Late Night Madness festivities have become much less about the official beginning of the college basketball season, which is how the tradition began in 1971 at Maryland. These gaudy events are now much more heavily geared towards impressing recruits and the Friars will do their best to make a splash with the top 2018 target in the state of Rhode Island on Saturday night. Cole Swider, the 6’8 sharp-shooter from Portsmouth, will be in attendance and is currently ranked as the #1 recruit in Rhode Island by ESPN. Swider has a 247Sports Composite National Ranking of 70th in the class of 2018. The Friars offered the St. Andrew’s wing back in June, though they’ve been tracking him for much longer. Swider has also been familiar with the in-state Friars much longer than just a few months ago. He attended Providence’s Elite Camp the last two years and was in attendance for Bill Raftery and Ludacris at the 2015 Late Night Madness on Providence’s campus. This year, Providence is bringing in Shaquille O’Neal a.k.a. DJ Diesel to perform around 9pm and Providence Hall of Famer Doris Burke of ESPN will be the emcee for the evening. Doors to Mullaney Gym open at 6:45pm Saturday night.

Madness Visitors

My annual disclaimer: many of the names you will see of players in attendance will never actually be recruited by Providence. Grassroots programs bring a van-load of kids to these events because they are entertaining and it’s a chance for kids to see a school’s facilities a little bit. From Providence’s standpoint, it can’t hurt to have players on your campus. You never know who will be the next breakout star from Mass Rivals, so having a player that is 3 or 4 years away from finishing high school on your campus for a marquee recruiting event makes sense.

Recent 2017 commit Nate Watson will be in attendance after pledging to Ed Cooley and the Friars during his official visit on September 9th and 10th. The Friars’ other 2017 commit Dajour Dickens will also be in attendance. Other players holding a Providence offer that are expected to be in attendance in addition to Swider on Saturday night include 2018 Providence native 2018 David Duke of Cushing Academy and Rivals, 2018 Noah Locke of McDonogh and Team Melo who was offered at Providence’s Elite Camp in June and the highest ranked player expected to attend is 2018 AJ Reeves of Brimmer and May and Rivals. Reeves is ranked 49th in the class of 2018 by 247Sports Composite National Ranking. One other 2018 player expected to attend that Providence is recruiting but hasn’t offered is Shandon Brown of New Hampton and BABC. Other attendees include 2018 Chauncey Sterling of Pennington School and NJ Roadrunners who is the younger brother of former Florida and Boston College guard Eli Carter, 2019 Taelon Martin of Putnam Tech and Rivals, 2019 Jalen Lecque of Monsignor Scanlan, 2019 Charles Coleman of Dexter HS, 2019 Chris Camille of Brookline HS, 2019 Akok Akok of Putnam Science Academy, Aaron Gray of LaSalle Academy.

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

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Mike Hopkins

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