Friar Basketball · Mar 30, 2020
Another Look: PC vs. Penn State ’01 NCAA Tourney
It’s impossible to truly appreciate how unlikely Providence’s 2001 NCAA tournament appearance was without looking back on where the program stood in the spring of 2000.
The Friars wrapped up the 1999-2000 campaign at 11-19 overall and 4-12 in the Big East. They lost their season opener to Holy Cross after scoring just 43 points, and later fell to Central Connecticut State.
They won their first conference game, then proceeded to drop the next 10.
Providence’s problems that year were centered around the loss of point guard John Linehan, who played in just six games before missing the rest of the year following three surgeries to repair a hernia.