There wasn’t a ton of recruiting news this past week as the Friars were in the midst of their Italy trip. I would expect to start hearing more next week when the staff is back in the States. Visits will likely begin to be set up and the picture at the guard positions on the recruiting trail in the class of 2015 should get a little more clear.
As for some of what did occur this past week:
Continue reading #pcbb Weekly Recruiting Update 8/22/14
The July live evaluation periods have come and gone and a lot of recruits have cut their lists down to more manageable figures. Some recruits have even already given commitments. Providence obviously got some good news last weekend after their Elite Camp on Saturday with two verbal commitments. The first was from a member of the class of 2017 (rising sophomores) in Javon Taylor. Taylor seems to have a good basketball pedigree and isn’t done growing.
The second commitment came from a member of the class of 2015. Alex Owens gave Ed Cooley his pledge after newly minted associate head coach Bob Simon worked tirelessly as the lead recruiter with Owens. Adding Owens to Ryan Fazekas has vaulted the national class ranking for the Friars to 19th according to the 247Sports Composite Team Ranking. CoxHub had the guys at New England Recruiting Report give a writeup on Alex Owens. It’s an interesting read. Owens is playing for USA South in the Nike Global Challenge in Chicago. His team won their first game against Pan Africa in overtime on Thursday but fell in game two against China Friday morning. Game three is Friday night at 9pm against USA East.
Continue reading #pcbb Weekly Recruiting Update 8/15/14
With Friday being the 4th of July I am releasing the weekly recruiting update a day earlier than normal. This weekly update will return to it’s normally scheduled Friday next week. This will be the final recruiting update prior to the first July live period which begins at 5pm on July 9th. For more information on the recruiting calendar over the next few weeks, check out this page.
News came down Wednesday afternoon that Josh Fortune was transferring to Colorado. This ends one of the more bizarre and confusing player transfers I’ve ever seen and I doubt the real reasons will ever be truly made public. Whatever the reasons, it seems Fortune was looking for a fresh start and he will get that at Colorado which is much further from his home than Providence, for what that’s worth.
Fortune leaving has left a bit of a hole at the shooting guard position. After the various swings and misses this spring, Ed Cooley and his staff are apparently on the fence about bringing someone in at this late stage. I’m told that Armel Potter is anxious to have the PC coaches watch him play live which is something that hasn’t happened as of yet. Potter is mulling over possibly playing somewhere during the July live periods but no decision has been made on that. I was told that Potter hasn’t spoken with Cooley yet but I get the sense that if Cooley calls with an offer, Potter will be on the next plane to Friartown. The former Florida Atlantic commit has offers from Appalachian State, Ball State, Iona, Niagara, Tennessee Tech and some other mid majors.
Continue reading #pcbb Weekly Recruiting Update 7/3/14
The NBA Draft showed how silly it can be by leaving a lot of very good college players off the board, including Bryce Cotton. But one thing that stuck out to me was the number of guys that got drafted who were top 100 recruits coming out of high school. It goes to show you just how important recruiting high level talent really is for programs. Obviously not every top 100 guy is going to pan out but it’s a numbers game and the more talent you acquire, the more likely it is that talent will develop and translate to on-court success. As an example, using ESPN’s top 100 high school player rankings, of the 24 non-international players drafted in the 1st round last night, 19 were in the top 100 in their class coming out of high school. Of those 19, 8 were ranked in the top 10. The 5 unranked guys were Nik Stauskas, Elfrid Payton, Doug McDermott, C.J. Wilcox and Josh Huestis.
Ed Cooley has upped the talent level at PC in his time in Friartown and this weekend he will be hosting a lot of talented recruits. 2015 recruits Donovan Mitchell and Steve Enoch will be on campus this weekend with Mitchell already at PC today and Enoch heading to URI and PC tomorrow.
With the news that Tramaine Isabell committed to Missouri on Thursday, Ed Cooley and his staff are going to have to weigh the available options against standing pat and going into the season with what they have right now. The only two names I have heard PC interested in at this point are Armel Potter and Ricky Council. I’ll profile both guys individually early next week.
We learned last week at this time that Wake Forest transfer, Tyler Cavanaugh, had received a call from Ed Cooley. Cavanaugh visited George Washington on Tuesday, per Adam Zagoria. Syracuse.com’s Donna Ditota reported last week that Cavanaugh plans to take 3 to 4 visits before deciding. CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein had this to say today:
Wake Forest transfer Tyler Cavanaugh visited George Washington this past week and is also considering Butler and Dayton. The 6-9 forward averaged 8.8 points and 3.8 rebounds last season and has two years of remaining eligibility.
Continue reading #pcbb Weekly Recruiting Update 6/27/14
I took last week off from the weekly recruiting update but it’s back this week and there is plenty to mention. Since the last update on June 6th, Niagara graduate transfer Antoine Mason committed to Auburn which is another Spring miss for Ed Cooley and staff.
Next up is Seattle guard Tramaine Isabell who is currently on a visit at Missouri with plans to visit Providence after that and then decide. Though he told ShowMeMizzou.com “that if he likes Missouri enough, there’s a chance he might not need to take any other visits.”
The Providence Journal’s Kevin McNamara mentioned that PC had a German guard on campus for a visit a few weeks ago and UndercoverFriar revealed that player to be Tyree Chambers. That doesn’t seem to be anything more than interest and an offer was never made.
One other guard option that has been mentioned in recent weeks is 2014 guard Armel Potter. Jeff Ferrucci of ScoutFriars.com spoke with Potter last week. Potter revealed that PC hasn’t offered but is “showing high interest.” The scoring guard visited Tennessee Tech last week and is also being recruited by Appalachian State, Ball State, Iona, Niagara, Winthrop along with some other mid majors.
If I had to choose between Isabell and Potter, I would definitely take Isabell despite the rumors of him possibly having some issues qualifying because he is definitely the more talented player but Potter is a guy that can score the ball despite being undersized. We’ll see how Isabell’s visit to Missouri shakes out but I would expect interest in Potter to increase from Coach Blaney if Isabell commits to the Tigers before leaving Columbia.
One other note on the recruiting front is a potential transfer candidate in former Wake Forest PF Tyler Cavanaugh. He was granted his release this week and has already spoken to Ed Cooley who recruited him out of high school when Cooley was still at Fairfield. He never overlapped with PC redshirt Senior Carson Desrosiers at Wake but I wouldn’t be surprised if Cooley put the two in touch to discuss the transition from Wake to PC. Cavanaugh, a native of Dewitt, NY (upstate near Syracuse) told Syracuse.com’s Donna Ditota, “I want to try to come a little bit closer to home, but I want to be open to any opportunity. I just want to make sure I find the perfect fit for my last two years of eligibility.” He also said that he plans to narrow down schools to 3 schools to visit and decide within “the next couple weeks.” He would have to sit this upcoming season and would have two years of eligibility remaining. The 6’9 stretch power forward averaged 19 mpg, 7 ppg and 3.2 rpg in 64 career games for the Demon Deacons, including 28 career starts.
Continue reading #pcbb Weekly Recruiting Update 6/20/14
Starting at midnight on June 15th, coaches can begin making unlimited phone calls (among other methods of communication) to members of the class of 2016. Prior to this date contact was pretty well regulated for members of that class. Who a coach calls on June 15th will be a pretty good indication to the player and fans of a particular program what player(s) are being made a priority for 2016.
Ed Cooley will be out in Colorado coaching the USA Basketball U18 squad until June 26th but here are four candidates from the class of 2016 to get a call from Ed Cooley on June 15th:
Jalen Lindsey’s former teammate at CPA in Nashville, Braxton Blackwell is having a really solid AAU season running with the Atlanta Celtics who compete in the Adidas Grassroots events. So far during the Spring, Blackwell and the Celtics have played in Dallas, Indianapolis and Orlando.
He is a consensus top 30 player in the class of 2016 per the ranking services. Rivals has him at 29th and ESPN has him at 25th.
Another former teammate of Jalen Lindsey’s, though this time from Huntington Prep in West Virginia, Miles Bridges has had one of the better Spring AAU seasons of anyone in the country in the class of 2016. He is running with The Family on the AAU circuit and he has carried them at times throughout the Nike EYBL season. His numbers from the 16 games he played in the EYBL regular season are 14.1 ppg on 46.7% from the field 6.7 rpg 1.0 spg, 1.4 bpg in 27.9 mpg. He has hit a number of game tying or winning shots and had a 17 point, 15 rebound game against Team SCAN in May in Hampton, VA.
Bridges has shot up the player rankings in the class of 2016 as well. He cracked the top 10 in the ESPN rankings released on June 4th, coming in at number 8 overall in the class. The Rivals list has him at 33rd but it was released March 28th which was about a month before the Spring AAU season began. I would expect him to rise rapidly on their list if he keeps playing like he has.
Another player that may be getting a call from Ed Cooley is Blackwell’s AAU teammate, Joshua Langford. Langford is a force. Plain and simple. He is a consensus top 25 player in the class right now and has finally been able to fully showcase his game after dealing with some injuries. He was Mr. Basketball in Alabama as a freshman in 2013. His high national ranking is largely due to his past play and reputation but he is now fully healthy and reinforcing that ranking. ESPN moved him up to 11th while Rivals has him at 21st.
If you haven’t noticed by now, the Atlanta Celtics are LOADED on the AAU circuit. Kobi Simmons is teammates with Blackwell and Langford on that Celtics squad. PC has offered 4 out of the 5 starters from the team (Kaiser Gates is another highly ranked 2016 player) and with good reason. Simmons is a big play-making point guard, measuring 6’4. He was on the 2013-14 USA Basketball Men’s Developmental National Team and recently was in Treviso, Italy playing in the Adidas EuroCamp. He is ranked 28th by Rivals and 29th by ESPN in the class.
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With most AAU events for the spring already behind us, many of the top players attended individual camps last weekend. The most notable of those camps was the invitation only Pangos All-American Camp. While the dynamic is a bit different at an individual player camp than an AAU team event, the cream still rises to the top. More on that later. This was also a big week for ESPN and Scout to release updated player rankings for the classes of 2015, 2016 and even 2017. Scout only jumped into the mix with their updated class of 2015 rankings but there was a fairly significant amount of movement and also a few PC recruits made their debut or were no longer part of the top 100. For the Scout 2015 rankings, click here. For the ESPN 2015 rankings, click here. For the ESPN 2016 rankings, click here. For the ESPN 2017 rankings, click here.
Continue reading #pcbb Weekly Recruiting Update 6/6/14
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