Committed to Kim: Daquan Davis
Providence is on the board with in class of 2024
(Editor’s Note: All Rankings provided reflect On3 Composite rankings as of 6/24/23)
Kim English and the Providence Friars have their first committment for the class of 2024. Earlier today Daquan Davis, a 6’1 point guard out of Baltimore, MD, announced that he’ll be taking his talents to Friartown. Up until last week, Maryland was heavily favored to land Davis’ services but it seems that English swooped in at the last minute to secure the committment from 119th ranked recruit in the class of 2024 (FWIW, Davis is rated as the 21st best point guard, and 4th best player from the District of Columbia in his class). Following his official visit to Providence (Davis also took officials to Maryland, Notre Dame and Mississippi State) in early May, Davis spoke very highly of both English and assistant coach Nate Tomlinson;
“Coach Kim (English) and Coach Nate (Tomlinson) reach out to me each and every day and just have conversations with me like I’m already their PG and most importantly like I’m just a person they believe in telling me how the recruitment process works and how they want me to pick a school that fits and can help me translate my game to the next level. They showed me consistency they never faded away ever since they got the Providence job they’ve been hitting me and as stated before I want to have a relationship with the coach on the school I pick and they are definitely making a great case with that.”
I’ll be honest, up until a few days ago I was pretty disconnected on this recruitment. After all, it’s summertime! I’m in Europe, I’m at the beach, I watch every second of every Providence basketball game from November - March, it’s the offseason! But after a week of deep diving Davis’ game, I’m pretty pleased with what I’ve seen so far.
Davis has an elite handle that should translate well to the next level, a highlight video is never going to show a player missing shots, but his form does look OK from the various clips I’ve seen. His game reminds me quite of a bit of former Friar Maliek White; hard nosed guard with high level athleticism who is capable of initiating the offense guard and has the quickness to be a plus defender. At 6’1 he is a bit undersized, I have a preference for guard’s more the size of Garwey Dual than Daquan Davis, but this is a solid first committment for the class of 2024.
The reality for the Program is that after this season there is going to be a serious exodus of talent from Friartown. Josh Oduro, Davonte Gaines and Will McNair Jr. will have exhausted their eligibility. Bryce Hopkins will depart for the NBA, and it is entirely possible that both Devin Carter AND Garwey Dual follow him. Even if they don’t, that’s a lot of minutes to replace. Davis is the first piece to that puzzle, and I expect Kim English will have several more high level reinforcements commit to Providence before it’s all said and done.