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15 in 40: What PC Has in Edwards

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In the first of Friarbasketball.com’s annual “15 in 40” series, Kevin Farrahar catches up with Drew Edwards’ head coach at Calvert Hall and searches out the opinion of Corey Evans of Roundball Rundown Report to learn more about the 2015 PC commit.

The “15 in 40” series is a collection of 15 story lines in the 40 days leading up to the 2014-15 season. 

If you’re just learning about Drew Edwards, you’re not alone. The 6’3 combo guard out of Calvert Hall in Maryland became the third member of Providence’s 2015 class when he committed to the Friars last week, and in an era in which recruits are being tracked as early as middle school, Edwards is a relative anomaly — a high major player without a handful of mix tapes and with little fanfare coming during the AAU-heavy summer.

There was no cutting his list down on Twitter — just a simple pledge to a school that made contact with him as far back as last summer, but zeroed in on him over the past three months.

A good place to start in the Drew Edwards story is the lineage. John Bauersfeld, Edwards’ head coach at Calvert Hall, shared that both of Edwards’ parents played college basketball at Mount St. Mary’s, and his twin sister is committed to Clemson.

He plays in the fiercely competitive Baltimore Catholic League that produced Carmelo Anthony, Rudy Gay, and Rodney Monroe, and he is the next in a long line of stars at Calvert Hall.

“We have a great history of shooting guards that have come out of our school. Juan Dixon is probably the most famous. We had Jack McClinton who went to Miami, we had Gary Neal and Ricky Harris who played at UMass,” said Bauersfeld, who is entering his 8th year as the head coach at Calvert and 10th overall. “Drew is right there along with all of those other guys. He’s played varsity since he was a freshman, and he’ll cross 1,000 points this year. We don’t have a lot of 1,000 point scorers at our school, so that’s pretty elite company.”

So many recent players to come out of Calvert were under the radar early in their high school careers. Dixon is the most famous example, but Harris spent at year at Winchendon (MA) before becoming an 18+ ppg scorer over his final three seasons at Massachusetts, McClinton had a stop at South Kent (CT) before averaging over 17 ppg in his career at Miami, and a favorite of this site, Damion Lee, took off at St. Thomas More (CT) and eventually became CAA Rookie of the Year for Drexel in 2012.

Could Edwards be next?

According to his coach, Edwards’ game is predicated on subtlety and substance: “He’s not flashy. He’s not going to go down the lane and dunk on five people — he’s just rock solid. Drew makes great decisions and he’s just smart with the ball. He can also really shoot the ball.”

“He does so many other things, he boxes out, he rebounds, he blocks shots. He’s just a solid player and I think what a lot of schools saw in him was his feel for the game. His IQ is really, really, really high for as young as he is.”

PC assistant Brian Blaney began recruiting Edwards last summer, and while the Friars kept in touch throughout the season, the mutual interest grew after Edwards visited this summer.

Bauersfeld explained, “Drew really loved Coach Cooley. He talked about how personable he was and loved the facilities and the fact that basketball was such a focus, but really the relationship with Coach Cooley (was key). He constantly talked to me about that.”

To gain more perspective on Edwards’ game, I reached out to Corey Evans of Roundball Rundown Report. Evans was seemingly everywhere this summer and sees Edwards as a prospect who “brings a lot to the table, and also has some things that he must work on.”

Evans explained, “He isn’t the most athletic of guys and can struggle a bit to score against bouncier defenders at the bucket. He also isn’t the quickest, and handling tougher ball pressure out top can be what holds him back from being a lead guard. Strength isn’t in his favor quite just yet either, as he tends to get bumped off his line to the bucket. However, there is a lot that Edwards brings to the floor.”

“First off, he is super long and he understands how to use his length to get the line on his man in playing angles out top. His skill-set is based around fundamentals and with it, he tends to out-think his opponents in the half court. He has an already polished mid-range game, a nice floater in the lane and is more crafty than athletic when it comes to converting. He makes a lot of the proper decisions on the floor and upon working on his body in college, Edwards should be able to guard different spots out top.”

At 6’3, there have been questions about if Edwards could potentially swing over to point guard — a role he plays more in the AAU season than with Calvert Hall. “He’s more of an off-guard for us,” said Bauersfeld. “But in AAU he played a lot of point. We do utilize him at the point as well, we try to move him around because he’s such a good passer — maybe the best passer I’ve ever coached.  He just really understands how to do a lot of things that casual basketball observers don’t pick up on.”

Evans added, “He is definitely more of a 2-guard, but he is capable of playing the lead spot in a pinch. Sort of like what Providence had in mind with Donovan Mitchell, but it seems Providence wanted someone that could blossom into a versatile guy that can play either spot in the backcourt. Edwards is at his best with the ball in his hands and scoring it off the floor; however he is more than capable of setting others up on the floor with penetrate-and-kick passes before getting deep into the teeth of the defense.”

Providence is getting not only a good player, according to Bauersfeld, “Providence is getting a great person. Drew is just a great kid and an outstanding student athlete. He carries a 3.3, or so, GPA in a competitive academic school at Calvert Hall. They are getting a high quality kid in Drew.”

Email Kevin Farrahar at kevin.farrahar@friarbasketball.com

Twitter: Kevin_Farrahar

 

 

 

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