The Pitt-Providence game will likely decide at least the co-Big East regular season champion. Providence can win it out-right if it sweeps its remaining games and UConn loses to either Seton Hall or Syracuse. Pitt needs to beat both Providence and Villanova to and a UConn loss. The top two teams receive a first round bye in the Big East Tournament.
Providence is led by Ryan Gomes who was named Big East Player of the Week today — the 4th time he’s earned that. On the other side Chris Taft won Big East Rookie of the Week for the 5th time this season. The winner of the game will likely earn Big East Coach of the Year honors for the coach.
Providence is already juiced for the game.
Enough with the preliminaries. It’s time for the Providence Friars to face a true Big East heavyweight.
After dismantling the sorry Red Storm of St. John’s yesterday at Madison Square Garden, 103-78, the Friars’ thoughts quickly turned to their biggest test of the season tomorrow night. Ready or not, the third-ranked Pittsburgh Panthers come to town with first place in the Big East on the line.
PC’s players are very aware that this will be the most important home game in the school’s 25 seasons of Big East basketball. The Friars have never won a Big East regular season title and have never faced a top-5 opponent at home while ranked in the top 15.
“It’s for first place and the Big East regular season title,” said PC star Ryan Gomes. “It’ll be hard to take it as just another game because we’ve worked hard since October to get to this point. It’s a big game for the fans and for us. ”
PC played Pitt twice last season, but hasn’t hosted the Panthers since 2001. The Friars lost at Pitt last Feb. 4, 68-61. The Panthers also won a rematch in the Big East Tournament, 67-59.
“It’s a special time for our program,” said Friars coach Tim Welsh. “We had it marked down a couple weeks ago that if we could get through this stretch of four out of five one the road, we’d have two [games] coming home. I’ve turned off my phone. I have no tickets.”
Pitt fell to #6 in both of the polls and Providence is at #12 in the AP Writers and #13 in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches poll.
Here are Pitt’s and Providence’s game notes (both in PDF).
