That makes three transfer commitments in three days for Ed Cooley and the Friars as Assistant Coach Ivan Thomas keeps reloading bullets into the roster chamber for Providence. Noah Locke unexpectedly announced his commitment to player his final year of College Basketball at Providence on Friday April 15th, all the while, Clifton Moore and Devin Carter were on official visits in Friartown. The Friar Faithful were waiting to hear from the pair on campus but instead initially got a pleasant start to the weekend with an early announcement from longstanding Ed Cooley target Locke.
Two days later, on Easter Sunday no less, the commitment announcement from La Salle’s Clifton Moore and South Carolina’s Devin Carter came out within 10 minutes of each other. It’s pretty hard to have a better weekend than that from a roster prospective.
First came the commitment from Clifton Moore.
Moore, a 6’10” Forward/Center, played two years at Indiana (playing sparingly) with Friar favorite Al Durham before transferring to La Salle to be closer to home and playing two years with the Explorers. He might take the cake for having played for the three least intimidating mascots in college basketball with the Hoosiers, the Explorers, and now the Friars. He quickly found a role with La Salle in the A10, starting 48 of 53 game in his two seasons, including all 30 games last year.
Although Ed Croswell also played the role of the big body down low for La Salle, Moore and Big Ed never actually played together as Moore essentially took the spot vacated by Croswell when he came to Providence. Last season, Moore had easily his best season statistically, posting 12.9 ppg, 6.1 rpg, 1.2 apg, and an impressive 2.8 bpg. Moore finished 13th in college basketball in blocks per game, which was actually four spots ahead of Big East Defensive Player of the Year Ryan Kalkbrenner (and two spots ahead of former Friar Dajour Dickens as a fun aside). His block percentage ranked him 27th in the Nation as well. The last Friars big men who I remember actually being a legitimate shot blocking threat were Paschal Chukwu (don’t get me started) and Carson Desrosiers.
Although Moore is not someone I would refer to as a three-pointer shooter, he does have the ability to make one here and there and made 15 triples last year. He’ll have to do better than 24.6% if he wants to let them fly at Providence, but seeing as he was actually 72.3% from the line last year, he does seemingly have the tools to improve from deeper.
Devin Carter, a stout 6’3” combo guard, played his Freshman Year at South Carolina and was named to the All-SEC Freshman Team following a year where he averaged 9.0 ppg, 3.8 rpg, 1.8 apg, & 0.9 spg in just 18.7 mpg. Much like Moore, Carter wasn’t a knock down long distance shooter last year (but was in HS), having shot just 26.7% from three last year but his strength lies in his strength (see what I did there?). He plays an attacking downhill style of ball and finishes extremely well through contact. He seems to almost invite the contact, thriving on a more physical playmaking that fits the style of how Ed Cooley likes his guys to play to a T.
Carter’s bread and butter is in his ability to get to the free throw line. Remind anyone of Al Durham? Every adjective I use to describe Carter’s game is something that could have been said about Durham’s play from last season. We’ll get a chance to see if he has the same closing ability that Al had, but I’d say that he’s on a pretty damn good trajectory. If Carter can improve even just minimally on his 68.8% free throw shooting, he is going to fill it up a lot more. His free throws already account for almost 30% of his total points and that’s while shooting under 70% from the line. Add an uptick in minutes and the fact that he was 18th in the Nation in fouls drawn per 40 minutes and you have yourself a double-digit scorer as your floor for Carter next season.
I love Carter’s athleticism and I can envision him catching some bodies early in the season next year. Think of the set plays that Cooley ran for Minaya for alley-oops but upgrade the catch/layups to catch/tomahawks. His attitude seems awesome too and Friartown was already showing him love on his visit before he even committed.
He appears to be in sync with all things PC and even requested Cooley’s famous pool dive video once he announced his commitment on Twitter.
This kid just oozes everything we’ve come to expect of a prototypical Friar player. He is one of those ‘Dudes.’
Welcome to Friartown!
The Morning Hangover 
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