BETRAYED: How do Friars fans feel about Ed Cooley ahead of today's game?

PROVIDENCE − Inside McPhail's, the bar in the Slavin Center at Providence College, a photo collage of the basketball team over the years is dotted with pink sticky notes.

Underneath each is the face of former coach Ed Cooley.

For the students at the bar Friday, Cooley's return on Saturday with the Georgetown Hoyas, as his new team tips off against the Friars, led by coach Kim English, means seeing the great betrayer come back.

Senior Justice Avant hasn't just been a Friars fan since she started college. Growing up in Lincoln, she has seen Cooley coach PC for most of the time she can remember.

"We feel betrayed," Avant said. "We feel abandoned."

For Friars fans, "it's a personal matter," she said.

We're breaking up: Ed Cooley's return to Providence with Georgetown basketball is a case study in breakups

"You can feel it in the environment," Avant said.

The day after Cooley announced he was leaving, they put the sticky notes over his images in the photos, Avant said.

Cooley cannot fathom the level of hurt that Friars fans are feeling, and he will be walking into an Amica Mutual Pavilion seething with vitriol, Avant said.

Senior Patrick Cambria, of New Rochelle, New York, said it felt like Cooley "left us to die."

"He appealed to our emotions and then suddenly, it became, it was all just business," Cambria said.

Cambria was studying abroad when Cooley left, which softened the blow. But when Cambria came back to campus, the sadness was replaced by anger.

"It's a personal thing," he said. "He made it personal."

Working upstairs in the center, sophomore Caroline Austin also grew up with the Friars, as her father, Tom Austin, started taking her to games from their home in Sudbury, Massachusetts, when she was little. While she will be filming the game, making sure to keep quiet, her dad, who graduated from Providence College in 1989, will be in the stands.

Her dad, the longtime fans, the students – everyone feels betrayed and abandoned, he said. It will not be a pleasant setting for Cooley.

Shannon Kelly and Meghan Barker first balked at the idea of going to the game because tickets were so expensive and available only through third parties at $150 each.

For Kelly and Barker, the basketball team led by Cooley, and the culture, camaraderie and sense of community it represented, were the big reasons they wanted to go to Providence College. Kelly grew up watching the Friars.

"We're excited to see the game," Barker said. "The atmosphere at the AMP is so awesome."

Why hate when you can love?

Sophomore Jack Brodin, hanging out in McPhail's, said he did not have nearly as strong feelings about Cooley as his senior counterparts do, but for him, the focus on Cooley seemed like a waste when a young, charismatic coach has already taken the reins.

Brodin felt a little betrayed at first, but once English settled into his new role, it became clear the team, the college, the community, is better off with new, young blood, he said.

"He's growing the team," Brodin said.

English has recruited star high school players that would have likely been beyond Cooley's reach; one of English's best qualities is his youth, at 35, instead of Cooley's grizzled 54, Brodin said.

Maybe English will even take the Friars into the Sweet 16 more than once, he said.

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Reach reporter Wheeler Cowperthwaite at wcowperthwaite@providencejournal.com or follow him on Twitter @WheelerReporter.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: PC Basketball fans say Cooley's return Saturday for game is 'personal'