Marquette Catholic head coach Donovan Garletts is happy he did as the Blazers went on to win the Indiana High School Athletic Association State Finals in their first ever appearance. Fazekas scored 34 points in the overtime win including 7/11 from beyond the arc which broke a Class A State Finals record of 6 made 3-pointers. The State Championship rings will be given out before Friday’s home opener against Hanover Central.
On the 2015 front there may be another point guard target that the Friars can get involved with, Traci Carter. Carter tore his meniscus in the Spring and missed the AAU season while he recovered so his recruitment fell off a bit. Scout.com has him in their top 100 at 92nd and his 247sports composite national ranking is 139th. To compare that to another point guard Ed Cooley targeted in 2015 Justin Robinson is ranked 86th by Scout.com and 129th by 247sports composite national ranking.
Scout.com only had a top 15 before Thursday for the class of 2017 and they have now expanded the list to their top 50 players. There has been some movement within the top 15 for the players who made that cut last time and 4 Friar recruits made the cut for the top 50.
With 2015 point guard Justin Robinson committing to Virginia Tech on October 12th Friar fans have been wondering if Ed Cooley and his staff have any other targets in the class of 2015 or would they just hang on to that scholarship and move on to the 2016 class. The reality is that a coaching staff can never stop recruiting and college rosters can change at seemingly any moment so hanging on to the scholarship might mean they use it on a midyear transfer or a spring commitment. With that said, there doesn’t appear to be any targets in 2015 that Cooley and his staff have zeroed in on after Robinson. Memphis wing LaGerald Vick announced his commitment to Larry Brown’s SMU Mustangs on Wednesday and Vick will also reclassify to 2016. Vick had gotten some late interest from the Friars in August and even scheduled an official visit to Friartown but that visit was ultimately cancelled. Davon Dillard was a name being mentioned in late August but I haven’t heard much of anything about him since he transferred from Bowman Academy (IN) to basketball factory Our Savior New American (NY).
After last weekend’s flurry of visitors Ed Cooley and his staff didn’t sit at home and rest on their laurels. Cooley and his staff were spotted all over the country this past week checking in on future prospects in 2016 and 2017 but also making a point to be seen by primary 2015 target Justin Robinson. To see where the staff was this week, check out the site feature called “Where is Ed Cooley and the staff?” which is linked at the top of the page on the menu bar.
Rivals released their initial top 25 recruit rankings for the class of 2017. Only 2 Providence recruits made the initial list but in addition to the top 25 list they also graded an additional 25 players as 4 star recruits. A few Providence recruits fell into this category and would essentially be ranked somewhere between 26-50 if the list was expanded to a top 50.
After the last couple of weeks being pretty quiet after the commitment of 2015 guard Drew Edwards this upcoming weekend is a big one in Friartown. Not only will Edwards be taking his official visit to Providence this weekend but he will be joined by the first player to commit to Ed Cooley in the class of 2015, Ryan Fazekas. But the most important visitor this weekend and a player that Edwards and Fazekas will try to help recruit is 2015 point guard recruit Justin Robinson. This will be Robinson’s 3rd official visit with the first two being at local schools Virginia Tech and Maryland. Robinson plans to take his other two visits after this weekend in Providence but Ed Cooley and the Friar Faithful are hoping that Robinson will give Cooley a commitment before returning home on Sunday.