Love Lost
The Friars Saw the Game, Some Fans, and Themselves Unravel on Saturday
- By: Tom Harkness -
By now, you know the context. If not, here’s the SparkNotes version.
Bryce Hopkins spent three tumultuous seasons at Providence from 2022 to 2025 before bolting to Saint John’s last offseason. For many Friars fans, it was another sting after the Ed Cooley-to-Georgetown heartbreak from a few years prior - especially given they had offered their unrelenting love and support for Hopkins after his torn ACL in January 2024, only for him to appear in just a trio of games after being cleared during the 2024-25 campaign.
Circumstantially, there was no doubt about it: anything but love was going to be in the air this Valentine’s Day when the seventeenth-ranked Red Storm made its annual trip to the Amica Mutual Pavilion. The often-fiery Providence crowd rarely needs extra ammunition, but speculation about Hopkins’ intentions (Had he planned his exit in advance? Was he merely collecting a multi-million-dollar NIL check last season?) only helped stir the pot. Hopkins was bound to hear it even more than he did at Madison Square Garden on January 3rd, which was as hostile a scene for any home team I’ve seen during my time on the beat.