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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
So the fall recruiting period continues on and for Purdue, much of this has been about getting started on younger guys, as things in 2022 and 2023 are relatively compact already. They're basically down to their last scholarship for 2022 — and that search for a big man has been well documented — and don't have much to work with in 2023.
Junior guard Parker Friedrichsen will officially visit the weekend of Oct. 1-2, a week after Purdue brings in its three 2022 commitments for their mere-formality visits for the Illinois game weekend.
As of now, those are the only visits planned for the fall, though that could change obviously. Purdue could add 2023 players to the list, and is still trying to get Swede William Berg for an official visit. Illinois just offered Berg, making for his second high-major offer.
Our belief remains that if he visits Purdue and Purdue likes what it says, it'll get him. Our belief also remains, though, that it can't possibly take a commitment from him prior to seeing/meeting him in person, though we belief Paul Lusk will get over there to see him whenever he can. That could suffice, but not sure.
Purdue's still looking for other bigs, too, but it's Sept. 16 now, so ...
The transfer wire would be the Boilermakers' next recourse should they not land a center this fall. One would think that Purdue's rep with big men would make them a primo destination for the best transfers out there, but one can also wonder whether the short runway to recruit said player and all the predispositions that transferees might have to other schools — i.e. guys getting tampered with — could make that a difficult landscape for Purdue, a noted-promise-avoider in recruiting. Transfers often want assurances.
We'll see what happens here the rest of the way.
One other small recruiting note: Matt Painter is supposed to see 2024 forward target Cooper Koch in Illinois today. Koch was offered during an unofficial visit on August. Iowa Is a safe bet there, but he's worth a shot. That kid is good.
PURDUE FOOTBALL RECRUITING
Should be another big visit weekend next weekend for the Illinois game.
In the meantime ...
• Louisiana corner Lorenzell Dubose is announcing a commitment tomorrow. We have no reason to think Purdue is still a player there and some reason to believe Jordan Buchanan took that last scholarship for the secondary, but at one time, he seemed to be the corner Purdue wanted. So FYI.
• Still no decision from West Side's Mariere Omonode and we do start to wonder how long Purdue will wait here. We shall see. We think he'd be perfectly fine going to Arkansas State — and he may anyway.
PURDUE BASKETBALL
Couple of the most minor of minor notes here ...
• Big Ten media days are Oct. 7-8 at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. Hopefully the WiFi works better than than at Lucas Oil. Purdue will be there dodging sportswriter COVID on Oct. 8.
Have to figure Trevion Williams and Jaden Ivey are two of the Boilermakers' delegates, considering they're both certainties for the preseason All-Big Ten team.
• This new NCAA rule about allowing more coaches to be hands-on with their work on the practice floor is basically an empty gesture, because it only allows those two additional coaches to be active when other coaches are absent. It's not even a half-measure.
Coaches around the country have lobbied for this sort of change to be done in a meaningful manner, to allow for younger coaches to break into the business in a substantive way, for one thing. Right now, at Purdue, P.J. Thompson has gone from being a graduate assistant coach to carrying this director of player development position, a support sort of role. Purdue very well be grooming him, though, for a future on its staff.
Thompson, right now, is pretty limited in what he can do during practice from a coaching perspective. But limited we mean, he can't really do anything. After this change, he still can't, unless Matt Painter, Paul Lusk, Terry Johnson or Brandon Brantley are not at practice.
• Stay tuned next week, hopefully, for a bunch of stuff from interview with Purdue's coaches leading Into the Sept. 28 start of practice.
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