Providence Recruiting Update: Late Night Madness is Here

Brisk mid-October temperatures are heading for the Northeast this weekend but the temperature inside Alumni Hall on Providence College’s campus figures to be red-hot. Senior Associate Athletic Director Steve Napolillo and Ed Cooley have managed to keep the bar high for Providence’s Late Night Madness festivities that will kick off at 8pm on Saturday with the introduction of the men’s and women’s basketball teams by broadcasting legend Bill Raftery. Doors open at 6pm for those students with season tickets and all other students can enter at 6:45pm. The event is open only to Providence College students. Ludacris will perform around 9pm. Cox Hub will have free live streaming of Late Night Madness from 8pm-9pm.

The Key is Keita

Putnam Science Academy’s Sedee Keita begins his official visit to Providence on Friday and is sticking around for Late Night Madness on Saturday. Keita has quickly become the key recruit for Cooley in the class of 2016 after missing on other big men like Wenyen Gabriel (Kentucky), JJ Matthews (Towson) and Kevin Marfo (George Washington). Keita has already visited South Carolina and Temple and also has LSU, Penn State and UNLV in his top 6, though he hasn’t set any visit dates for those last 3 schools. Cooley needs to bolster his frontcourt after already landing a commitment from point guard Maliek White to help out next season when Kris Dunn is in the NBA. He is from Delaware and ran with the same grassroots program — WE R1 — that current Friars Ben Bentil played with during his prep career.

Other Madness Visitors

Many of the names you will see of freshmen and sophomores that will attend Providence’s Late Night Madness will never be recruited by Cooley and his staff. That’s because local grassroots programs tend to bring a bunch of their kids to these events but it’s always good to have kids become familiar with your program and meet the coaching staff and players. You never know who will turn out to be the next Donovan Mitchell or Gabriel. A pair of Vermont Academy shooters will be in attendance on Saturday in Christian David (2017) and Corey Romich (2017). David is a very talented Canadian player, while Romich is a 3-point specialist. Mass Rivals is bringing a number of their players on Saturday, including Aaron Wheeler (2017) — profiled last week as possibly the next breakout Providence recruit — and David Duke (2018). Both Wheeler and Duke attended Providence’s Elite Camp in August — Wheeler was offered after the camp — and Wheeler attended last year’s Late Night Madness at Providence. Makai Ashton-Langford (2017), Wabissa Bede (2017) and Jarrod Simmons (2017) are unable to attend due to Cushing Academy having an on-campus weekend. Expressions Elite is also bringing players to Providence’s Late Night Madness, including Preston Santos (2018) and Dana Tate (2018). Putnam Science Academy is also sending Chuba Ohams (2016) and Hamidou Diallo (2017) in addition to Keita. Ohams was also at Providence’s Elite Camp. An out of town visitor is Isaiah Whaley (2016) who hails from North Carolina.

I’ll update the visitors list as more names become known.

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