Friar Basketball Newsletter: Jayden Pierre commits to Providence, Rafael Castro impressions, looking ahead to Alyn Breed's sophomore year, the BE schedule, the amazing Friar staff of '87, and more
Providence got terrific news on Sunday night when point guard Jayden Pierre committed to the Friars. Pierre attends Long Island Lutheran, and played for the same AAU program as current PC freshman Rafael Castro. 247 Sports ranks Pierre as the 105th best prospect in the country in the class of 2022. Here you can read about when Pierre went up against fellow PC commit Quante Berry, and later Duke point guard commit Caleb Foster, as well as other high profile matchups last summer.
Friar Basketball was happy to connect with Providence assistant coach Bob Walsh (who is the Director of Development, Scouting, and Recruiting) last week to talk about the current roster and the upcoming season.
Coach Walsh’s commentary is included in this week’s player preview articles on the promising Rafael Castro and sophomore guard Alyn Breed.
With one of the more experienced frontcourts in the country ahead of him on the depth chart, Castro may not see huge minutes as a freshman, but he has impressed the coaching staff this summer with not only his upside, but his production in practice. Friar fans can read more about Castro’s play since coming to campus, as well as his recruitment and overall game in our feature on him.
Breed saw a spike in his minutes and production while Jared Bynum went down with an injury last January. Breed averaged over 10 points and four rebounds a game, while shooting 45% in contests in which he played 20 minutes or more last year. Subscribers can read about how Breed can make plays at a higher level than he showed as a freshman.
Need a highlight fix? Here are some of the best plays from Noah Horchler last season.
The Big East released the dates of all conference games on Thursday. Providence kicks off conference play with a Saturday trip to Connecticut on Dec. 18. This article looks into each of Providence’s conference games, and includes videos and peeks back at some of the more recent matchups.
Friar fans can also see South Carolina transfer Justin Minaya go for 15 points and seven rebounds against Alabama last year.
Craig Leighton writes this week about the amazing coaching staff of the 1987 Friars. It’s a staff that could be as good as college basketball has seen.
Lastly, the first episode of our podseries on the 2003-04 Friars will be released this week. You can find that on our social media channels, and we will also email it out to everyone on our distribution list.
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