Yes, Friartown is Titletown after Providence College clinched the Big East regular-season basketball championship for the first time last Saturday with its 72-51 blowout of Creighton before a roaring crowd of 12,400 at the Dunkin Donuts Center. The champs moved up to No. 8 in the current coaches poll and No. 9 in the AP writers poll.
But the Friars are not the only champions in town this March. Rhode Island is Title Territory.
Bryant won the men’s Northeast Conference regular-season title for the first time Saturday by defeating Wagner, 78-70, at the sold-out Chace Center in Smithfield.
Rhode Island College took the Little East women’s regular-season and tournament titles and is in the NCAA Division III tournament.
CCRI won the men’s and women’s East District titles, and both teams are heading the the NJCAA Division III Championships.
The URI basketball women could have made it a Division I title sweep Saturday, but they lost their regular-season finale at Dayton and finished second in the Atlantic-10 regular season.
The Salve Regina men (21-7, 14-4) fell shy of the Commonwealth Coast Conference title when they lost to Nichols, 60-55, Saturday.
Back to the Friars for a moment. Providence was a founding member of the original Big East in 1979 and has put strong teams on the court for many the last 43 years. Only the current bunch under coach Ed Cooley was strong enough to win the regular-season title. Hard to believe, I know, given the the great players who have worn the PC uniform over the years.
I hope Cooley and his team celebrated quietly because hard work remains. In the regular-season finale Tuesday night at Villanova, PC committed 15 turnovers that produced 19 Villanova points and lost, 76-74. The Wildcats lost the ball five times for only nine points. Trim the turnovers, and PC could have won.
Providence (24-4, 14-3) is having one of the finest seasons in program history. But The 11th-ranked Wildcats (22-7, 15-4) beat Providence, 89-84, at The Dunk on Feb. 16 and with two victories over the regular-season champions will have plenty of confidence if they meet again at the Big East tournament next week in New York, where the stakes will be much higher.
For the 2021-22 season to go down as truly memorable, the Friars must reach the Big East final and then make noise in the NCAA tournament. Once upon a time the regular-season championship meant a ticket to the Big Dance. Now the conference tournament champion gets the automatic bid.
BRYANT
What a season for the Bulldogs. The men’s baseketball team rallied in the second half against Wagner in a winner-take-all showdown for the NEC regular-season championship and top seed in the conference tournament. They will host ninth-seeded Central Connecticut Wednesday night in an NEC quarterfinal. They are 19-9, their most victories as a Division I program. They have won 14 of their last 15 games. Peter Kiss leads the nation in scoring with his 25.1 average.
RIC
The Anchorwomen (23-5, 15-1) are back-to-back Little East regular-season and tournament champions. They won their second title Saturday with their 70-55 dismantling of UMass Dartmouth. They will play St. John Fisher (25-2, 15-1 Empire 8) Friday at Amherst College. The winner gets either SUNY-Poly (20-6) or Amherst (21-3).
CCRI
Coach Rick Harris’s men (22-3) are ranked No. 5 in NJCAA Division III. They won the Region 21 East District championship, defeating Bristol CC, 105-72, on Saturday and Northern Essex CC, 79-67, on Sunday. They will play in the NJCAA Tournament March 9-12 in Rockford, Ill.
The CCRI women (16-6) are ranked No. 15 in NJCAA Division III. They won their East District championship on Sunday, 71-43, over Springfield Tech. The NJCAA Women’s Division III Tournament is March 9-12, in Rochester, Minn.
The men and women will learn their opponents Wednesday afternoon.
URI
The Rams (22-5, 12-2) lost at Dayton (23-4, 14-1), 60-46. The score was tied at the half, 28-28, but a five-point third quarter doomed URI. Dayton, URI, UMass and Virginia Commonwealth all earned double byes into the quarterfinals Friday at Wilmington, Del.
