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Providence Getting Inside
by Sports Xchange
Fortunately for Davis, he has one rock to build around. Point guard Sharaud Curry arrived at Providence with last year's senior class, but a medical redshirt left him with a final year of eligibility that the team badly needs.
As he showed last year, he's the one irreplaceable player on the squad. When he plays well, the team does well; the Friars still tend to look lost with him on the bench.
Two other returning players might accompany Curry on the wings. Marshon Brooks had impressive stats as a sophomore, but lacked consistency. He'll have to be more dependable as a junior. Meanwhile, Brian McKenzie was a good shooter up until last season, when he struggled to a 31 percent finish.
Pushing those guards will be some of the newbies. Johnnie Lacy and Vincent Council won't push Curry out of the lineup, but Davis would be thrilled if they played well enough to run some point and allow the coaches to move Curry to the wing for stretches, allowing him to concentrate more on his offensive game.
Much-traveled junior college transfer Kyle Wright hopes for better luck on his third Division I college campus, having left Stony Brook and Colorado. He averaged 18 points per game a year ago at New York's Monroe College. Freshman Duke Mondy also will look to join the mix.
That's an embarrassment of riches compared to the frontcourt, which features a host of players who didn't play a year ago. Jamine "Greedy" Peterson and Bilal Dixon both redshirted a year ago, with Peterson the most likely to start this season. He may be joined by junior college transfer Russ Permenter, and freshmen Kadeem Betts and James Still will try their luck as well.
Curry earned a lot of credit last season for helping the team return to the NIT after missing Tim Welsh's final season the year before with a foot injury. He'll need an All-Big East caliber season to get the Friars back to the postseason.
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