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.
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:
Braxton Blackwell
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.
Miles Bridges
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.
Joshua Langford
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.
Kobi Simmons
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.
ESPN updated their class of 2016 rankings from the top 25 to the top 60 today. Providence is involved with more than 10% of the ESPN top 60.
Similar to Adam Finkelstein yesterday with the class of 2015, Reggie Rankin offered “Ten things to know about the ESPN 60”. The below are excerpts where a PC recruit is mentioned by Rankin:
3. There are some big-time wing scorers in the Class of 2016. These bucket-getters attack defenders and are difficult to deal with when they have the ball in their hands. Shooting guards Malik Monk and Josh Langford, small forwards Mario Kegler and V.J. King and SG Tyus Battle lead the top 20 players.
5. Combination forward Miles Bridges and point guardDennis Smith are fresh faces in the top 10 because of their consistent production. A few dominant performances this spring on the travel circuit clearly separated them from their peers.
8. There’s a lot of variety and versatility in the 2016 class. Many players can play and excel at two positions, both in the post and on the perimeter. A few examples are Bridges, Omari Spellman, Amir Coffey, Vance Jackson and Kobi Jordan-Simmons.
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