Check out our new sponsor for Knucklehead Central and 'BOILING OVER' JFQ Lending.
Contact Andrew Hogberg at 480-478-0257 or ahogberg@jfqlending.com or PM @TheMortReport
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.
So again, we appreciate everyone's cooperation very much.We know there are a lot of aggregator blogs out there, and a lot of you are on Twitter and other message boards. We don’t want to come off like Darth Vader (before he turned good at the end of "Return of the Jedi" of course) here, but we would be doing all our subscribers a disservice if weren’t proactive about protecting the value of their membership.
PURDUE BASKETBALL
Well, we're kind of out of subject matter here all of a sudden, as we found out a few days ago about Terry Johnson's hiring to fill Matt Painter's coaching staff and that became official today, a really high-level hire for Painter.
Johnson will join Paul Lusk and Brandon Brantley on what shapes up to be another really strong, really established and experienced staff for Painter, but one that on paper doesn't check the 'offensive' box that we assumed Painter would prioritize here.
That was never a dealbreaker, though, as Painter looked at a lot of different people from different backgrounds for this post, including an NBA guy in Ronald Nored and a small-school head coach In Carson Cunningham.
Realistically, this is the best hire he probably could have made, at least in terms of experience, recruiting considerations and qualifications, even If Johnson isn't necessarily an offensive specialist to this point in his career.
The guess here is that he will get that chance at Purdue, to work more with offense, while Painter takes more of a hands-on approach this season with the offense. That's not the best way to put it, because he's been heavily involved with the offense — game-planning and whatnot — in recent years, but Micah Shrewsberry had relative autonomy with some things, including game-day play-calling.
Johnson will pick up right where Shrewsberry left off in recruiting too, well established in this geographic footprint and in many of the same recruiting circles. This could be an impact hire from a recruiting perspective, though I don't know if we could tell you any specific targets at the moment. But Johnson has great relationships in Indiana and is well-liked and well-respected around not only the state but the region, and he's done good work on that front at both Butler and Ohio State.
I think Purdue's last staff was Painter's best recruiting staff ever at Purdue, but this one should be very good, too.
Purdue's bench staff is now complete, but there's some additional finalization to be done on the whole staff.
Painter needs to hire two graduate assistant coaches. Keep an eye on Tommy Luce in that regard.
Outgoing G.A.s Grady Eifert and P.J. Thompson saw their two-season tenures expire and both will land on their feet and then some. Eifert will be Micah Shrewsberry's video coordinator at Penn State and Thompson is expected to remain with Purdue's program in some capacity, details still being worked out. Purdue values him and wants to keep him around. (BN)
PURDUE BASKETBALL RECRUITING
Purdue's 2022 recruiting board is expanding and will keep doing so, as the Boilermakers offered a couple of Paul Lusk's Creighton targets this week in big man Tarris Reed and guard Josh Dix.
But there are going to be some closer-to-home players getting watched very closely too.
Purdue needs a big man in this class, preferably a center.
Kebba Njie from LaLumiere via Ohio may be a guy for which the light is now coming on. He's Fletcher Loyer's teammate on the Indy Heat EYBL team and just a tall, long and active center prospect who showed last summer that he can shoot jumpers and move really well. He still had a little youthful clumsiness to him then but experience will remedy that as he gets massive.
Purdue's going to keep on center Will Shaver and actually already communicated with him after Steve Lutz left, and will obviously target Jalen Washington (though he's not really a center). But Purdue's going to keep looking for big men to get in on, as the offer to Reed proves. Njie might be under the microscope, and Purdue's been watching him already for quite some time.
We can tell you, too, that Connor Essegian from Central Noble High School up north is starting to generate some high-major sort of buzz because he's a big-time shooter. Purdue likes those, so expect Purdue to take a look at him, though Brian Waddell might have just filled a need for a wing shooter in that class, essentially.
A priority for Purdue is the backcourt. It needs a guard, obviously.
Purdue will keep talking to Jameel Brown to see where that goes, but also now has a chance to take a step back and re-assess everything. Quickness and athleticism may be more of a priority now considering legitimate concern over how long a runway Jaden Ivey will have at Purdue.
Who that player would be, no idea, but as far as the backcourt is concerned, we'd expect a bit of a reset here. Not sure Purdue will dive back in on Paul McMillan or not and even if they do, where they'd stand remains to be seen after they backed off for a while while Brown was committed.
PURDUE FOOTBALL
Mike Bobinski when asked if Leroy Keyes will be honored in any way with a uniform patch or field logo: "We have not talked about those kinds of things yet. There are a couple of other initiatives that are big and I think very fitting tributes to Leroy's memory, his legacy, that will be announced after (his memorial service) Saturday. So, there are a couple things that are really bigger hitters than anything that you just mentioned, in my opinion. Yes, there are plans, but the family wanted to wait until we got through this weekend and all before before announcing." (TD)
PURDUE FOOTBALL RECRUITING
• Don't have anything new for you on any transfers. We'll keep working on it.
• Zion Steptoe has his official visit locked in for the first weekend in June, but we think Purdue will have another of its top wide receiver targets on campus that weekend, too: Fellow Texan Dillon Bell.
Those would be two really important official visits right off the bat.
• On the running back front, Ohio's Terrence Thomas is on the books from a mid-June official visit. Jaylen Jennings, another target with an offer, has said Purdue has told him to hold off if he didn't plan on making an early decision — his thoughts on that matter have been shifting — but he could move up to June, also.
• Kentrell Marks, yet another running back target from Ohio, is slated to visit the final weekend in June.
• We'd expect Purdue to get an official visit from Joe Strickland this summer, as well, or at the very least an unofficial. He's been around Purdue a lot before, so we'll see what his stance is on using an official visit on Purdue. Proximity didn't stop him from booking an OV to Indiana.
• Purdue's trying to get Merrillville DT Kenneth Grant to visit in June but he hasn't made a decision on whether he will yet or not.
• On the offensive line front, we think Valen Erickson is going to wind up being a legitimate target for Purdue and maybe another June official visitor. He was actually born in West Lafayette.
But a couple other interesting names here.
Not sure Purdue's offered yet, but it is seriously interested in Cathedral's Cooper Koers.
And this player just claimed an offer: Andre Oben from St. Peter's Prep in Jersey City, literally In the shadow of the Statue of Liberty (it's pretty cool).
What's interesting here about Oben is that he's the son of former NFL offensive lineman Roman Oben, who'd have been Jeff Brohm's teammate briefly at Louisville and then again briefly with the Cleveland Browns during both players' NFL careers, so there's a connection there. (Roman Oben's position coach at Louisville: Charles Daniel Hope.)
• We do not expect Purdue to have camps on campus this summer due to the university's stance on the matter, but the football program may be able to get creative and move their camps off school property and still have be able to have them. That's just us speculating.
COUPLE OTHER THINGS
• Just got off the phone with Carmel coach Ryan Osborne about Brian Waddell and have spent the past few days talking to people about Paul Lusk. Look for in-depth stories on both to come, including some interesting perspective from the Creighton end on Lusk, hopefully including some thoughts from former Bluejay star Ty-Shon Alexander, who's now with the Suns.
• This weekend we'll have coverage from the Midwest Mania event in Westfield, and the Run 'N Slam in Fort Wayne the weekend after.
• Next week's BO will either go Wednesday or be put off altogether. I have my second shot on Thursday (TMI, I know) and then will be on the road Friday.
