It seems the 2014-15 roster is now complete with the addition of German guard Tyree Chambers* so I’ll take an in-depth look at the roster and how it’s shaping up both in the short term and the long term.

If you want to see the current scholarship situation for each season through 2018-2019 there is a dropdown menu at the top of the menu bar above. You can also click this link. 

Technically the 2014-15 roster has one open scholarship remaining and maybe Ed Cooley will look to add a mid-year transfer for next season to balance the classes (more on that later) but I believe this will be the group that the Friars will go to battle with this upcoming season. Let’s look at the roster by position group:

The Guards

This is a young and inexperienced group overall this season with graduate student Ted Bancroft being the most veteran member of the bunch with 72 games under his belt. Bancroft is getting a 5th year of eligibility due to an injury during his freshman season as a walk-on for Keno Davis and is the only upperclassmen of all the guards on the roster. Redshirt sophomore Kris Dunn is coming off his second shoulder surgery since July 2012 and has been treated with kid gloves during his rehabilitation these last 9+ months. He has amassed 29 career games at Providence with 25 of those coming during his first year on campus. Redshirt sophomore Junior Lomomba is the next most experienced player having played 25 games during the 2012-13 season for the Cleveland State Vikings of the Horizon league before transferring to Providence and sitting out last season per NCAA transfer rules. The only other guard on the roster who has any game experience is sophomore walk-on Casey Woodring who played a total of 10 minutes in 7 games in his initial season with the team. The other two guards are true freshmen with zero college experience in Kyron Cartwright and Tyree Chambers. Cartwright comes to Providence from Compton HS in California while Chambers just recently made the trip from Germany.

It’s clear that the Friars will be heavily reliant on Kris Dunn this season. If they have any hope of returning to the “Blue Carpet”, as Ed Cooley calls the NCAA Tournament, Dunn will need to be healthy and playing up to his potential. The biggest question mark beyond Dunn’s health is the shooting guard spot after the transfer of Josh Fortune. Many have speculated about LaDontae Henton seeing an expanded role as the shooting guard on offense and I have no doubt he will see minutes there for stints during the season but I just don’t buy Henton as a viable secondary ball handler beyond occasionally helping bring the ball up against larger opponents. Tyler Harris is also likely to play some at the shooting guard spot but it appears the opening day starter at the position will be Junior Lomomba. Lomomba has been working extensively on shooting and ball handling with God Shammgod. Lomomba put up some nice numbers in Italy but the competition certainly seemed to be lacking so it’s hard to say that will translate to the Big East. The fact that Providence has such great size and length on the roster should allow Ed Cooley to be more flexible with offensive and defensive roles as a player like Henton would be able to play the shooting guard spot on offense but not have to guard the opposing shooting guard on defense.

The Forwards/Centers

While the Friars lost Kadeem Batts, Lee Goldsbrough and Brice Kofane to graduation (Kofane transferred to Monmouth for his 5th year) in the frontcourt, they will get one more year out of last year’s 6th man in redshirt senior Carson Desrosiers as well as returning starters senior LaDontae Henton and redshirt junior Tyler Harris. In addition to the returning players in the frontcourt and on the wing the Friars are adding some young blood with redshirt freshman Rodney Bullock back from last season’s suspension along with incoming freshmen Jalen Lindsey, Ben Bentil and Paschal Chukwu. This is the part of the roster that has the most talent and depth. Ed Cooley and his staff have done an excellent job of upgrading the talent in the frontcourt from year 1 to year 4. To look back and think that the wing and frontcourt positions in Ed Cooley’s first season consisted of players like Gerard Coleman, Bilal Dixon, Kofane, Ron Giplaye and Goldsbrough gives you an idea of the talent upgrade with this portion of the roster over the last 3+ years.

Given the depth at both forward positions Ed Cooley will have plenty of potential lineup configurations to play with this season. The most likely starters at positions 3-5 are Harris, Henton and Desrosiers. Harris was good last year but played recklessly at times and had a propensity for running defenders over while out of control on fast breaks. He will need to clean that up and be a more consistent shooter of the basketball if his hopes of leaving Providence after this season for professional basketball are to come true. Henton will be looked at as the leader on this team. Cooley’s first ever recruit is now a senior and has been one of the most consistent players in college basketball these last 3 seasons. With his role on the court being somewhat fluid in terms of exactly where he will see the majority of his minutes, Henton should still be looked at as a 1st team All-BIG EAST type player. Desrosiers will be expected to increase his offensive assertiveness this season as he looked like  he was playing hot potato at times last season. His backup will be Chukwu and I have him pegged for somewhere between 12-15 minutes per game off the bench during his freshman campaign. His ability to block and alter shots at the rim will be the most immediate skill to translate. I worry about fouls and his high center of gravity but with added strength and more experience against players his size, I expect Chukwu to get better as the season goes along.

Rodney Bullock seems like a good candidate for the 6th man this season as his hybrid forward abilities will allow him to slide between positions depending on the lineup and needs of the team at that time. Bullock also had an impressive showing in Italy, for what that’s worth. Another big man off the bench who is likely to contribute is Ben Bentil. Bentil has reportedly looked good in practice and may have the ability to replace some of Kadeem Batts’ pick and roll game. Jalen Lindsey will also see minutes and should be able to defend from day 1. His bout with mononucleosis that kept him from traveling to Italy in August appears over and he should be fully ready to go on opening night.

The Future

Looking ahead to the future one of the things that is starting to happen with the roster is the classes are getting bunched up with currently 6 players in the class of 2018 (freshmen). Having classes that are too big can lead to issues with playing time as well as replacing a ton of players in one recruiting cycle if the class stays intact from years 1 through 4. Having said that, I would not be surprised to see a player in the freshman class get redshirted at some point. The obvious choices would be Kyron Cartwright and Tyree Chambers but they may be needed as guard depth this season and Chambers is already 20 years old. The other less likely scenario is redshirting Paschal Chukwu while Carson Desrosiers finishes out his last year. I doubt this will happen as Chukwu is too good at this point not to play some this season. The other thing is that classes tend to not stay intact from years 1 through 4 and it’s even less likely a class will stay intact with 6 players in that one class. Providence has seen firsthand that players decide to transfer all the time so the coaches never stop recruiting.

In terms of how the roster is shaping up from the positional aspect, I would say things are looking pretty solid. With the recruiting class of 2015, Friar fans are already seeing how recruiting strategy changes once you have a solid foundation of talent on the roster. Ed Cooley has brought in enough talent that Providence now has depth and the depth is talented. That allows the staff to focus more on specific needs and finding winning players who will fit the system. Obviously it would have been nice to get Donovan Mitchell but Drew Edwards is a very solid player that fills a role on this team and will likely be a very good 4 year player in the Providence program and system. Ryan Fazekas is a lengthy shooter that is versatile and should be a very good 4 year program player. Alex Owens is a rebounding machine that can complement Chukwu’s length.

In the past Providence was constantly recruiting from a place of desperate need and now they can recruit from a bit of a position of want. Cooley and his staff will still look to target top level talent and they have shown no fear in going up against the elites and blue bloods of college basketball. Don’t expect that to change. While writing this article it crystallized the thought that this is one of the deepest rosters that Providence has had in some time. It’s the kind of roster that will keep Ed Cooley up at night trying to figure out how to give guys minutes which is a great problem to have.

*Chambers in on campus and enrolled but no official announcement from the school has come out as of this writing.

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Mike Hopkins

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