The NBE Basketball report has a great update on the top prep underclassmen.  If you’ve been keeping an eye on FriarBasketball.net’s recruiting updates, some of these names will seem familiar as big PC targets.  Obviously, Ricky Ledo has been mentioned here several times, but nice to see this quote from his coach.

“Ricardo is accepting his challenges and he’s done OK. He knows he’s got to get better. He does one thing extremely well – he scores. But can you make your teammates better? Defense – he’s embracing it. All I ask of him is to just get better,” Hart said.

You had me at defense.

Also discussed are two top point guards. We can’t have enough point guards.

The 2011 class has a pair of point guards who are among the best in the country at their position in Shabazz Napier (Lawrence Academy) and Naadir Tharpe (Brewster Academy)

Anyways, the fact that we are pursuing these guys isn’t really new.  I just like reading how they describe who is involved — it just shows the hard work Keno and his staff are putting in to have a chance to land them.

Shabazz Napier - For the local, Connecticut was there as well, while Providence and UMass have tracked him hard

Naadir Tharp - Providence and Boston College have been on him the hardest

Ricky Ledo - Hart mentioned Providence, Rhode Island, Boston College as locals who have been there since early

On the latest Cox Sports’ “Tip Off Show” host Vin Parise talks with college hoop recruiting expert Adam Finkelstein about Providence College’s outstanding signings, most notably guards Gerard Coleman and Joseph Young

2011 recruit Stevie Taylor had an unofficial visit to PC over the weekend.

NBE Basketball Report: 2011 PG STEVIE TAYLOR LOVES PROVIDENCE

Stevie Taylor is a pure point guard out of Lincoln High School in Gahanna (OH) who has played AAU for All Ohio Red and the Cleveland Basketball Club this past summer. Stevie is scat-quick at 5-8/5-9 with a complete understanding of how to play the game from the point guard position as well as the ability to hit runners/teardrops in the lane that make a player like him even more effective. He also shoots the ball very well from deep.

Here are some quotes from Taylor from the post

“It was a great visit,” said Taylor, “the campus and city are really unique and beautiful, plus I got to hang out with the team and coaches and understand the academic side of things.”

“Of course,” Taylor replied when I asked him if playing in the Big East is attractive to him, “everybody wants to play at the highest level and the Big East is no joke, it’s the real deal.”

The young PG has Ohio, Akron and PC listed as his final choices

The folks over at the Villanova blog VUHoops have a great post discussing how fans can potentially get their school in trouble by interacting with potential recruits through social media.

Warning: Recruiting Violations

Just be sure to replace “Villanova” with “Providence” below in this excerpt (heh).

As a Villanova fan with knowledge of a potential recruit’s Twitter account, you should feel free to “follow” these players. You can probably “retweet” their comments as well. However, any “pitch” attached to the retweet as a comment, or any  reply directed at them, or mention of them in a “persuasive” manner could get the program in trouble. Please do NOT message (direct or otherwise) any unsigned recruit on the internet.

If an unsigned recruit follows your Twitter account, feel free to speak highly of Villanova. Talk about how awesome it is to be a Villanova basketball player. Say whatever you want, just leave out the player’s names and DEFINITELY don’t include the “@username” in the tweet.

One secondary violation will probably not result in much for the school, but multiple/repeated violations are considered a “major violation” under Bylaw 19.02.2.2. Intentional contact with a recruit is a Level I secondary violation that Villanova would be required to report to the NCAA immediately (unlike a Level II secondary violation which are accidental and reported quarterly).

Please just keep this in mind as you converse around the internets.

We knew it was coming, but now it is official — check out the latest info on PC’s new recruits for next year on Friars.com

Gerard Coleman, Ron Giplaye and Joe Young will enter PC in September 2010.

Providence College men’s basketball coach Keno Davis announced on November 11that student-athletes Gerard Coleman (West Roxbury, Mass.), Ron Giplaye (Lowell, Mass.) and Joe Young (Houston, Texas) each have signed a National Letter of Intent to attend Providence College beginning in September 2010.

Gerard Coleman

He is rated the 30th-best prospect in the class of 2010 by Slam Magazine, the 51st-best prospect by Rivals.com, 66th overall by Scout.com and 72nd overall by ESPNU. Coleman is the 11th-ranked shooting guard according to Rivals.com and he is rated No. 16 by Scout.com

Love these phrases from ESPN: “The long lefty is a pure scorer”, ” He has great confidence in his shot and is not afraid to take the big one”, and especially “He’s a very disruptive full court defender, at his best in passing lanes, and capable of being a good on-the-ball defender”

Joseph Young

“Son of NBA player Michael Young”

Gotta love son’s of NBA players! #58 Shooting Guard according to ESPN.  Also love the first line about him: “Young is the ultimate shooter.”

Ron Giplaye

Giplaye is a very physical player who uses his strength to rebound and score down low.

We need some bruisers in the BEAST!  Well, he’ll fit in perfectly, because his profile says he is: “An absolute beast physically” #104 Power Forward according to ESPN.  Oh, and apparently he “dunks with both hands”, which I am a huge fan of.  Not that single hand nancy shit.

Welcome to Friartown boys!

As the early signing period arrives, MaxPreps re-ranked the top recruiting classes in the nation for 2010.  Guess who made this list?

Top 25 college basketball recruiting classes

23. Providence
Top 100: No. 69 Joseph Young (6-2, 175, G), No. 87 Gerard Coleman (6-4, 175, G)
Supporting Cast: Ron Giplaye (6-5, 200, F)
Analysis: Young drew some big crowds (comprised of college coaches) during Las Vegas’ AAU extravaganza with his scoring exploits.

God Bless Keno Davis.  I can’t remember the last time we made a list like this (I’m guessing the Brown/Brew class?).  It’s great to see the recognition from all the hard work coach and his staff have been doing since they arrived.  As all you Friar Fanatics already know, the future of Friartown is looking brighter and brighter each day.

H/T: ChiFriar

Over the past week StatSheet.com has been releasing a lot of new recruiting and High School Basketball features to get ready for the new College Basketball season.  Here are some interesting new pages.

• Best and Worst by Category - Breaks down entire NCAA classes by wins, losses, and tourney appearances.
• Best/Worst Freshman Classes - Which class had the biggest / worst impact based on three metrics: Winning %, NCAA Tourney %, NBA Draft picks.
• Recruiting by Conference - breakdown of the Top 100 recruits by class in the BIG EAST.  Here is a shocker: The 2008 class was the best!  It also lists all the Top 100 recruits who have played in the conference.
• Recruiting by Team - The data is um, a little thin for our Friars, but you can view all the Top 100 recruits data by any other team as well.
• Impact Players and Most Disappointing Recruits - To my surprise, DeSean White did not make the latter.  Maybe they players had to play all four years?

Note: Since 1998, Dwight Brewington (2003), Gerald Brown (2004), and DeSean White are PC’s only Top 100 recruits.  According to the Number of top recruits by team, this total is pretty low on the list (which I’m sure I didn’t have to tell you that).  Hey, we are TWO up on URI!

Anyways, kudos to Robbie at StatSheet for more cool features.  You can follow what he is up to on the site via the StatSheet blog, or follow them on Twitter.

Next year’s Friar team just got a little more experienced with the verbal commitment of Russ Permenter, a 6-9 JUCO big man from Temple, Texas.   Permenter sat behind the bench during Saturday night’s Rutgers game, and gave his verbal before flying back home.

Permenter went to Texas-San Antonio out of high school, and transferred to Temple College for his sophomore year.

(photo by tdtnews.com)

This is huge for the Friars since they are losing 5 seniors after this season, including forwards Geoff McDermott, Jonathan Kale, and Randall Hanke.  They will have a lot of young talent in their frontcourt, with Bilal Dixon and Jamine “Greedy” Peterson coming off redshirt years, and James Still and Kadeem Batts as incoming freshman.  Permenter will hopefully be able to contribute right away while the young guys get up to speed.

INFO AROUND THE WEB

Kevin McNamara Blog Post: Permenter commits to Providence

Kevin McNamara Blog Post: Friars Close in on Juco Recruit

Temple Daily Telegram: Positive returns: Back home in Temple, Leopards’ Permenter hopes big season creates second Division I shot

He paces Temple (14-10 overall, 4-4 Northern Texas Junior College Athletic Conference) with per-game averages of 18.9 points, 8.5 rebounds and 3.1 blocked shots entering the Leopards’ crucial duel against second-place Hill (16-8, 6-2) at 4 p.m. today at TC Gym.

“His numbers have been what I expected,” Johnson said. “He has 72 blocks for the season, which is the most already that we’ve ever had anybody have, and he has a shot at getting to 100. Russ has helped us immensely because he’s big and he can run.”

Rivals Profile from a few years back

ESPN Profile: Doesn’t have much info, but gives him a scouts grade of 81.

Permenter’s Stats as Freshman at Texas-San Antonio

Permenter’s Stats this season at Temple College

St. Ben’s Still Undefeated; Friars Offer Taylor

Providence assistant Pat Skerry was at NYU this past weekend for the SNY Invitational and came away sufficiently impressed with Brooklyn Boys & Girls sophomore guard Mike Taylor.
Providence then became the latest school to offer the 6-foot-3 Taylor a scholarship. He also holds offers from Rutgers and St. John’s, and Pitt is interested.

Taylor hit a buzzer-beating game-winning 3-pointer Saturday night to give Boys & Girls a 58-55 victory over Brooklyn rival Thomas Jefferson in the consolation game of the SNY Invitational.

“Mike Taylor can really shoot the ball,” said recruiting expert Tom Konchalski. “He’s a terrific 3-point shooter.”

Here is SNY’s video of Taylor’s Game winning 3

ELSEWHERE ON THE WEB

Mike Taylor’s Scout Profile

Mike Taylor’s ESPN Profile

December, 2008: A superb scoring, combo guard that has the always attacking mentality that big time New York guards have. He can score in a variety of ways. Michael is a great 3 point shooter that has a extremely quick release and has great elevation on his jumper that allows him to get a shot off even with a hand in his face. He shoots it off the dribble or coming off screens. He is a shooter that you can run sets for. Michael is a pressure defender that is tough and plays very hard. He gets into you all 84” and has active hands on the defensive end. In the break, Taylor will shoot the three with range or blow by his defender and hit a pull up or finish high at the rim. He is a tough shot taker but he makes them. He is able to hit some of the most difficult shots in the game on a regular basis. Taylor scored over 20 in 2 of his 3 games at the Beach Ball Classic with his best performance being a 21 pt., 6 reb., 6 ast., 3 steal effort in a win over JL Mann (SC). He was one of the better guards in the event.

Scouts Grade: 92

Wright, Grace Pick Up St. John’s Offers; Providence After Fuquan Edwin

Providence is in the mix for two high school juniors.

They already had an offer for Joel “Air Jamaica” Wright, a 6-6 forward, who just got an offer from St. John’s

As for Wright, he holds offers from St. John’s, Providence, West Virginia, Central Florida and Fordham.

“Providence is putting the fullcourt press on him,” Pollard said. “Fordham is putting the fullcourt press on him. He wants to commit soon.”

The Friars are also pursuing junior Fuquan Edwin

Providence is hot on the trail of 6-5 Paterson Catholic junior Fuquan Edwin, who scored 26 points in Monday’s win over Wright and Jefferson at the Freedom Fighters Challenge in Paterson, N.J.

Seton Hall is also involved.

“Fuquan Edwin scores like we breathe,” recruiting expert Tom Konchalski said.

Here are some of his highlights

Video Posted from Fuquan’s Gallery on Takkle.com

Some Fuquan Edwin Links Around the Web

Edwin’s ESPN Profile

December, 2008: An athletic wing that is a run and jump player. He uses his athleticism to slash to the basket and finish in traffic. Although his elbow is out on his jumper, Edwin is a consistent 3-pt shooter. But the bulk of his scoring is done on the break and in his driving game. He is great at cutting through the defense and being crafty with his shots around the basket. Combining his athleticism with his creativity around the bucket makes Edwin a tough player to stop off the dribble. Named to the All-Tournament team at the Beach Ball Classic in averaging 19 ppg.

Scouts Grade: 70

Rivals Profile

Zagsblog Interview from July