Thoughts on Ed Cooley

We’re returning to the Big East for this week’s look at a candidate for the head coach of Maryland men’s basketball with Providence’s Ed Cooley.

Providence is currently having a very interesting season from an analytics perspective. The Friars are 20-2 and 10-1 in Big East play, but Kenpom has them ranked #44 in the country. The Friars, despite leading the Big East, are considered the sixth-best team in the conference by the analytics website.

The easiest way to understand why Providence isn’t getting love from the analytics is they are rarely winning games by double digits. Out of Providence’s ten wins in Big East, only three have been by at least 10 points and none have been by at least 20. 

Meanwhile, Villanova, ranked #9 on Kenpom, has won eight Big East games by double digits, including a 40-point win against Butler and a 34-point win against Creighton. Villanova has more losses than Providence in Big East play, but their wins have been much more dominant. Thus, the analytics still consider them a much stronger team than the Friars.

Interestingly enough, Villanova and Providence have not played each other this year, with their two meetings scheduled for February 15 and March 1. Those two meetings might go a long way towards seeing if Providence’s #44 ranking is an accurate reflection of this year’s team.

While this season has certainly been curious from an analytics perspective, Cooley’s been at Providence since 2011-12 and made his first NCAA tournament in 2013-14, so there’s plenty of data to review from beyond this year.

Let’s take a closer look at someone who has the endorsement of Mike DeCourcy from The Sporting News.  

How they play

Cooley’s first tournament team in 2013-14 was ranked higher in Kenpom’s offensive efficiency than defensive efficiency and the following year, they were 42nd for both offensive and defensive efficiency. Since then, Cooley’s teams have been stronger on defense for seven consecutive seasons.

The most consistent strength of a Cooley defense has been stopping three-pointers. Since 2015-16, Providence has spent six of their seven seasons in the top 100 for opposing three-point percentage. Last season’s team was especially impressive on the perimeter, forcing teams to shoot under 30 percent on their threes as they ranked 13th in the country for three-point defense. 

Providence has also been a very erratic team in recent years on defense when it comes to their turnover rate. They’ve ranked in the top 100 four times in the last seven years but their two most recent seasons have also seen them ranked outside the top 200 for turnover rate, a remarkably large dropoff for what was previously a strength of their defenses.

While Providence has always been strong on the perimeter and has had success with forcing turnovers, their inside defense has been underwhelming. This year is the first time the Friars have been in the top 100 for two-point defense since Cooley began at Providence in 2011-12. It seems clear that the ideal way to attack a Cooley defense is by driving to the basket rather than taking threes.

As for the offense, Cooley’s teams are especially strong at getting to the free-throw line. Using free throw attempt rate, a stat that divides free throws attempts by field goal attempts, Providence has been one of the best teams in the country at getting to the line this year, ranking 13th with a free throw attempt rate of 39.5 percent. Providence has been able to produce plenty of free throws from one of their guards, Al Durham. Durham has a free throw attempt rate of 72.4 percent, which ranks 11th among all players in the country.

Providence’s success at getting to the free-throw line, with one player especially standing out, is a combo that sounds familiar for a Mark Turgeon Maryland team. His 2014-15 squad was 25th in the country for free throw attempt rate and Melo Trimble’s personal rate of 71 percent was 38th in the country that year. 

While this is Providence’s best season for getting to the line under Cooley, it has been a regular offensive strength, which includes finishing 34th in 2018-19 and 49th in 2017-18.

Cooley’s teams are good at getting fouled but they’ve never been especially good shooters. Across Cooley’s entire tenure at Providence, his teams have ranked in the top 100 for three-point percentage just once and never cracked the top 100 for two-point percentage. His teams have also seen multiple seasons ranking outside the top 200 for both two-point and three-point percentages. If you’re looking for teams that will reliably make their shots, Cooley doesn’t seem like the man for the job.

Additionally, Cooley does not coach teams that are aggressive with three-point attempts or their tempo, like the previously discussed Nate Oats. His Providence teams have never cracked the top 100 for three-point attempt rate or Kenpom’s adjusted tempo, so we’d be getting a pretty traditional offense in College Park without much aggression.

NCAA tournament results

One thing that is important when looking at a coach’s NCAA tournament results is seeing how often a team made the NCAA tournament before that coach got hired.

In the case of Providence, Cooley has done an excellent job of making Providence a consistent tournament team compared to other recent coaches. From 1998-99 to 2007-08, Tim Welsh produced just two tournaments in ten years at Providence. Keno Davis then went three straight years without a tournament appearance before Cooley was hired to replace him. Across a span of 13 seasons prior to Cooley, Providence had just two NCAA tournament appearances.

After missing the tournament in 2011-12 and 2012-13, Cooley then made the tournament directly three straight seasons. 2016-17 saw the Friars lose a play-in game as a #11 seed before returning to the tournament’s field of 64 in 2017-18.

So depending on how you view losing a play-in game, Providence either made the tournament five straight years or four times in five years. Either way, Cooley’s arrival elevated Providence as a program compared to what they had been doing the prior 13 seasons with the last two head coaches.

While Cooley deserves credit for turning Providence into a consistent tournament team, his performance in tournament games isn’t exactly glamorous, with just one win.

That sole win came in 2016, with Providence winning as a #9 seed against a #8 seed USC team coached by none other than Andy Enfield. The Friars won 70-69, scoring with 1.5 seconds left to defeat the Trojans.

Interestingly enough, Providence won while being outshot by USC. The Trojans made 53.8 percent of their field goals while Providence made 40.3 percent. However, USC’s 12 turnovers compared to Providence’s six wound up being important in a game decided by just one point.

Based on their seed, the only time Cooley got upset in the tournament came in 2015 as a #6 seed. After a 21-10 regular season with an 11-7 Big East record, the Friars were dispatched by #11 seed Dayton in a 66-53 defeat.

Of course, this year will give Cooley another chance to produce his first Sweet 16 at Providence, with Joe Lunardi’s latest mock bracket putting the Friars at a #3 seed. 

Cooley turning Providence into a regular tournament team is definitely impressive but it’s also fair to wonder how much that matters for Maryland, a school with several more tournament appearances in the 21st century than the Friars. Cooley is certainly an ideal fit for Providence, but Maryland isn’t a Catholic private school in New England with a student body of only 5,000 people.

Conference tournament results

Providence’s performance in the Big East tournament has been wildly inconsistent with Cooley.

In 2013-14 they won the tournament, but they also failed to win a game in the tournament more recently in 2016-17 and 2020-21. Meanwhile, 2017-18 saw Providence reach the Big East title game before losing to Villanova in overtime.

The 2013-14 tournament title saw Providence win three straight games at Madison Square Garden as the tournament’s #4 seed after a 10-8 conference record. The Friars were able to avoid #1 seed Villanova after they got upset by #8 seed Seton Hall, but still needed to take down #2 seed Creighton in the title game. Creighton earned a #3 seed in the NCAA tournament that season, so it was definitely an impressive victory by Cooley’s team on a neutral floor.

Going winless in the 2016-17 conference tournament was hardly ideal as the tournament’s #3 seed but I’d argue that last year’s winless conference tournament was even worse. Providence got eliminated as a #6 seed by #11 seed DePaul, who was 2-13 in Big East play and ended the season ranked #141 on Kenpom.

Since Cooley’s first NCAA tournament team in 2013-14, Providence is 8-6 in the Big East tournament. However, Providence going winless twice in a five-year span still doesn’t look especially encouraging when trying to replace a coach who went winless in the conference tournament for three straight years.

Ultimately I’d consider Cooley’s Big East tournament performance a net positive, but it hasn’t exactly been consistent.

Ranked teams

Like I wrote for Kevin Willard with Seton Hall, Providence has played Villanova more than any other ranked team.

Starting with Cooley’s first tournament team in 2013-14, they’ve played a ranked Villanova team 19 times. They’re 2-5 at home, 2-6 at Villanova and 0-4 against the Wildcats in the conference tournament for an overall record of 4-15.

Providence’s 2-6 record at Villanova is actually quite impressive, considering that a ranked Villanova team has lost just ten times at home since 2013-14. In fact, the only other Big East team to have defeated the Wildcats multiple times in Philadelphia is Creighton. Providence’s 2016 victory over Villanova is especially noteworthy given that the Wildcats went on to win the national title that season.

When Providence faces ranked teams besides Villanova, they’ve been 10-7 at home and 7-11 once they leave Rhode Island. Their best home win came against #5 Xavier in 2018, while their best road win saw them take down #9 Butler in 2015.

Just for a fun little comparison, Cooley is also 2-1 against Willard’s Seton Hall when the Pirates are ranked. Providence split a home-and-home against a ranked Pirates team in 2019-20 and then beat them earlier this season on December 29.

The existence of Villanova makes it difficult to properly assess how any Big East coach has done against ranked teams because the Wildcats have been so consistently excellent. While there are alwaysplenty of ranked teams in the Big Ten every year, there isn’t one team that consistently stands out in the same way that Villanova does.  

You could look at a 4-15 record against a ranked Villanova and see it is an underwhelming performance against the Big East’s team to beat or view it as a respectable outcome against a school with multiple national titles in the last ten years. I personally see the two wins at Villanova as impressive results that show Cooley is able to get his team to beat the cream of the crop at their own house.

Either way, the Big Ten simply doesn’t have a program on Villanova’s level so I’m ultimately not sure how much Cooley’s record against Villanova would matter for yearly meetings against Michigan State or Purdue.