Ricky Council commits to Providence

Ed Cooley and his staff had been looking far and wide for another guard to add to their already four-deep class in 2015. They got their man on Tuesday with Ricky Council pledging to the Providence Friars. Council and his parents visited Providence the weekend of February 13-15, which happened to be Alumni & Family Weekend in Friartown. The Council's sat behind Providence's bench for the Seton Hall game on February 14th and could be seen cheering and rooting on the Friars throughout that game.

Ricky Council was a name that initially popped up last summer when he was a member of the Class of 2014. Council was under the radar as he stayed at his local public high school for four years in lieu of taking his talents to a basketball factory prep school and he played for Brand X on the grassroots circuit which is a program not sponsored by one of the large shoe companies.

After not being content with the offers he had received to that point, Council decided to do a post-graduate year at Moravian Prep in Hickory, North Carolina. Council began to put up gaudy scoring numbers at Moravian, including a 53 point performance against The Robinson School (NJ) in November. His coach at Moravian, Jeremy Ellis, told Evan Daniels of Scout.com that Council is shooting over 45 percent from beyond the arc this season while averaging 29 points/game.

Council joins Drew Edwards, Ryan Fazekas and Alex Owens as the fourth member of Providence's 2015 recruiting class. While the class ranking may not be as high as the 2014 class the current crop of incoming freshmen for Ed Cooley all appear to fill needs and look to be 4-year program players. The 2014 class of Ben Bentil, Kyron Cartwright, Tyree Chambers, Paschal Chukwu and Jalen Lindsey may be more impressive in terms of rankings but the 2015 class may prove to equally as important. The commitment was first publicly reported by Evan Daniels on Twitter but Richard Coren from ScoutFriars.com reported it on the site's premium board early Tuesday morning. Council reportedly gave his commitment on Monday to Cooley. Unless there are any transfers or players leaving early this exhausts Providence's available scholarships for the 2015-16 season.