Providence Recruiting Update: Big Man Search Going South

When I last posted a recruiting update 7 days ago it was on the heels of Providence hosting their annual Late Night Madness festivities. The Friars had top big man target Sedee Keita in town for his official visit that weekend  and made their big push to get the Delaware native to commit before leaving campus. That big push didn’t yield a commitment and soon after Keita left Friartown a bevy of new names emerged with Providence interest or offers. The spigot of new names is still open. Adam Finkelstein reported on Tuesday that Keita has transferred back down to 22ft Academy — the South Carolina school he attended last year prior to coming back to New England at Putnam Science Academy.

Keita has now been at 4 different high schools in 5 years. That kind of movement means Keita will get a closer look by the NCAA Clearinghouse when its time for him to attend the school of his choice.

Appoquinimink is Keita’s local public high school in Delaware where he attended for freshman and sophomore years before transferring to Vermont Academy and repeating his sophomore year. By doing that he moved from the class of 2015 to the class of 2016. After one season up north at Vermont Academy Keita was on the move again — this time down south to 22ft Academy in South Carolina. Keita’s recruitment changed while at 22ft Academy and more schools in the SEC started to get involved, including the South Carolina Gamecocks. The move back to 22ft Academy after spending the last 2 months or so at Putnam Science Academy is a puzzling one.

As for some of the new names that have been linked to the Friars in the last few days it appears Ed Cooley and his staff are looking high and low for at least one big man in 2016. The narrative that is starting to take shape in Friartown is that Providence wants to add a big man in the fall signing period and would be willing to wait until the spring to add another. A player like Levi Cook has indicated he wants to wait until the spring to commit and that could be the case for some of the other big men Providence has become involved with recently. How true that line of thinking is remains to be seen.

Providence offered Keita’s new 22ft Academy teammate Darius Hicks over the weekend. Hicks is a 6’7 PF from Mississippi. He was committed to Mississippi State prior to the firing of Rick Ray this March. Once Ray was let go Hicks made the decision to open up his recruitment. Hicks’ ESPN Scouting Report calls him “a strong and physical post forward with a college ready body” and says “he’s a high major prospect who is very productive on the glass.” Hicks transferred to 22ft Academy this year for his senior season. Since de-committing from Mississippi State offers have come in from Georgia Tech, Miami, Penn State and UMass. Jeff Battle is the Providence coach that first reached out to Hicks.

The Friars search for a big man is taking them all over the country and could end up taking them all over the world if they find someone they like abroad. Cooley’s made some connections overseas due to his involvement with USA Basketball and Andre LaFleur has connections in Germany and Australia that he could lean on to help with this big man search. The fall signing period begins exactly two weeks from today and the Friars would like to have more than just Maliek White putting ink to paper in November.

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Mike Hopkins

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