2016 Kalif Young to Visit Providence May 14th

Providence may be officially out of scholarships at the moment, but that hasn’t stopped Ed Cooley and his staff from chasing players. Last week the Friars got a commitment from 2016 Alpha Diallo and that put Providence at 13 scholarships — the maximum allowed — for next season. However, Ben Bentil’s future remains up in the air as he tests the NBA waters and transfers are rampant in college basketball. One of the best available big men left in the class of 2016 is Canadian Kalif Young and Young’s father told Adam Zagoria of Zagsblog.com that Kalif plans to visit Providence for the weekend of May 14th and then make decision soon after that.

Young begins a visit to Marquette on Wednesday and it appears the 6’9 forward will decide between the two Big East schools. Other schools like Oklahoma, Purdue and Vanderbilt called to try to get involved in Young’s recruitment and multiple sources told pcbb1917.com last week that Alabama was the leader for his services. Either that wasn’t accurate or things changed quickly for Young, who had scheduled a visit to Alabama in April but ultimately cancelled that visit. He had also previously cancelled visits to Providence and Marquette before re-scheduling those for May.

Don’t let his 247Sports Composite National Ranking fool you, Young can play. A quick note on rankings: many services will not include international players in their rankings and because Young is playing in Canada, he wasn’t included in many of the top services like ESPN. Young ran with CIA Bounce for 5 games last spring on the Nike EYBL grassroots circuit, averaging 6.8 points/game and 7.2 rebounds/game. Young played in the Biosteel All-Canadian Games — Canada’s version of the McDonald’s All-American game — featuring the top 24 high school basketball players from across Canada the last two years. This year he took home MVP honors for Team Red after scoring 20 points and grabbing 9 rebounds. He was also measured prior to the game and came in at 6’9 with shoes on and a 7’0 wingspan. The left-hander weighed in at 255 pounds.

If Young makes it home from the Marquette visit without committing and does indeed travel to Providence for the May 14th-15th visit as scheduled, I think the Friars have an excellent shot at landing the talented Toronto native. Scholarship math has a way of working itself out and I have no doubt it will should Young want to commit to Providence. Jeff Battle has been the lead assistant in Young’s recruitment.

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