The Greek basketball club, Panathinaikos, has officially signed former Providence Friars forward Alpha Diallo to a three-year contract. Since Diallo will be loaned from his current team (hello Europe sports), he will not actually play for the club in the upcoming 2021-2022 basketball season. The Greens, as Panathinaikos is dubbed, are looking to reload their squad and must have liked what they saw out of Diallo last season with Lavrio B.C. in the Greek Basket League as he was the 2nd leading scorer and rebounder on the team, who finished 2nd at 17-5, only behind his new club.

In his first professional season, Diallo averaged 12.9 ppg, 5.4 rpg, 2.1 apg, and a team-leading 1.5 spg, while shooting 54.3% from the field, 71.6% from the free throw line, and 33.3% from three-point range. He definitely needs to improve that three-point percentage in order to be a threat from distance rather than just serviceable but that is a great rookie year for the former Friar.

Unfortunately, right before Diallo signed with Panathinaikos, another former Friar, Ben Bentil, left the team to sign elsewhere. The Ghanian big man won two league titles and the 2020-2021 Season Greek Basketball Cup with the Greek club in the two seasons he was there.

Earlier this month, Bentil signed with Bahçeşehir Koleji S.K. of the Turkish League. It’s too bad we didn’t get to see the two of them play together for old times sake.

Along with not being able to hook back up with Bentil, another former Friar, Coach Rick Pitino is no longer with the club either. It would’ve been cool to tune in and see all these Friar greats run some teams off the court, but I’ll settle with possibly checking in on each of them in their new respective teams.