2016 Forward Wenyen Gabriel to Visit Providence October 9th

Wenyen Gabriel has sort of gotten lost in the shuffle of Providence recruiting talk over the last couple of weeks. Gabriel blew up this summer and received offers from some of the most blue blood programs in college basketball. He cut his list to a final 5 and included Providence but the Friars were the last of his 5 to have an official visit date set so Friar fans were not feeling optimistic, having been spurned by their top target before in previous recruiting years. Gabriel did set a visit date for an official visit to Providence on Wednesday and Friartown is abuzz with talk of what this means for their chances of landing the top 20 recruit.

Pat Lawless of MADEhoops.com broke the news of the visit date being set for October 9th-11th. Lawless also sat down for an interview with Gabriel in which the New Hampshire native breaks down each of his final 5 schools. Here’s what Gabriel told Lawless about Providence:

“I like the relationship I have with Coach Cooley,” he said. “I probably have the closest relationship with him out of all the different coaches. I can really relate with him and they’ve done a great job explaining to me who they will use me on the court, which reassures me that I can make it where I want with their team.”

Cooley visited Gabriel at his home in Manchester, NH on the first day of the recruiting period, September 9th. The Gabriel house was busy that day with visits coming also from Mark Turgeon of Maryland and Coack Krzyzewski of Duke. He also got visits from Kevin Ollie of UConn and John Calipari of Kentucky the following day. Gabriel already took his first official visit to Maryland last weekend. Next up is Kentucky on September 25th. Then he goes to UConn on October 2nd, followed by Providence on October 9th and finishes with at trip to Duke on October 16th.

Gabriel told Lawless he plans to take all of his visits before deciding, probably in November. Much has been made of Duke’s interest possibly waning after they offered Javin DeLaurier this week but Gabriel said “it doesn’t matter who else they are recruiting now because it simply doesn’t bother me and change my opinion about them.” Duke is scheduled to visit Gabriel at his school today.

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Mike Hopkins

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