Bryan Hodgson and his staff had another surprise in store for Wednesday evening. After learning earlier in the day that Buffalo’s all-time leader in three points made in a season, Ryan Sabol, was committing to Providence it seems that would be all the commitments for the day. After all there were no shark gifs from Bryan Hodgson’s twitter account after Sabol’s commitment.
Well Sabol wasn’t the only commitment to Friartown that’d be announced Wednesday. The shark gif was just a little late.
Yale big man Samson Aletan committed to Providence, and the Friars have their first true big on the roster. We discuss the impact of his commitment and fit with the 2026-2027 Friars below.
Samson Aletan announced at around 7:30pm EST that he would also be headed to Friartown this upcoming season. BOC wrote about Samson earlier in the week in the below article:
With his commitment to PC there were two things discussed in BOC’s article that we want to accentuate.
We discussed the defensive abilities and his offensive game being predicated on being a lob threat or scoring on putbacks. The question begs to be asked if Aletan would be the starting five man at PC or would he be a rotational big man off the bench. Aletan is the type of big man that you’d see on Nate Oats’ Alabama squad. Guys that are long and can protect the rim on defense while providing lower usage scoring through lobs and putbacks. Bryan Hodgson didn’t have these types of big men at Arkansas St or USF but that may have been due to a lack of personnel. The point being is that it wouldn’t shock us if Aletan was the starting center or Hodgson got another player similar to Aletan’s skill set and they’d rotate the two.
Secondly the kid is a winner. Yale has won at least 22 games in every season Aletan has been on campus. He had the two blocks to seal the upset win over Auburn in the 2024 NCAA Tournament, he had a record 7 blocks in the state championship game when he was in high school. Heck he’s graduating Yale in only three years in order to come over as a graduate transfer. He definitely seems like the type of player and man you’d want representing the program.
The great thing is you can probably say a lot of similar things about all the guys Bryan Hodgson has brought in thus far. We discussed the amount of winning Myles Bird did while at SDSU. Hodgson is clearly prioritizing guys who did a lot of winning at prior stops, and I think that’s a good thing.
With the additions of Samson and Sabol, the Friars now currently have six players for next year’s roster. The coaching staff is far from done rebuilding this roster. Stick with The Providence Crier to get latest in the Friars offseason.
Go Friars!