Recruiting Momentum has Slowed Since the Glorious Day David Duke Popped for PC

The Friars looked primed to further build on their success when Duke committed in the fall of 2017.

Since I began covering the Friars in 2009, David Duke’s commitment to Providence remains one of a handful of moments that truly stood out in regard to the widespread reaction of the national media, the fans, former PC players, and the college itself. With Duke hoping to be selected in this week’s NBA Draft, I have started to think back on that excitement and the momentum Providence built at the time.

Duke committed to Providence on Friday, Oct. 13 of his senior year at Cushing Academy. Those were heady times for both Duke and Providence.

Duke, a Providence native, had won a state championship at Classical High School before heading to Cushing Academy, where he exploded onto the national scene almost instantly. Duke won a NEPSAC AA title in his first year at Cushing, and by the time he graduated he was universally considered a top 50 national prospect. He was a 6’5 guard with above average athleticism and the ability to swing between both guard spots.

The Friars were flying high themselves. Ed Cooley’s group had reached the previous four NCAA Tournaments, and in the months following Duke’s commitment they played a trio of thrilling overtime games in the Big East Tournament before falling to eventual national champion Villanova in the conference title game.

The ascending Friars looked ready to further build upon their success after Duke committed in Oct. 2017.

The 2017-18 club was led by seniors Kyron Cartwright, Rodney Bullock, and Jalen Lindsey, and the program seemingly couldn’t have been better positioned for the future with a pair of top 100 freshmen in point guard Makai Ashton-Langford and center Nate Watson on the roster. A year later, Duke and fellow top 50 prospect AJ Reeves would join them (as well as sophomore Alpha Diallo) to form the core of a group that could lead Providence back to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament for the first time in two decades.

On Fire

When Cooley was hired in 2011, he vowed to “set this place on fire,” and in 2018, between the Big East Tournament and the young talent on the horizon, the Friars were as hot as they had been as a program in the Cooley era.

PC came up short against Robert Williams and Texas A&M in the 2018 tourney, and they struggled their way to an NIT bid in Duke’s freshman campaign a year later.

Providence stumbled to begin the 2019-20 season before winning eight of their final ten games, including the final six with thrillers over Villanova, Xavier, and Seton Hall. By the time Providence ran through DePaul on Senior Night (93-55) it was apparent that this was one of the hottest teams in the country heading into postseason play. The Friars had won 12 conference games for the first time in school history.

Senior Night seemed less about saying goodbye and more about sending them off to do something magical in March.

COVID-19 changed all of that.

The rest of the season was cancelled, and by the time PC returned to the floor last winter everything had changed — the core of the team, empty arenas, players and teams were missing games due to positive tests, and the Friars just never managed to rediscover the energy from a year prior.

Both Duke and Watson were named All Big East Players, but the Friars were a .500 team that got bounced in their first Big East Tournament game against a 5-13 DePaul group on the verge of firing its coach. Duke announced a few weeks later that he was hiring an agent and would not return to college.

And with that, the raging fire from three years prior had flamed out.

The 2019-20 season will go down as one of the great what-ifs in Providence history, but few could have fathomed that the momentum the Friars were building in the fall of 2017 would come to a halt in the manner it did.

On the floor, a three year stretch that included an NIT appearance, what would have been a solid seed in the NCAA Tournament, and a .500 campaign isn’t ideal, but it is certainly passable. But off the floor, specifically in recruiting, Providence has seemed to have lost its momentum.

Since landing Duke and Reeves in 2017, a year after coming up big with Watson, Providence has fallen short on the recruiting trail. 247 Sports ranked their 2019 class 9th in the Big East, the 2020 class 10th, and the 2021 haul 11th in the league. Sure, recruiting is an inexact science, and freshmen Legend Geeter or Rafael Castro could prove to be more LaDontae Henton than Jyare Davis — but considering where the program was expected to stand following all of the excitement of 2017-18 (both on the floor and in player acquisition), it has to be considered a significant disappointment that Providence’s recruiting mojo has slowed to the extent it has since Duke committed.

Duke’s commitment was one of the real highs of Cooley’s tenure, a feeling Providence hasn’t been able to recapture on the recruiting trail since.