Ed Cooley has locked up a good one.
Brandon Austin, a 6-6, 170-pound wing out of Philadelphia, committed to Providence, per a series of tweets from his Twitter account.
Austin is a good get for Cooley, who is in the process of rebuilding the Friars. Austin is the no. 39 player in the nation according to Scout.com and the no. 10 small forward in the class. He picked Providence over UConn, Texas and Georgetown, among others. He joins Rodney Bullock in the Friars’ 2013 recruiting class.
Cooley will have a solid nucleus coming back next season and Austin just makes it better. The Friars already bagged two top-tier recruits on their roster with Kris Dunn and Ricardo Ledo. Not to mention, the top three scorers this season are juniors (Bryce Cotton and Kadeem Batts) and a sophomore (LaDontae Hinton). If Cooley can get even two to come back, the program will be one that could compete in the Big East next season with the departure of Syracuse and Pittsburgh.
David Harten is the editor of The Backboard Chronicles. You can follow him on Twitter at @David_Harten.