Providence Recruiting Update: This Weekend Kicks Off Big 30 Day Stretch of Visitors for Friars

The recruiting buzz around the Providence program has been steadily picking up over the last few weeks as lists have been cut down and official visits scheduled. This weekend begins a massively important 30 day stretch for Ed Cooley and his staff as they will host 6 recruits and have their annual Late Night Madness. The visitors begin with a wing from the class of 2016 today and end with a slew of recruits at Late Night Madness on October 17th with some other high profile recruits coming to the campus in between.

Cooley has been looking for that next big-time recruit since landing a few in his 2014 class that was made up of Ben Bentil, Kyon Cartwright, Tyree Chambers, Paschal Chukwu and Jalen Lindsey. That class was ranked in the top 25 that year and was Cooley’s second top 25 class since being hired in March 2011. The 2015 class is filled with very solid players but no highly ranked “star” recruits. There is a lot of potential for Cooley to land another top 25 class in 2016 with the amount of talent the Friars have been involved with even with the departure of Bob Simon. Jeff Battle has come into the fold and pressed his network to find and offer talented players — many from North Carolina and Virginia. Andre LaFleur and Brian Blaney have gotten Providence involved with a number of other targets, most notably Shamorie Ponds (LaFleur) and Kevin Marfo (Blaney).

Cooley being able to get commitments from a few of the visitors that will explore the Providence campus these next 30 days will go a long way towards keeping the ball rolling with this Providence program in the post-Kris Dunn era which figures to be starting after the 2015-16 season.

Here’s the schedule for visitors and a little breakdown of each player:

(Note that you can track these visits on the pcbb1917 calendar that can be downloaded to your mobile device at the bottom of the schedule page.

September 18th-20th: Jalen Johnson

The first visitor is an athletic wing player from North Carolina in Jalen Johnson. Johnson is the kind of player that fits an in vogue descriptor very well; he’s a “3 and D” player. That means he can shoot the ball from downtown and defend the perimeter. I saw him play at the adidas All-American camp back in July and came away impressed with his athletic ability and shooting stroke. The athletic ability has been there but the shooting stroke has apparently improved recently. Johnson attends Wesleyan Christian and figures to take over a leadership role there this year as a senior and with the departure of top 3 player in the class Harry Giles. North Carolina was in to Wesleyan Christian on Wednesday to see Johnson and he is also in the midst of scheduling an official visit to Florida, so the competition for Johnson’s services appears to be heating up.

UPDATE 9/18/15 12:10pm: Eric Bossi of Rivals.com is reporting that Christian David, a 2017 guard who attends Vermont Academy, will visit Providence unofficially this weekend. This is the Canadian’s first year attending school in the USA.

September 25th-27th: Kevin Marfo

Next up to visit Friartown is bulky power forward Kevin Marfo. Marfo recently cut his list from 10 to 5 and included the Friars, along with Boston College, DePaul, George Washington and Rhode Island. He began his official visit to Boston College yesterday. The New Jersey native transferred to Worcester Academy last summer and reclassified from 2015 to 2016. He ran with BABC on the grassroots circuit this spring and summer but was with The City — Donovan Mitchell’s former grassroots program — prior to that. He had an injury-plagued first year at Worcester Academy and his real breakout on the recruiting scene came during the grassroots season with BABC on the Nike EYBL circuit. Marfo finished 5th in the EYBL regular season in rebounds/game at 9.2 per contest while averaging 11.1 points/game and 1.2 blocks/game. Brian Blaney has been the lead assistant on Marfo.

October 2nd-4th: Maliek White & JJ Matthews

These River City Reign teammates will trip to Providence together and a package deal is not out of the question, according to JJ Matthews. The big man just had surgery on his knee on Thursday and plans to be back in about 7 months. He also plans to commit during the Fall signing period. He has already taken visits to Towson, Old Dominion and Murray State. The only school he has yet to schedule a visit to on his final 6 is Temple. Matthews is a big body that appears to be a good fit in a pick and roll offense as his offensive game has been expanding.

Maliek White is one of the guard targets that Cooley and staff are hoping to lure to Friartown. White led his George Wythe high school team to a state championship last year and improved his stock on the recruiting trail this spring and summer with the RCR program. White is visiting Pittsburgh this weekend and has also taken visits to VCU, Old Dominion and will see Cincinnati next weekend before he gets to Providence.

October 9th-11th: Wenyen Gabriel & Jalen Harris

Wenyen Gabriel was one of the biggest risers in the rankings between last year and now and the Wilbraham & Monson forward recently set his official visit date for Providence for October 9th. Gabriel has taken a visit to Maryland and will see Kentucky next weekend. He then travels to UConn on October 2nd and trips to Duke the weekend after he will be in Friartown. Landing Gabriel would give Cooley a signature recruit who is currently ranked as a top 20 player in the class and could potentially be a McDonald’s All-American like Dunn was coming out of New London.

Jalen Harris got an in-home visit from Providence on September 13th that resulted in an offer being extended and an official visit date being set. Harris attends Word of God Christian Academy in North Carolina and ran with Jalen Johnson and Team Wall on the grassroots circuit. Rick Lewis of PhenomHoopReport.com recently told me that “Jalen is a super quick PG and has excellent court vision. He has tremendous bounce off the dribble. He is a passer friendly PG with excellent court vision. He has HM ability. The next step in his development is to cut down on unforced turnovers.”

October 16-18th: Late Night Madness

Late Night Madness is always a big recruiting tool and Cooley and his staff continue to improve on the annual event by bringing in marquee names to either MC, entertain or both. Last year it was Jalen Rose and Big Sean and this year it will be Ludacris. The actual event takes place on October 17th and is open only to students. I attended last year and if the students show up like they did last year it promises to be another raucous night inside Alumni Hall. I’ll put out a list of attendees as the event gets closer and the majority of the kids in attendance are from the local prep schools and are freshmen and sophomores but I wouldn’t be surprised to see a 2016 target or two attend the Late Night Madness festivities. Power forward Sedee Keita of Putnam Science Academy has said he will visit Providence but has yet to set a date and point guard Justice Kithcart recently cut his list to 5 schools that he plans to visit officially but a date to visit Providence hasn’t been set.

Recruiting is the lifeblood of a program and these next 30 days could give Providence a nice shot in the arm should they manage to get a pledge from one or more of these visitors. The Friars currently have 1 open scholarship for 2016 but figure to have at least 1 more with Dunne expected to enter the NBA Draft after this season. With the transfer epidemic that is ongoing in college basketball right now worrying about exactly how many openings a school has this far ahead of the spring signing period is probably not a worthwhile thing to agonize over. Cooley and staff need to start closing on some of these recruiting targets and I’m sure they would like to have guys signed in November so they can focus more attention on the talented class of 2017.

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Mike Hopkins

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