As Providence Closes Out the Summer Session, What Stood Out and What's Next?

The 2025-26 Friars will wrap up their summer session over the next week. It was a critical summer of continuity building for Kim English’s group — a team that welcomed five players via the transfer portal, four freshmen, and a pair of new faces to the coaching staff.

Here are some takeaways from the summer session:

Providence has stayed relatively healthy.

Knee surgery for incoming freshman Stefan Vaaks is the only long-term injury facing the Friars at this point. The talented guard out of Estonia underwent surgery just over two months ago, with English noting that Vaaks could see live action in roughly a month and a half to two months.

There were some nicks and bruises along the way that kept players out of certain practices, but this summer was a far cry from last year when PC was shorthanded throughout the summer due to an endless string of bad injury luck.

English’s approach to the summer was to spend the first half getting players acclimated to the system, the coaches, and each other, and then ramping up the live action in the second half.

While health was priority one, English shared that his focal points this summer were connectivity between everyone involved in the operation, the pace with which they want to play next year, and establishing a defensive identity.

Is he happy with how this group has looked to date? Yes, but with a bit of a caveat: “Every coach would say that. It’s like a pro team after their draft — they always got exactly who they wanted.”

The athleticism of this group stands out.

The Friars added some big-time athletes, highlighted by Florida State transfer Daquan Davis’ quickness, UCF transfer Jaylin Sellers’ speed and bounce, and the jaw-dropping overall athletic ability of freshman Jamier Jones.

Providence also returns one of the most athletic big men in the country in sophomore center Oswin Erhunwunse. Friar fans will instantly see a difference in Erhunwunse physically. “He’s a lot stronger,” English said. “He’s noticeably bigger. I think he’s around 250 (pounds) right now and he hasn’t lost his athleticism.”

Jones has NBA-level athleticism and physical measurements, and it really pops on the practice court. “He’s getting better and better and better. He’s very, very coachable. With his natural talent, coachability is a great trait to have,” English said of Jones.