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 RECRUITING
So this week, Purdue signed its first three 2022 recruits in Fletcher Loyer, Camden Heide and Braden Smith, and that's an important distinction, because this class is not done.
As you well know by now, Purdue has offered Sweden's William Berg and has him coming in at the start of December for an official visit. Provided the coaching staff doesn't run over him with a golf cart and provided he doesn't show up being 6-foot-3 or having a tail or something, that'll get done. We'd be stunned otherwise.
If not for travel restrictions, Berg would have been part of this week's signing class, is our guess.
Berg's down to Purdue and Utah State, so he might visit both. Whether he can do that on the same trip to the States, I don't know. We haven't checked in with him for a while.
If Berg somehow falls through, then Purdue is all In on the transfer portal for a big man, even though it is slated to have Zach Edey back next season as of now, and Caleb Furst can play center.
Purdue Is preparing for all potential outcomes on Edey, though, as well, so It may not be outside the realm of possibility that It winds up chasing Berg and a transfer.
Furthermore, should the Boilermakers lose Jaden Ivey to the NBA, Matt Painter and Co. will be in the transfer portal for a scoring guard, too.
Way too early to talk transfer possibilities, obviously, but Purdue's participation in that market come the spring seems almost inevitable.
The good news will be that Purdue is got right now, so It'll have some cachet out there right now and can earn even more with a great season. It should — should — have tremendous street cred with big men, and should be able to offer up key roles on what still could be a very good team next season.
Here's a quick look at Purdue's roster next season as of right now.
If you put a tire iron to our head right now and made us guess, we'd suggest a low probability that Jaden Ivey is back but a better-than-50/50 chance Edey returns. He still has a lot to prove. So does Ivey, but less than Edey. If you assumed he needed to come back as a junior to be a full-time starter or whatever, well, he's a starter right now.
Anyway ...
G — Isaiah Thompson (Sr.)
G — Brandon Newman (Jr.)
G — Jaden Ivey (Jr.)
C — Zach Edey (Jr.)
G — Ethan Morton (Jr.)
F — Mason Gillis (Jr.)
F — Caleb Furst (So.)
F — Trey Kaufman-Renn (R-Fr.)
G/F — Brian Waddell (R-Fr.)
G — Braden Smith (Fr.)
G — Fletcher Loyer (Fr.)
G/F — Camden Heide (Fr.)
[Hypothetical — C — William Berg (Fr.)]
That would be 13, with Ivey's and Edey's spots being the two Purdue might then need to address should the circumstances require it.
PURDUE BASKETBALL RECRUITNG
So with the 2022 picture still having moving parts, now what?
In 2023, Purdue has the guy it may have wanted most — Myles Colvin.
How many scholarships Purdue has for that class will depend on 2022.
As of right now, Isaiah Thompson is Purdue's lone senior next season and that one scholarship is already spoken for.
Purdue's additional space would now be dependent on the Boilermakers A) losing a player or players to the NBA and not replacing them with multi-year players or B) transfers.
They'll recruit, though, as if they have scholarships and once again, we think the two names to focus most on this point are Dravyn Gibbs-Lawhorn and Xavier Booker, in addition to Colvin.
Honestly we could list 20 guys Purdue's recruiting for the 2023 class at this point, but truth be told, this early In the game and with Purdue being In this scholarship situation, these are really the two most relevant guys, if not the only relevant guys.
Parker Friedrichsen is the only other junior who has officially visited this fall. Under different circumstances, Purdue likely would have feasted on junior-year official visits considering that class nationally is so behind on getting to take underclassman visits because of the pandemic.
It seems like a pretty targeted focus here.
Gibbs-Lawhorn isn't going to come out and say It, but Purdue's No. 1 there, and probably by a solid margin. That said, again, no one else has even recruited him yet, so of course Purdue's No. 1. But he genuinely likes Purdue. This isn't a Rob Phinisee deal where he just wants nothing to do with staying in Lafayette but would have gone to Purdue if he had to, and he almost did because Archie Miller spent that whole summer waffling on whether he thought he was good enough.
DGL Is going to have a national list probably at some point, but those West Coast schools now have easy access to him and UCLA and Gonzaga can be a couple of really difficult schools to recruit against. That said, he still has to show everyone he's healthy and the player he's reputed to be. Small scoring guards generally have to be that much better, as well.
Booker has some things to prove, too. He hasn't done much at the high school level to this point, but obviously when you're 6-foot-11 and skilled as hell, people tend to gravitate to you and offer you on benefit of the doubt. It'll be determined this winter and spring, I think, whether this is a Big Ten-centric recruitment, or if this is the Big Ten vs. Kentucky and Kansas and North Carolina.
Either way, Purdue's going to be there to the very end. People speak very highly of Booker and his family and we think a lot of the angles Purdue will work (academics, development, post play, etc.) will resonate. I'm certain Purdue will recruit Booker for what Caleb Furst is doing now: Playing as a big 4 who can slide inside to play as a skilled center, too.
There, that's everything that matters regarding Purdue basketball recruiting all rolled up into a ball of text.
By the way, there won't be any visitors for these games this week, because signing week is always a dead period.
It's forbidden.
PURDUE FOOTBALL RECRUITING
Last week we wrote about how we thought Mo Omonode was it for the non-transfer part of the 2022 class for Purdue.
Nope.
This week, as you might have seen, the Boilermaker staff offered junior college defensive tackle and former Virginia signee Jeffrey M'ba and Texas high school running back Andrew Paul.
Both of these guys are really highly recruited players, so Purdue will have to fight, we'd think, to get visits, but the offers do show that Purdue still feels it has space to offer prior to the transfer carousel in the spring. The M'ba offer — and he's a national guy, so we'll see if Purdue can get traction there — comes right on top of them adding Omonode to a class that already had J.P. Deeter committed.
Obviously, Purdue's looking for guys who can play at that position, and M'ba represents the start of the transfer cycle, so lumping him with Purdue's early-class outlook probably is flawed.
Paul, though, is a high school player and a target for the December portion of the class. His offer could very well be linked to Jacquez Cross leaving the team, most likely for good. Purdue's numbers at running back have really been put to the test this season, and next season, Zander Horvath and Jackson Anthrop are gone, barring a surprise return from Horvath. As of today, Purdue has King Doerue, Sampson James and Dylan Downing due to return at that position, barring a return from Cross, and has running back Kentrell Marks and utility man Terence Thomas committed.
GOLD AND BLACK LIVE
Join us tomorrow at 2 p.m. for our 'Gold and Black LIVE' show. One of our guests will be new Purdue assistant coach Terry Johnson.
Also, if you missed our Gold and Black Radio Purdue Basketball Preview Show, then something's really wrong with you. But it's not too late to make amends.
Please keep in mind our sponsor, JFQ Lending, and look into what they have to offer if you're in the market for a loan.
