- Tim Welsh to The Providence Journal’s Kevin McNamara after learning he had been fired as Providence’s head coach.
Just over two years into his regime as Providence College head basketball coach, Keno Davis has yet to utter sentiments along these lines, and by the way he and his staff are attacking the recruiting trail you get the sense they don’t have time to mull it over. Clearly, they are aware of the challenges of competing in the Big East, but what has been refreshing for Providence fans has been this staff’s insistence that they will get it done here. What has been encouraging are the inroads being made on the recruiting trail without the benefit of postseason success.
With the constantly evolving world of recruiting, it can be easy to overlook the amazing strides made by this staff over the last calendar year. In the never-ending quest to build a winner, fans are thrilled by the news of a highly regarded player coming aboard, buzz about it for a week and quickly ask “what’s next?” Now is a great time to take a breath and just stop to see what the last year has brought. The results are astounding.
It is easy to forget now, but this is a program that had not landed a top 100 player since DeSean White committed in the fall of 2003. In the past eleven months they scored Scout’s 35th ranked player, a Parade and ESPN All American, a verbal from a top 60 junior, welcomed to campus a top 50 junior, a top 20 sophomore shooting guard, the top player in the class of 2012 and apparently lead for ESPN’s 19th ranked player in 2012. They also hosted a top 100 senior last weekend.
Keno Davis and his staff may recognize the challenges so many pointed to when Welsh was dismissed from PC, but they aren’t letting it stop them from going after, and landing, a level of talent not seen at Providence in a very long time.
There will always be a faction of Providence fans who need to see the proof on the court, who believe the ratings and rankings are nothing but projections that won’t mean a thing unless this coaching staff can blend the talent into a cohesive unit, one capable of winning in the biggest, toughest conference in the country. This is fair, yet, even the staunchest critics cannot argue with all that has been accomplished in the past year.
The standard model for this staff is to get on kids early, get them to campus, build a relationship, and seal the deal. It is the formula that worked with Gerard Coleman and one they hope will work with others, including Khem Birch, Nerlins Noel, and Ricky Ledo.
Yet, they have also shown the ability to deviate from that game plan. They spotted Joseph Young before the rest of the country bought in and convinced him to go to school halfway across the country before blew up. They scored a commitment from Brice Kofane, a player with no local ties, whose recruitment opened late, and managed to swoop in to land the shot blocker.
BC finally releases Minnesota native Kevin Noreen (another top 100 player per ESPN) and within weeks he is on campus taking an official visit.
If Noreen chooses Providence the Friars will have landed three kids who are popping up on top 100 lists somewhere. DeSean White in ’03 was a long time ago indeed.
The commitment of Gerard Coleman last June kicked off a furious year of recruiting, and almost eleven months to the day of his verbal the good news out of Providence continued with a visit by one of the top big men in the class of 2012, Khem Birch.
If the next eleven months are as productive on the recruiting trail as the past eleven, Providence will be buzzing about the oncourt product soon enough.
