Kevin McNamara of the Providence Journal is reporting that 3 of the 4 incoming freshman will not travel with the team to Italy next week. Jalen Lindsey has become ill in the last few days and foreign born big men Paschal Chukwu and Ben Bentil have yet to be fully cleared by the NCAA Clearinghouse. As McNamara points out in his article, the Clearinghouse typically takes a longer look at foreign born players to be sure they haven’t competed in any professional capacity prior to coming to the United States.

It’s another frustrating turn of events for Ed Cooley and his staff especially because Chukwu and Bentil are both strong students and are just wrapping up a successful summer session at PC. This now means the active body contingent for the Friars in Italy will consist of 6 scholarship players and 2 walk ons. Kris Dunn will be held out of game action as a precaution andTed Bancroft has an injured shoulder  which leaves just Rodney Bullock, Kyron Cartwright, Carson Desrosiers, Tyler Harris, LaDontae Henton and Junior Lomomba as the 6 available scholarship players to go along with walk-on’s Tom Planek and Casey Woodring.

I’ll have a more in depth preview of the Friars’ Italy trip on Monday.