2018 David Duke Commits to Hometown Providence Friars

The Providence Friars have added a fourth commitment to their 2018 recruiting class when Cushing Academy and Mass Rivals guard David Duke announced his pledge to Providence on his Twitter account Friday night. The Friars won out over Virginia Tech. Florida, Indiana and Villanova were also among his final 5.

Duke, a native of Providence, becomes Cooley’s second top-50 commitment in this class with Duke’s Mass Rivals teammate AJ Reeves being the first commitment for Cooley back in June. Duke is ranked 48th by 247Sports composite national ranking while Reeves is 49th.

Providence freshman Makai Ashton-Langford is also a former Mass Rivals teammate and he was ranked 40th in the class of 2017.

Duke started high school at Providence’s Classical High School and led the Purple to the 2016 Rhode Island Division I state championship while averaging 20.7 ppg in the playoffs. Duke then transferred to the prep school Cushing Academy and re-classified from 2017 to 2018.

Providence was the first high major school to extend a scholarship offer in May of 2016, but the Friars were joined by schools like Florida, Kansas, UConn and Syracuse during Duke’s first season at Cushing.

Duke continued to raise his profile with the Mass Rivals on the adidas circuit and also participated in adidas Nations and traveled to Italy in June to compete at adidas Eurocamp.

Cooley does still have one scholarship to play with for 2018-19, but it remains to be seen how he intends to use it.

Providence’s recruiting class of Duke, Reeves, Kris Monroe and Jimmy Nichols is now ranked 8th nationally by 247Sports and the Friars have the top-ranked class among their Big East mates.