Sacred Heart takes on Providence in the Friars’ final nonconference tilt

WHERE: Dunkin' Donuts Center, Providence, Rhode Island

TIME: 6:30 EST

TV: FS1

ONLINE: Fox Sports Go

LINE: Providence (-18.5)

O/U: -110

SERIES HISTORY: 5th meeting between two teams (Providence leads series 4-0)

It's safe to say that the nonconference slate has been a rollercoaster ride for the Ed Cooley and the Providence Friars.

Bouncing back from a loss against Minnesota in the second game of the season, Providence won five straight mixing in a 2K Classic championship in the process.

But since that five game winning streak: The Friars lost 3 of 5 and look out of sort. The two wins in the last five games have been by a combined 7 points.

In the Friars last game, they only shot 37% from the field and fell to Houston 70-59 Wednesday night.

Tonight they take on the Sacred Heart Pioneers out of the Northeast Conference, losers of two straight.

The Friars need to watch out for the play of Pioneers' senior Joseph Lopez (13.6 PPG, 9.3 RPG) and junior Sean Hoehn (12.2 PPG) who are known to shock teams with their at times hot three point shooting

If Providence wants to finish strong before they hit Big East play, they need their big guns in Rodney Bullock and Alpha Diallo to have solid games. Bullock had a game-high 24 points in their loss to Houston and Diallo who is second on the team in scoring (10.3 PPG) went scoreless in 13 minutes.

Another player to watch for for the Friars in freshman Makai Ashton-Langford. With more minutes due to senior Kyron Cartwright nursing a bad ankle, Ashton-Langford has averaged 27.5 minutes a contest over the last four games and will likely get more than that tonight.

This should be an easy win for the Friars, but then again we've said those about a lot of the games Providence has played and well...the results haven't been what we expected.