GREAT FALLS — University of Providence's men's basketball team finished the 2024-25 season with a 16-14 record and advanced to the Frontier Conference championship game but just missed out on the NAIA national tournament.
The Argos lost two first-team all-conference players in Antoine Boyd Jr. and Jamil Bowles, among others. Head coach J.C. Isakson said his team has big shoes to fill.
"I think we're going to have to do it more by group in a collective," Isakson said Tuesday at UP's McLaughlin Center following practice.
"We're a long ways from a finished product right now. New guys are trying to get adjusted."
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One of the new players on the team this season is University of Pikeville (Ky.) transfer Jakub Lloyd. The senior was a part of Pikeville's regular-season conference championship team a season ago.
"We've developed chemistry through conditioning in practice every day for the last few months and it's been really good," Lloyd said. "Good group of guys."
Whereas a returner from last season is sophomore Quinn Swanson. He got a good amount of minutes last year as a true freshman and said he hopes to contribute in big ways for this team.
"Our coach has a saying, 'Make the jump,' so I'm trying to make the jump to get better and expand and add on to what I did last year," Swanson said. "I've been working this summer trying to get better and hopefully have a good year."
Isakson said his team has players that know how to play the right way.
"If we can get everybody on the same page, I think we have the ability to play really hard and get into people," Isakson said. "If you play hard and are aggressive, anything can happen."
The first games of the season come this Thursday and Saturday on the road in California against Life Pacific and The Master's University, respectively.
"I'm just excited to go out there and compete," Lloyd said, "compete against people that aren't in this gym every day. It should be good."
"We haven't played really anyone yet, so I feel like once we get into that game setting we'll figure out what we can work on," Swanson said. "It'll just be nice to play someone different than ourselves."
Providence was selected to finish fourth in the preseason conference poll behind favorite Montana Tech as well as Carroll and Montana Western, who tied for second in the rankings.
