The Providence staff was down in Nashville on Tuesday night, along with a few other high majors, to check in on Braxton Blackwell (2016) who plays for CPA which is Jalen Lindsey’s old squad. CPA won the game PC attended, the region semifinals, and Blackwell scored 31 points. On Wednesday night, they played the 6-AA region finals and won to improve to 32-2 on the season. Blackwell scored 15 points in the win and was named the All-Region MVP. The 6’8 215 lbs (SF) 17th ranked player in the class of 2016 according to ESPN holds offers from Auburn, Cincinnati, Florida, Indiana (attended Hoosier Hysteria this year), LSU, Memphis, Mississippi St, N.C. State, Providence, Tennessee, Vanderbilt (his HS coach played there), Virginia and Virginia Tech. He also has interest from Kentucky, Michigan State and North Carolina. This would be the most impressive get if Cooley could somehow pull this off. He is a consensus top 30 player in the class of 2016 and has no ties to Rhode Island like Jalen Lindsey so getting him from Nashville to Providence would be a huge coup. So far he has visited Louisville (1/2/13 coincidentally when they played PC), Vanderbilt (9/4/13, 2/5/14), Memphis (9/20/13), Indiana (10/4/13 for Hoosier Hysteria) and Auburn (11/30/13).
The NEPSAC playoffs started on Wednesday and there are a lot of PC recruiting targets taking part in the action. Click here to see the names from Wednesday’s post. For results of Wednesday’s game click this link to the NERR.
Paschal Chukwu and the Fairfield Prep Stags finished the regular season undefeated (20-0) after winning at home against Hamden last Saturday night. It was Senior Night for Prep and Chuwku went for 21 points in the win. The next step will be the playoffs starting tomorrow morning 11am at Branford HS against Notre Dame-West Haven. Fairfield Prep handled ND-WH both times they met during the regular season by 15 and 16 points respectively. In national recruiting news, ESPN’s Adam Finkelstein lists Chukwu as one of his “Five Prospects Who Project Long Term”. He had this to say:
The playoffs are upon us in the NEPSAC! There are a bunch of Friar recruits and targets in the NEPSAC and seeing them play in crunch time and win or go home games is a great tool to find out more about them as players. You can be sure that Coach Cooley and staff will attend more than a few of these games over the 3 days of the tournament. Click here to view the full brackets and click here for a preview article from NERR.
Here is a list of Friar recruits/targets that Coach Cooley and staff will keep an eye on:
For those recruiting fanatics out there: Devonte Graham (2014), Donovan Mitchell (2015) and Brewster Academy take on Tilton today at 4pm. Link to watch the game live below.
2014 PG recruit Tarin Smith and the St. Anthony Friars won a close game earlier this week as they traveled to Long Island Lutheran who features 2016 PG Devonte Green. Green, the St. Mary’s transfer, had 22 points in the loss. Green is the younger brother of former UNC player and current NBA player, Danny Green. Tarin Smith led St. Anthony in scoring with 14 points and was the only Friar in double figures.
The National Prep School Invitational was last weekend at Rhode Island College. It was unfortunate timing for PC to hit the road as this is always a great event with elite talent and many PC targets played. The PC staff did make it on Sunday after returning home from Chicago and they reportedly watched Brewster Academy (Devonte Graham ’14, Donovan Mitchell ’15, Jarred Reuter ’15) take on Vermont Academy (Christian Vital ’16). For a great recap of the event, here is FriarBasketball.com’s article from Monday. This is a great recap with highlights by Cox Sports.
Here’s a great highlight tape of Jalen Adams via @CoreyPorterTV:
I’ll continue to beat the drum for Tarin Smith (2014). This team needs guards and they will undoubtedly take at least 2 more for 2014. I think Smith is the exact kind of guy that would fit in at PC. He just keeps getting better and seems like a very high character kid. He is #1 in his class academically at St. Anthony and has drawn praise from his legendary coach, Bob Hurley.This is also a great read from the Hudson Reporter on Smith.