This week, in advance of Purdue opening preseason practice Friday, GoldandBlack.com is taking a detailed look at each of Purdue's scholarship players for the 2015-16 season.
We are going in descending order by height for order. Now: Junior forward Basil Smotherman.
Where things stand: Smotherman backed up mostly the 4 position behind freshman Vince Edwards, but can contribute at either forward spot should Purdue choose to use him in different capacities and he should be able to guard multiple positions at this stage of his career.
The junior, though, must do something to differentiate himself now in a crowded and talented frontcourt. He, we're told, had his best summer shooting the ball, but nothing has changed in terms of Smotherman's fastest track to a role: Defense, energy and rebounding. When Smotherman has brought those things to the floor in his career, he's been good. When he hasn't, he's blended in.
Keys to success: Urgency, for one thing. As mentioned above, when Purdue's most impressive athlete has been active on the glass and dedicated his energy to defending, then running the floor, he's been an impactful player at times, as he showed in a few games during the Big Ten season a year ago, Iowa being one of them.
Furthermore, this has become a very blue-collar Purdue team again, and those that don't embrace that may stick out for the wrong reasons. Urgency comes in many forms, whether it's in games, preparation, practice or whatever.
Projected role: Again, Purdue's frontcourt is a crowded one, so Smotherman will have to do something in the preseason to differentiate himself, and then still could get caught in a numbers crunch. The redshirt possibility has been considered privately, per sources, but it very much remains to be seen whether that route will be taken. At this point, we'd tend to doubt it.
What the future may hold: We have nothing left to add here.
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