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Welcome to this week's “BOILING OVER,” GoldandBlack.com’s weekly information-clearinghouse and analysis column meant for our site members and site members only. We appreciate everyone’s cooperation in helping us keep what is sometimes delicate or proprietary information confined to this message board. This feature allows us to be more flexible in our reporting, to our readers' benefit, and we lose that ability if we can't keep this feature secure and the value of our site's membership at its peak. Additionally, we address recruiting and hiring processes in-depth and often without filter in this feature and we do it behind a subscription-protected barrier for a reason, in hopes of avoiding situations where our reporting can impact the recruiting process, which can happen occasionally.
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PURDUE FOOTBALL RECRUITING
So the biggest fish still swimming around for Purdue to try to catch remains Cathedral defensive tackle Kendrick Gilbert, the Rivals.com four-star lineman who visited officially during the first OV weekend of the month.
There are some others — offensive lineman Cole Dellinger still has yet to decide, as well — but Gilbert is the biggest domino yet to fall.
LSU was long considered a really prime contender there, but has picked up three defensive linemen this month already, so we are not sure where they stand at this point with Gilbert In terms of his interest in them or their prioritization of him. One of those D-line commits was fellow Indianapolis native Joshua Mickens.
Iowa's also on that list of four for Gilbert, but we don't have much reason to believe they're more than just rounding out the list after he took an official visit there in June.
Kentucky, that may be the one to worry most about here.
Nevertheless, Purdue seems very much in the picture here and we'd not be surprised one bit If they landed him. Mickens aside, Purdue's done a good job this cycle getting the guys It has wanted on the defensive line, and proximity to home could matter for Gilbert, not that Kentucky is far away.
Cathedral teammate Jaron Tibbs is working on Gilbert and the player himself did mention to us a while back that it's a plus for Purdue that there are a bunch of Cathedral and Indianapolis dudes around the program. Tibbs is regarded as one of those magnetic types, and that could help Purdue with Gilbert and Danny O'Neil alike, as well as basketball teammate Xavier Booker. Is it going to be the singular reason any of those guys would commit to Purdue? Of course not, but it's a plus.
(BN)
PURDUE BASKETBALL RECRUITING
Purdue's offer to 2024 Jack Benter was very likely the one, but there may be a process Involved here where Benter plays out at least some of July before any moves are considered. The approach will be to look at summer visits and stuff, but we'll see.
As we wrote about yesterday, Purdue's recruiting both Benter and Kanon Catchings from positions of strength and this month may go a long way to determining what sort of other options they're going to have, which would inevitably shape Purdue's chances to wrap one or the other up early. The early and subject-to-change read we get on Catchings here is that this won't be a two-year, 10-visit sort of thing.
I can't claim to be a mindreader, but Purdue's probably would not have offered Benter when It did if it didn't want to sign both him and Catchings together.
Maybe there will be some activity on one front or the other, or both, this summer, but Purdue will certainly tee both guys for fall official visits, as it will Gicarri Harris and other 2024 targets. (BN)
PURDUE BASKETBALL RECRUITING
Speaking of Harris, FYI: We'll have coverage starting tomorrow from the adidas event in Charlotte, mostly to see Harris play a few times.
Other targets though are Indiana Elite 2024s Travis Perry and Raleigh Burgess and 2025 Malachi Moreno and some other really young guys.
Perry is a major target for Purdue at the non-negotiable position of point guard, but his recent offer from Kentucky was not a positive development for the Boilermakers and every other school trying to recruit Perry. (BN)
PURDUE BASKETBALL RECRUITING
Myles Colvin's stats from five games at NBA camp: 6.4 points per game and 5-of-15 from three, averaging 24.6 minutes, tied for the fewest at the camp. Not the sort of breakout showing — his first game was great, though — that seemed possible, but Colvin turned right around and scored 20 during a scrimmage with a handful of NBA players in advance of Kyle Guy's pro-am down there.
PURDUE BASKETBALL
New transfer David Jenkins is now on campus and working out with Purdue, joining the skeleton crew currently on campus.
Freshmen Braden Smith and Camden Heide are close to being cleared, but being held out until August out of an abundance of caution.
Zach Edey's back from playing for Canada, and joins Mason Gillis, Brandon Newman, Jenkins, Ethan Morton, Fletcher Loyer, William Berg and Trey Kaufman-Renn as Purdue's healthy scholarship guys.
Brian Waddell and Caleb Furst are expected to be out until fall, at last check at least. (BN)
