Top 10 Plays from Day 1 of the USA Basketball U18 Training Camp:
Well the Spring struggles continue for Ed Cooley and the Providence Friars. Antoine Mason choosing Auburn is a blow to PC’s quest to find a guard to fill the void after Josh Fortune bailed on Providence a few weeks ago.
While it’s slightly different because it’s a 5th year graduate transfer, this adds to Cooley’s Spring whiffs that most notably includes former Brewster Academy and St. John’s player Jakarr Sampson. While logic seemed to dictate that Mason should end up at Providence because of the plethora of minutes available at the shooting guard position and the chance to be on a team that went to the NCAA Tournament a year ago, for Mason it seems like the relationship that his dad has with Auburn assistant coach Chuck Person and Person’s NBA pedigree were deciding factors. Mason told Adam Zagoria “It was close but [I liked the intangibles].”
Well as I said to someone last night, PC is now scraping at the bottom of the barrel to try to find someone to play a significant role for this team next season. There have been mentions of PC’s interest in guys like Amari Hamilton and Armel Potter. If I had to pick one of those two I’d take Potter because he can scored a ton in high school and PC needs some scoring on this roster. There is also the possibility of Tramaine Isabell who is visiting Missouri on June 19th. Isabell is better than the two guys I mentioned above but there have been whispers about him being able to qualify next year. It will be interesting to see if maybe they try to pressure a kid like Dupree McBrayer, who they just had on campus for a visit last weekend, to go back to 2014 and come to PC next season. I also wouldn’t be surprised if a name we have never heard of surfaced, possibly an international player. Cooley and staff have made trips to the Canarias Basketball Academy in Spain in the past so maybe there is a guy they can pull from there. There is no question the Friars have a hole at the 2 guard spot right now and their roster doesn’t seem to have an obvious answer.
Jon Rothstein tweeted late last week that Niagara transfer Antoine Mason had cut his list down to 3 schools: Auburn, Boston College and Providence.
That report was refuted by both Antoine and his father, Anthony.
Well it appears Rothstein didn’t just make this source up out of thin air as he is now reporting that Antoine Mason has scheduled 3 visits: Auburn on June 6-7, Providence June 8-9 and Boston College will get the final visit with no date set yet.
The reasons for the Masons refuting of the initial report last week is unclear but perhaps they wanted to hold the door open for other schools to make their final pitch before announcing the visits. Whatever the reason, someone obviously let the cat out of the bag last week to Rothstein and he looks vindicated after not backing down from the initial report.
The timing of this visit is critical for Providence as head coach Ed Cooley plans to get on a plane for Colorado Springs, CO to begin his stint with USA Basketball on June 9th.
I’ll be breaking down the pro’s and con’s of these 3 schools from Mason’s perspective in an article for ScoutFriars later this week.
UPDATE 12:05pm: Jeff Borzello wrote the following about an hour ago:
“I think the official is Auburn and the others [are] unofficial,” Mason told CBSSports.com in a text message.
With so many schools showing interest, Mason could take a few more trips.
“I have more, just haven’t set them up,” he said. “I’m still narrowing the list.”
There is no set timetable for a decision.
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