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Providence College did not have the season it was hoping for on the basketball court and saw it come to an end with a loss in the Big East conference tournament. Kim English made it clear he was not happy with how his team played in that game and over the course of a campaign he’d obviously like to forget based on what he had to say about what transpired during his second year.
Ed Cooley emerged as one of the best head coaches Providence College has had in decades after taking over in 2011, and the team punched its ticket to the NCAA Tournament seven times during the twelve seasons he was at the helm.
However, he became a pariah among the Friars faithful when he agreed to take over at Georgetown after the season wrapped up in 2023, and Kim English knew he had some big shoes to fill when he left George Mason to take his talents to the Big East.
English got off to a solid start last year while overseeing a team that went 21-14, 10-10 in conference play, and—most importantly—won all three games it played against Georgetown before accepting an invite to the NIT.
A preseason poll predicted the Friars would end up being the sixth-best team in the Big East this year, but that turned out to be a very optimistic evaluation when you consider they ultimately ended up in ninth place with a 6-14 record in conference play while going 12-20 overall and splitting the season series with Cooley and the Hoyas.
There was still an incredibly slim chance P.C. could clinch a March Madness spot by winning the Big East tournament, but those dreams were officially dashed when they fell to Butler in a 75-69 loss in the first round on Wednesday that all but certainly marked the end of a disappointing season.
The game was not as close as the final score would suggest, and English did not hide his true feelings about the “disappointing outcome” during a press conference where he said his team “play true to the pitiful, embarrassing season that we had.”
Kim English following today’s season-ending loss to Butler:
“Disappointing outcome, but we played true to the pitiful, embarrassing season that we had” 😳pic.twitter.com/AAjMGMcfw9
— The Field of 68 (@TheFieldOf68) March 12, 2025
There’s no telling it things would have turned out differently if the Rally Duck that took the college basketball world by storm at the start of the season hadn’t been banned from the team’s arena, but it’s hard not to wonder how things played out in an alternate timeline.