Providence Included in Top 2016 Target Wenyen Gabriel's Final Five

Providence fans are elated to see that their Friars made 2016 combo forward Wenyen Gabriel's final 5 schools. Gabriel has been the clear priority recruit for Ed Cooley and his staff in 2016 and their effort in attending every single game and camp that they were allowed to attend has paid off to this point. The other 4 schools on Gabriel's list are not going to be easy to defeat though. Gabriel's full list is Duke, Kentucky, Maryland, Providence and UConn, according to a tweet from ESPN.com's Adam Finkelstein. Finkelstein also notes that Gabriel has set visits to Maryland (9/4-9/6), Kentucky (9/25-9/27) and Duke (10/16-10/18). Gabriel told Evan Daniels of Scout.com that he does plan to set visits up with both Providence and UConn but he "need[s] to finish the dates."

ESPN 100 PF @WenyenGabriel tells @ESPNRNHoops he has cut his list to 5 - Duke, Kentucky, UConn, Providence & Maryland

— Adam Finkelstein (@AdamFinkelstein) August 12, 2015

Gabriel -- who ran with the Mass Rivals on the adidas Gauntlet series -- also held offers from DePaul, Villanova and Xavier from the Big East as well as other top programs like Kansas, North Carolina, Texas and Virginia. He is currently ranked 56th by 247sports.com's composite national ranking but that is likely to get better as the player ranking revisions get released later this month. Daniels already indicated in the article linked above that Scout is moving Gabriel to 5-star status.

Gabriel confirmed the news via his Instagram account:

Final 5

A photo posted by Slim Reaper ™ (@wenyengabriel) on Aug 12, 2015 at 11:58am PDT

Getting Gabriel would arguably be Cooley's biggest recruiting win at Providence, rivaled only by landing Kris Dunn back in the class of 2012 after schools like Louisville had come calling for the McDonald's All-American from New London, CT.