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When LaDontae Henton Met Seth Tuttle

Henton Freshman Pic

With LaDontae Henton’s final game at the Dunkin Donuts Center coming up in a few hours, we’re taking a look back at some of the more memorable moments of his career. We’ll have more on all of the seniors throughout the day.

Friar fans should start their morning by reading Kevin McNamara’s article on Henton from today’s Providence Journal. Ed Cooley speaks at length about his star forward, but more interesting from this perspective is Bob Simon’s recollection of how the coaching staff was able to land Henton as their first recruit.

It must seem like a lifetime ago for the staff — a staff that was truly building from the ground up when they took over in March 2011. It’s been a long journey for the program and Henton, who has cemented himself as an all-time Friar great as both a winner (Big East Title, soon to be back-to-back NCAA Tournament Appearances) and in the record book.

Henton has produced from the moment he stepped foot on campus, but no one could have guessed in November 2011 that they were watching two players who would soon become two of the elite in all of college basketball when Providence played Northern Iowa in South Padre.

It was then that the freshman Henton had 16 points and nine rebounds in just his sixth game as a Friar. The game was a 79-62 defeat at the hands of a Northern Iowa team that was welcoming future royalty of their own — freshman Seth Tuttle. Four years later, Tuttle was named Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Year the day before Henton broke the 2,000 point/1,000 rebound mark.

Tuttle will most likely be an All American this season, while Henton has a legitimate case for Big East Player of the Year.

It’s amazing just how much things have changed since Tuttle and Henton took to the court together. The Friars started Brice Kofane and Lee Goldsbrough that day, got zero points and just three shot attempts from Bryce Cotton, saw Bilal Dixon and Ron Giplaye provide 10 minutes off of the bench, and were led by Vincent Council (26 points), sophomore Gerard Coleman (13 points) and the one constant since then — Henton.

Henton’s production never faltered. His next 10 games after Northern Iowa?

  • 17/9 vs. Holy Cross
  • 18/8 vs. South Carolina
  • 19/9 vs. Brown
  • 21/7 vs. Boston College
  • 13/12 vs. Bryant
  • 11/12 vs. New Hampshire
  • 8/9 vs. Rhode Island
  • 15/9/4 vs. St. John’s
  • 13/11 vs. Georgetown
  • 11/13 vs. #1 Syracuse

He closed his freshman season with four double doubles in Big East play and broke PC’s freshman scoring record with 33 against South Florida. He narrowly missed a fifth double double against Cincinnati (24/9), was a monster against DePaul (24/15, game-winning jumper) and made two 3-pointers in the final two minutes in a win over Shabazz Napier, Andre Drummond and UConn.

FriarTV captured the best of Henton’s freshman season.

Twitter: Kevin_Farrahar

 

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