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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 BASKETBALL RECRUITING
Dravyn Gibbs-Lawhorn is on campus as we speak for his junior-year official visit to Purdue, bringing one of the Boilermakers' foremost priorities in recruiting to town.
Gibbs-Lawhorn, as you know, is a really highly regarded recruit and a Lafayette native who now attends prep school in Utah. There's not much of an impulse on his part to reside in Lafayette again, but the thought of what playing for his hometown team might mean for his profile is something that's caught the player's attention.
Beyond that, though, Purdue has done a very good job recruiting Gibbs-Lawhorn, and has strong relationships with some of those in his circle.
Purdue has been the leader for quite some time, and a pretty clear one at that, but there is a long, long, long way to go here.
DGL has only been playing again since the start of fall, after missing all off last season with a series of foot injuries — one injury, that required surgery, then an aggravation that he attributed to coming back too soon on.
So other schools are basically only now seeing Gibbs-Lawhorn play again, with the move to Utah opening up a whole new Western market for him.
Gonzaga and UCLA have been very involved, and Kansas has joined in now too. Don't need to tell you the multi-layered challenges that come with recruiting against schools like those once they offer him.
But as of right now, Purdue is No. 1.
We'd put the chances of him committing during his visit this weekend somewhere just south of zero, but he can be kind of an impulsive, free-wheeling sort of personality and that could make this a recruitment that's far from a straight line.
On a sidenote, we did speak to fellow 2023 target Lawrent Rice about his recent unofficial visit to Purdue and that went very well by the sounds of it, but he says he's trying to work toward a March decision and while DGL is Purdue's apparent priority, we're not really sure things will line up there.
Purdue has Myles Colvin committed and really wants Gibbs-Lawhorn and Xavier Booker, who officially visited earlier this fall. (BN)
PURDUE FOOTBALL RECRUITING
A few anticipated visitors for the Michigan State game, from the 2023 class.
Mickens has a Purdue offer and this would be at least his second visit of the season.
Hartford's being recruited for safety.
Current Boilermaker Anthony Romphf's younger brother has been a fixture around Purdue this fall. He'll be a big-time prospect in the Class of 2024.
Lots of commitments coming, as well, including Nic Caraway from Texas.
Purdue will also have Lafayette Jeff offensive lineman Tyson Miller on campus. We're pretty certain that's a PWO sort of deal.
There will be a ton of PWO-type 2022 recruits in town this weekend, we'd imagine. (BN)
PURDUE FOOTBALL RECRUITING
Where things stand now following the commitment of Mo Omonode for the 2022 class: While coaching staffs are never really done recruiting, he was the last player we were aware of having a live offer, and brought Purdue's class to 18 commitments. (And Purdue doesn't have that many scholarships opening even.)
There's still going to be heavy involvement with the transfer wire after the season, and maybe some sixth-year decisions that'll have to be accommodated.
Point is, Purdue would seem done, for right now. Things can change as rosters evolve or commitments come and go, at Purdue or elsewhere, but at the moment, this seems like it.
If there was a position where Purdue was still looking for a non-transfer, cornerback maybe? But again, space. And the transfer portal Is maybe even a preferred option there.
Not sure what Purdue is doing at kicker. Mitchell Fineran has already expressed public interest in returning. We'll see how his season finishes up, I suppose. (BN)
PURDUE BASKETBALL
A few quick notes ...
• Zach Edey is starting at center tonight. That is fact.
• Ethan Morton — perhaps the most thoughtful and insightful player on this team, at least from a media perspective — on this season: "I know I'm not a main cog on this team but I think back to my senior year in high school and that was the year we had the most expectations to win and do this or that, and that was probably the most difficult year of my career In terms of working through kinks on the court and off the court, and we were going to get everyone's best shot every single game.
"Everyone's going to have to adjust to not getting as many minutes or not getting as long a run as they might be used to. You have to figure out how you can make the most of the minutes you do get without trying to do too much. And there's going to be bumps in the road. Obviously I'd love to go undefeated and win every game by 20 points, but being a realist, I know that isn't going to happen. You saw it in the closed scrimmage. We lost by one. There's going to be adversity, and we had adversity last year, but it's going to be different this year because of all the expectations on us.
"It's obviously a privilege to have those expectations and that pressure, but we have to come in with an open mind that there is going to be adversity and not be surprised when it hits. We can't think, 'Oh my god, this isn't supposed to happen.' It is supposed to happen. We're going to get a lot of teams' best shots and we have to confront it head on and make it make us better. We have a long road ahead of us."
Here's part of our interview yesterday.
• Jaden Ivey on his decision-making (this being before the Providence scrimmage): "I've been in those tough moments, those pressure games like North Texas and Ohio State In the Big Ten Tournament. I've been In those positions before, and I feel like I'm ready for those kinds of games now because I've been in those positions. Moving forward, I'm going to be well-prepared because I've been in those games."
His turnovers at Providence aside, Ivey flirted with a double-double with nine assists. He'd recorded seven in one of Purdue's scrimmages.
"It's just making the right read," Ivey said. "A lot of teams are going to know what type of player I am and they're going to try to help on me a little more offensively, and then that's just about making the right reads. I know my teammates are going to be open and it's about just finding them and putting them in the best positions to score.
"I think my passing has come a long way."
• Matt Painter on the Providence scrimmage: "It really opened our eyes to some of our shortcomings, and now we can really focus in on those things, especially defensively."
We'll have way more front-page stuff next week than we did this week. (BN)
GOLD AND BLACK LIVE
Join us tomorrow at 2 p.m. for our 'Gold and Black LIVE' show with guests Jerry Palm and West Lafayette High School football coach Shane Fry.
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.
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