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Providence Continues Pursuit of Highly Ranked Recruits

Ed Cooley is not scared of a little competition. And to be clear, going toe-to-toe with schools like Kansas, Louisville, Maryland, NC State and others of that ilk isn’t the kind of thing that would normally be classified as “little competition”. Cooley has been fearless when taking on larger and more established programs when he and his staff identify a recruit they really want. If you’re a fan of a program not named Duke or Kentucky, then you’re probably used to losing recruiting battles, especially when schools like Duke and Kentucky get involved. Cooley doesn’t care. He’s going to keep his head down and keep building a relationship with the player, the player’s parents, coaches, handlers, siblings, grandparents, dog walker, etc.

The examples in recent years are names Friar fans will recall, likely with a bit of a pained look in their eyes when you ask them about that player’s recruitment.

2016. Wenyen Gabriel. Kentucky.

2015. Donovan Mitchell. Louisville.

2014. Abdul-Malik Abu. NC State.

2014. Devonte’ Graham. Kansas.

Providence losing recruiting battles against Kentucky, Louisville, NC State and Kansas isn’t something new. In fact, it probably isn’t all that newsworthy. There are no moral victories in recruiting, after all. But the fact that Providence is even competing for these kinds of recruits is something that is happening because of Cooley.

To be specific, there are two reasons Providence being involved till the bitter end with top flight targets is because of Cooley.

The first is that Cooley makes the decision to continually pursue these kids, even when John Calipari, Rick Pitino, Mark Gottfried and Bill Self come calling at a recruit’s door. The other reason — the one I believe is most critical to Providence actually having a puncher’s chance with these recruits — is that Cooley gets involved directly in the player’s recruitment from the beginning. Cooley had been to more of Mitchell’s spring and summer grassroots games while Mitchell sat on the bench with a broken wrist than Rick Pitino attended by the time Louisville was thinking about offering the stock-rising guard a scholarship.

And that’s the basic point.

Cooley knows he has to work harder and be involved longer than other schools to land kids and he does it anyway. His strength is the ability to build relationships. It’s something that won’t come as a surprise to any Providence fan. Could Cooley decide to take the approach that he should be targeting recruits that are less of a risk to lose? Absolutely. The strategy to not even pursue highly ranked recruits is something many believe former Friar head coach Tim Welsh adopted in the latter half of his time in Friartown.

The theory behind that approach is that it wasn’t worth spending valuable time and resources chasing a kid that would likely end up at a bigger school anyway so, instead the recruiting plan is to chase after 3-star recruits and find the next “diamond in the rough” player. Providence certainly has found it’s share of diamonds scattered across the rough of the USA over the years, but a recruit like Ryan Gomes doesn’t come along nearly often enough to have sustained success. Cooley knows this.

That’s why Cooley “only recruits anacondas and not garden snakes,” as he told Brannen Greene, another player Providence would ultimately lose to Kansas in 2013.

The most recent highly ranked recruit that Cooley doggedly chased was 2017 point guard Makai Ashton-Langford. Ashton-Langford ultimately chose Kevin Ollie and the UConn Huskies after a recruitment he deemed to be “50-50 – that’s how close it was.” Ashton-Langford grew up a fan of UConn but by the time the Huskies offered him a scholarship in August of 2015, Cooley’s Providence offer was over a year old.

If Cooley didn’t believe so strongly in his ability to build relationships and have those relationships get him players, he probably wouldn’t have ended up bringing Kris Dunn to Providence. He certainly wouldn’t have continued to recruit Dunn and grow their bond while still at Fairfield. But, of course, Cooley did recruit Dunn while at Fairfield and because he grew their bond, Cooley was able to land the Friars’ first McDonald’s All-American since God Shammgod once he “ran home” to Providence. The two other reported finalists for Dunn? Louisville and UConn.

I had someone connected to a recent Providence commit tell me that “relationships always win.” That certainly seems to be Cooley’s belief. And there have been “wins” with highly ranked players besides Dunn. Friar fans will remember those names, too. And they might even cringe when you mention some of them. Ricky Ledo and Brandon Austin were two players that appeared to be real “wins” when they pledged to Providence, but neither one would actually play a game in a Friar uniform. Others like Paschal Chukwu — who transferred to Syracuse after just one season — and Jalen Lindsey — who hasn’t lived up to his pre-college rankings — haven’t really panned out like Dunn either.

Cooley and the Friars have an excellent recruiting class in 2017 with center Dajour Dickens and power forward Nate Watson committed already. While they are continuing to keep in touch with players in 2017, the focus has already shifted to 2018 and 2019.

This week Providence offered a guard in the class of 2018 that shows Cooley isn’t backing off his philosophy. The player is 6’4 Dunn-lookalike Immanuel Quickley. Quickley, a Maryland native, is currently ranked 16th nationally in 247Sports’ Composite National Ranking for the class of 2018. The 5-star prospect also holds offers from the likes of Arizona, Louisville, Maryland, Miami, Texas A&M, UCLA, UConn, USC, Villanova, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest and others.

Another big-time recruit Providence is chasing in the class of 2018 is Georgia wing Khavon Moore. Moore is ranked 10th in 247Sports’ Composite National Ranking and a Providence coach took was in to see him at his high school on September 12th. The Friars have also offered players ranked 18th (Jalen Smith), 19th (Keldon Johnson), 48th (AJ Reeves), 66th (Cole Swider), 84th (Devon Dotson), 90th (Kiyon Boyd) and 96th (Nate Laszewski) in 247Sports’ Top 100 Composite National Ranking for 2018. Cooley and his staff have even already targeted some top-ranked players in 2019 like Joey Baker, Taelon Martin, Armando Bacot and Josh Nickelberry — all ranked inside 247Sports’ Top 50 Composite National Ranking for 2019.

The moral of the story is Cooley will keep chasing anacondas. He’ll probably lose most of the battles, but he really just needs to win one every few years like with Dunn. Fans worried that Cooley would either change his approach or leave Providence because he was getting tired of losing top recruits to bigger schools can probably rest a bit easier knowing that Cooley isn’t changing and his “lifetime” contract extension this past Spring makes it a little more likely he isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. He certainly doesn’t appear to be backing down from a little competition.

Follow me on Twitter @pcbb1917

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