Friar Basketball Newsletter: Looking into Quante Berry's 22 games on the UA Circuit, Rivals updated top 150, reflecting on the early '70s Friars, a September visitor, and more
Our content this week includes three separate recruiting deep dives, as well as Craig’s reflections on the Friars of the early 1970s, and a look at the three key transfers Seton Hall acquired in the offseason.
Before we go into detail about this week’s content, I wanted to share two housekeeping items:
We are in the later stages of editing the audio for the upcoming podseries on the 2003-04 Friars. We were aiming to get this out in August, but a more realistic target date is looking like after Labor Day. After listening back to the audio last week, I am even more excited for the release of this series.
Three of the five articles this week are available only to subscribers of the site. Since transitioning to Substack in mid-July, all of our content has been available to everyone for free, and we hope that those of you who haven’t subscribed will consider doing so. As we noted when the site rolled out, we are going to keep a portion of the content available for free (roughly 30%).
For those of you who enjoy digging deep into recruiting, this week’s content is for you. Providence commit Quante Berry played against some of the best players in the country this summer on the Under Armour Association circuit. I watched a number of Berry’s games in July, and over the past week looked through all 22 of his box scores to provide statistics from May through July. I wanted to go beyond the box scores, however. Read about the five star players Berry went against, his best games, areas in which he struggled, and how his Bobby Maze Elite team fared on the UAA circuit. The article includes Berry’s averages and shooting percentages for each session, as well as for all 22 games combined.
Rivals released their updated Top 150 for the class of 2022, and we looked into movement at the very top of the rankings, where PC targets are ranked, what Big East programs are making a dent in the top 150 (and which players may be headed to Big East schools next), as well as where elite New England players landed.
Providence is set to host 6’5 Justyn Fernandez in September. Craig took a Closer Look at Fernandez — his game, his recruitment, and what scouting sites are saying about him. Craig’s Closer Look series was one of the more popular at our original site, and this article is available for all. Fernandez is a tremendous athlete and one of the biggest risers in the class of 2022.
Craig also returned this week with his second article in the “Reflections of a Lifelong Friar Fan” series. This week he focuses on the Friars of the early 1970s, including how the program rebounded from a lull, and what the opening of the Providence Civic Center meant for PC. Also included are great tidbits on amazing bands and NBA players (Jimmy Walker, Ernie D., Kareem, Oscar, Pistol Pete, etc.) who appeared in the earliest days of the Civic Center. I personally loved the audio from when Led Zeppelin performed at the PCC.
Lastly, you can read about three potentially significant additions Seton Hall made via the transfer market this offseason. The headliner is Kadary Richmond, a Syracuse transfer whose decision to leave led to a bit of a back and forth with Jim Boeheim. You can see footage of Richmond, as well as 20 point per game scorer Jamir Harris, and former American Athletic Conference freshman of the year Alexis Yetna.
We hope you are enjoying the site so far, and look forward to providing more content in the weeks and months leading into the season.