friday (and I think they have a legitimate chance to do just that) but at this point, they are playing with house money for me. I’m just so thrilled for Cotton, Batts and the rest of the seniors that they were the team that broke through and brought this program back onto that blue carpet. This is a team led by seniors who are playing to leave everything on the floor. This is a team who wasn’t even supposed to be in the NCAA Tournament. It’s a team that sounds pretty dangerous to me.