Committed to Kim: Ryan Mela
No offseason lull for Kim English on the recruiting trail
Clearly Kim English has not gotten the memo that we’re in the dead of the college basketball offseason. On Monday evening, class of 2024 wing Ryan Mela, a native of Natick, Massachusetts announced his committment to the Program after a 2 day official visit that took place over the weekend.
Mela has good size at 6’6 and a classically smooth shooting stroke, and although he has some filling out to do, I will always take an less physically developed recruit with a proven ability to score the ball, then an uber athletic prospect who has trouble putting the ball in the hoop. Can’t win if you can’t score. After 13 years of Cooley’s clogged toilet offense I think we all know that.
ANYWAY, it’s been interesting to see Kim English’s first recruiting class start to take shape. Now, admittedly all I’ve seen from both commits so far is a handful of 10-minute youtube highlight videos, but two things from both Daquan Davis and Mela stick out in a way that I believe can translate to the next level.
Ball Handling - Davis profiles as an elite ball handler. On the level of an Al Durham type. Mela is not that but at 6’6 has a pretty advanced ability to put the ball on the deck and get to the floor. I cannot emphasize enough how important a trait that is to have multiple high level ball handlers on the wing. That’s actually the area of the team that concerns me most this year as Pierre is the only true plus ball handler on the roster, but I digress..
Finishing Around the Rim: Some of the highlights in the above clip are examples of high level finishing. Up and unders, generally using the rim as protection from bigger defenders and having an innate understanding of where the defense is are all qualities I see early on in Mela. It was also apparent to me that Davis had these traits in spades. Coach English has said repeatedly that his offense is predicated on threes and layups, certainly easier said then done but he’s a man with a plan and his recruits so far are seemingly perfect fits for that offensive profile.
In terms of player comparison Mela reminds me a little bit of former Friar wing Tyler Harris. Harris was a wildly inconsistent player but on his best day could attack and finish around the rim at a high level, and was a career 34% 3 point shooter. He was slender for sure and struggled against stronger opponents, but there’s plenty of time for Mela to add muscle to his frame.
I’ll caveat the last point with the acknowledgment that I’ve never met Ryan Mela, and wouldn’t know him if he walked in my front door. However, reading some of the quotes from his recruitment I like what I’ve heard in terms of his mental makeup. Mela reclassified from the high school class of 2023 to 2024 because he understood that he had meaningful areas of his game to improve upon. In the ‘me, myself, more’ era that has engulfed college hoops (and society writ large to be fair), we usually see recruits classifying up a year to get that much closer to 1) getting paid 2) being famous. I love the patience and discipline of the move to reclassify down.
It should be mentioned that Mela was a relatively under recruited 3 star as of his committment to the Friars. Providence beat out the likes of Vermont, BU and other mid majors for the services of the 6’6 wing. I caught some flak on Twitter from the usual suspects for pointing this out, but it’s the reality of the situation, no sense in hiding from it, Kentucky and Duke weren’t exactly knocking down Mela’s door. Providence was the first Power 6 school to extend a scholarship offer to Ryan Mela. In my view there’s two ways to look at this reality:
Glass Half Full: “Kim English is identifying and locking up talent EARLY, before Duke and Kentucky swoop in”
Half Empty: “Why are we in recruiting battles with Vermont, Bucknell and Colgate?”
I’ll go half full for now, English is heavily in the mix with at least a half dozen top 40 recruits in the class of 2024, and if I had to guess one (or two) of them will end up committing. The 5 stars will come. Patience, Friartown.