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].”

Where To Go From Here

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.