How Cooley, Staff have Changed the Game in Providence

We’ve got to have DeSean White,” Steve DeMeo said into the phone. DeMeo, a Providence College assistant basketball coach, was irredeemably in love. In games and practices during the 2002-03 season, he had relentlessly tracked White, a versatile 6’7″ forward from Cardinal Dougherty High in Philadelphia. Now, in July 2003, after the senior-to-be had outplayed future first-round pick Al Jefferson at the Nike All-American Camp in Indianapolis, DeMeo at last was publicly declaring his affection for White to Dave Distel, an assistant coach at Cardinal Dougherty, who was managing the college recruitment of his school’s players.

DeMeo had fallen for White at a time when few other schools were so smitten. Penn State had shown some interest, as had some mid-major Division I schools, but after an inconsistent junior season White had been considered, at best, a top 200 player. DeMeo knew that White’s performance at Nike would boost the kid’s stock. Soon the glamour schools would come calling–and DeMeo might be nudged aside by other, perhaps more attractive suitors. Now, he decided, was the moment to apply the full-court press.

“We’ve got to convince this kid to commit now,” DeMeo told Distel. “He’s going to blow up into a top 50 player and then we won’t get him.”

* * *

Throughout the 2003-04 season Providence, then led by Tim Welsh at the height of his success here, gave Sports Illustrated’s George Dohrmann a behind-the-scenes look at how they pulled together a seven man recruiting class.

These were heady times for Welsh. The Friars were in the midst of racing their way into, and up, the top 25 rankings, and they’d landed a pair of top 100 recruits in their three player class in 2003.

Yet, throughout the article Dohrmann portrayed a staff that chased recruits while looking over their shoulder. “If Maryland offers, we’re done… the worst thing that could happen is for Hanke to go off.”

As Dohrmann explained, that staff had a solid understanding of what they were, yet “what they were” seemed to focus more what the school wasn’t in the article.

It wasn’t Syracuse.

The campus was small.

The student population wasn’t diverse.

The facilities were old.

As Dohrmann told it, the selling points were early playing time (with the implication clearly being that the competition would be lighter at Providence than a traditional Big East power) and PC’s conference affiliation.

Ten years later, Providence has a coach who said from the beginning that he didn’t want to hear about what his team, his school, and his program aren’t, but what they are.

* * *

The landscape that Dohrmann laid out a decade ago wasn’t unfair. There are certain built-in advantages BCS power schools have that Providence will have to overcome. Welsh and Company had recruited solidly in the previously three classes leading up to this article, but for a fan base that has so long been reminded of their school’s shortcomings, the arrival of Ed Cooley has allowed them to puff their chests out alongside him from the day he took to the podium and promised that things would be different at Providence going forward.

Cooley doesn’t appear to be looking over his shoulder at the power schools – he’s aiming for them.

Try as some might, it’s getting difficult for the rest of the country to ignore what Cooley and his staff have done on the recruiting trail.

They scrambled when first hired to add to a bare 2011 class and ripped Michigan native LaDontae Henton away from Midwestern schools in the spring of 2011.

Within months of Henton committing they landed what was perhaps the best 2012 backcourt duo in the country in Kris Dunn and Ricky Ledo. Detractors said Ledo was a given as a Providence native, while the Dunn commitment was met with a shrug by doubters who claimed Providence benefitted by getting in way ahead of other Big East powers (as if identifying talent early isn’t essential to recruiting).

It became increasingly difficult to pass the 2012 class off as a one year fluke, or great fortune with two kids in Cooley’s backyard, a year later when the head coach and assistant Bob Simon fought their way back into the recruitment of top 60 guard Brandon Austin of Philadelphia.

Austin visited Providence, Connecticut and Texas on consecutive weeks – which would have been perceived as a death blow in the SI article – and the star guard committed to Cooley and the Friars soon after

They weren’t in first and Austin wasn’t in their backyard.

This was beginning to look more like a trend than a fluke.

* * *

A year later Providence fans are celebrating the commitment of Jalen Lindsey, one of the most talented small forwards in the nation.

They’re celebrating differently than they did in the summer of 2011 when Dunn and Ledo committed. Those commitments were met with utter shock considering the rebuilding job Cooley had in front of him and the speed in which he was able to convince elite recruits to come to Providence via the power of his personality.

The Lindsey commitment all but finishes any questions about this staff’s ability to close. It also reaffirms the new mantra in Providence. The focus isn’t on the program’s shortcomings, and there is no fear of taking on the biggest of big boys.

Perhaps it’s a product of how he grew up, but Cooley is far more focused on what he and his program are, not what others may be.

What is Providence under Cooley? A program that is unquestionably on the rise thanks to a staff that has barged their way into a seat at the adult recruiting table and shows no signs of going away.

They went into Nashville, Tennessee to pull out one of the most prized prospects in the class of 2014. The presence of Rick Pitino at Lindsey’s games and offers from the likes of Ohio State and Florida weren’t going to dissuade Cooley, as they may have for previous Providence staffs.

Seemingly every time Lindsey looked up Cooley was there. At his AAU games last summer, visiting his school on the first day of the contact period, at games whenever Providence had a gap in their schedule.

Today, things are looking up in Providence, thanks in large part to a staff that is looking straight ahead, running towards a fight with college basketball’s best.

Email Kevin at kevin.farrahar@friarbasketball.com

7 Comments

1. 

   Mike

   July 17, 2013 at 2:38 pm

   Love the reference to the SI article 10 yrs ago. It’s great to see the excitement and promise of where the program is now. Great Read.
2. 

   jayflax36

   July 18, 2013 at 2:01 pm

   Great read. I remember that SI article fondly and like you said it was somewhat harsh but definitely true. To think how much the attitude has changed is pretty incredible and definitely exciting. Keep up the good work Kevin!
3. 

   Mike Surette

   July 19, 2013 at 7:00 pm

   This was a great article. One thing I would want to avoid though is the closing talk. No one has decommitted to Ed Cooley yet (knock on wood) but Jalen Lindsey is only a verbal. And living through the Keno days where you saw Tharpe, Ledo, Joe Young all commit then decided to change their minds. Hopefully Cooley can lock these guys down. I like the 2013-2014 squad the Friars will bring to the court, the 2014 recruiting class has potential to be a monster one and Im loving where the program is going.

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