Big things are expected, and rightfully so, for Nate Watson, who chose to return to Providence for a 5th year of eligibility. A year after setting careers bests in points (16.9 ppg), rebounds (6.7 rpg), assists (0.7 apg), blocks (1.0 bpg), field goal percentage (60.2%), and minutes (32.3 mpg), Watson is primed to even further improve on those numbers with the departure of David Duke who was first on the team in field goal attempts (372), taking 24.4% more shots on the season than Watson, who finished second (299).

Watson, who had a week of celebrating pre-season accolades after being selected as a first team all-Big East member as well, joins 19 other players on the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award pre-season watch list, the award for College Basketball’s best Center. Other candidates for the upcoming season include the following players, with no one else from the Big East being named in contention (even though pre-season lists mean nothing…as always):

Walker Kessle – Auburn

Nick Muszynski – Belmont

Mark Williams – Duke

Colin Castleton – Florida

Chet Holmgren – Gonzaga

Kofi Cockburn – Illinois

David McCormack – Kansas

Oscar Tshiebwe – Kentucky

Ahsan Asadullah – Lipscomb

Qudus Wahab – Maryland

Jalen Duren – Memphis

Hunter Dickinson – Michigan

Armando Bacot – North Carolina

Moussa Cisse – Oklahoma State

Zach Edey – Purdue

Osun Osunniyi – St. Bonaventure

Myles Johnson – UCLA

Fardaws Aimaq – Utah Valley

Liam Robbins – Vanderbilt

Watson’s biggest competition will most likely be Pre-Season First Team All-American selection Kofi Cockburn out of Illinois, a player that the Friars were in on in recruiting (although they didn’t even make the Final 12 cut list for him) and a bit of a surprise to return to the Illini for this season.

This award has been given out for the past 7 seasons with Luka Garza winning it back-to-back years for the last two season and the only Big East player to collect the honors was Angel Delgado in 2017-2018.

Best of Luck to Big Nate in pursuit of this award, but he’ll probably tell you that the team goals are much more important for him to win…because that’s the kind of guy Nate is. Go Friars!