PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Bryan Hodgson got his first taste of winning at home as Providence College coach on Saturday, when the Friars handled Pittsburgh 87-64 in an exhibition at Amica Mutual Pavilion.
Miles Byrd set the pace. The forward and team captain finished as the game’s top scorer with 17 points, and he filled the rest of the box score too, grabbing a game-high seven rebounds and adding five steals, two blocked shots and three assists.
Byrd is one of 13 newcomers on a roster that returns only two players from last season. He transferred in after four years at San Diego State, where the league picked him as its top defender in 2025-26 and twice put him on an all-conference team, and the steals and blocks against the Panthers showed why.
Hodgson was hired as the program’s 17th men’s basketball coach on March 22. He arrived from South Florida, where his 2025-26 team went 25-9, won both the American Conference regular-season and tournament titles and reached the NCAA Tournament, earning him the league’s Coach of the Year award. In three seasons as a head coach, he is 70-37.
Pittsburgh was the first of two exhibitions against Atlantic Coast Conference teams. The Friars host Georgia Tech at the AMP on Oct. 24, then open their 100th season of basketball against Maine at home on Nov. 2.
The rest of the new roster also brings scoring from elsewhere. Ryan Sabol led the Mid-American Conference in made three-pointers last season with 122, Devin Vanterpool, a co-captain with Byrd, averaged 15.8 points in the American Conference, and Malik Mack put up 13.6 points a game at Georgetown while handing out 4.1 assists. Ryan Mela and John Jackson are the only holdovers from last season.
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