Welcome to this week's “BOILING OVER,” GoldandBlack.com’s weekly Ultimate Ticket information-clearinghouse and analysis column meant for our subscribers and our subscribers only.
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Additionally, we address recruiting 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.
Simply out of habit at this point, the leadoff spot in this week's BO is reserved for Caleb Swanigan, who is coming to Purdue in case you missed that news.
In the wake of his commitment and subsequent signing of scholarship papers with the Boilermaker program, we have talked to some people have coached him and will continue to do so to use somewhere at some point, and hopefully we will get Swanigan himself at some point.
Here is a comment from Eric Flannery, the coach at St. Edward High School in Ohio and twice Swanigan's coach with USA Basketball, first as an assistant coach for the 17-and-Under World Championships team that won gold in Dubai, then as Swanigan's coach at the Nike Hoop Summit a few weeks ago.
"First of all, he's a very impressive young man," Flannery said. "He is a little bit quiet, but he's very personable and likeable and says all the right things. He's very polite, fun and easy to be around, a good teammate in practice and off the floor. You could always tell the guys got along with him and respect him because of his work ethic. That translates to being on the floor because he works as hard if not harder than anybody. He's the guy who's there a few minutes earlier than most and there later than most."
This might seem like pretty standard fodder for a coach to say about a player, but it is an important topic in this case.
This was a chaotic recruitment, in part because it all had to play out in a shorter period of time than any other because of Swanigan's reclassification. It may seem like it took forever, but understand that this was two years of recruiting process rolled into one.
Roosevelt Barnes handled it, pretty much shielding the player from the bulk of the spotlight, in part in hopes of preserving some measure of normalcy. Swanigan credits Barnes for this.
But because Swanigan was so guarded, he's not been out there all that much, so his personality hasn't been on display for people to see all that much.
Even college coaches recruiting him, they didn't have as much access to Swanigan as they would most other prospects. This was just a situation where the onslaught had to be managed and such things are right up Barnes' alley given the nature of his work.
It's important to know Swanigan as a person, though, at least to some extent.
A player of this prominence coming to a team as established as Purdue is for the most part, it does beg the question of how he will jibe with the existing chemistry the Boilermakers have going, and so Flannery's comments are encouraging from a Purdue perspective. A freshman walking in the door with a superstar complex might be a recipe for disaster for Purdue, but there is no reason at all to fear such a scenario.
For the record, from everything we've ever seen and been told about Swanigan, he is a normal kid - many like him are not because of the alternative universe and warped reality these really high-end players typically exist in - who just wants to play and work at basketball.
High school teammate Ben Skowronek told us a while back that if you don't know who Swanigan is, you'll have no idea he is who he is, because of the unassuming way he carries himself.
Effort keeps coming up when people who know Swanigan talk about him and that's certainly a positive sign, too, for how he might fit at Purdue.
"The work ethic really stood out, the high motor he had," said Don Showalter, the coach at Iowa City High School and Swanigan's head coach on that USA Basketball 17-and-Under team. "He was always really aggressive and never took a play off. He played really, really hard every play and that really stood out. Being a young player in high school, sometimes that doesn't always happen."
That has been a long-standing theme with Swanigan. He is an elite player, but not one who is so physically gifted - aside from his power - that things come as easy for him as they might for others. He has had to rely to a significant extent on his basketball savvy and effort to become the player he is.
"He's not necessarily an above-the-rim sort of player," Showalter said. "But he's just a real hard-working, blue-collar type of guy who gets the job done.
"People at Purdue will really enjoy him. He's a tremendous kid and a joy to coach."
By the way, Showalter and Flannery are done coaching Swanigan now that he's moved out of their USA Basketball age range, lessening their need to blow smoke, so take it for what it's worth.
We are addressing this in some part because sometimes an eventful recruitment can paint a picture of a recruit as something of a diva or high-maintenance case, but from everything we have seen and been told, that is the opposite of the truth.
In our media dealings with Swanigan over the years - and we were the very first media to cover him, by the way - he has always been polite and accommodating (no matter what that weird post-4A title game interview might have come off) even though this stuff obviously wore on him.
Another Swanigan note: Winning Mr. Basketball was a big, big deal for him, but it remains to be seen whether he will wear that No. 1 jersey. The 19-and-Under Team USA try-outs will conflict with the two games vs. Team Kentucky. We suppose it would be up to him or the Indiana All-Star people whether he should play in the two junior scrimmages June 8 and June 10 if he can't play in the games that count.
Tough call, because the Indiana All-Star thing is important to Swanigan - it might not be as much to others in his position - but you can't walk away from USA Basketball and since he's only trying out for a team, it's not like they can really ask USA Basketball for an exemption from a portion of the try-outs, you'd think.
Good problem to have, but a problem nevertheless. (BN)
Seems as if Purdue 2016 point guard target Xavier Simpson's fast track to committing to Xavier (appropriately enough) has been sidetracked for whatever reason and the Ohio guard now seems inclined to take some visits.
We still have to believe X is the decided leader in the clubhouse, but it would at least give Purdue a puncher's chance if it can get him on campus in June for the visit that has long been planned.
If Simpson doesn't commit to Xavier, Purdue may be one of the top schools in contention, as long as Michigan State keeps its distance and if the Spartans haven't come all in yet, you have to wonder if they ever will as long as Cassius Winston is in play.
Purdue has to have a point guard in its 2016 class now that the transfer possibility has gone by the wayside, with Simpson being Plan A. No idea who Plan B would be at this time, but Carsen Edwards now has an offer and more point guards will be recruited this summer.
It should be noted that Purdue did want Tayler Persons but Swanigan squeezed him out. Bad timing that way, but a good problem to have if you're Purdue, which was not willing to push a freshman to prep school to try to get Persons.
We can only assume that Xavier pulled out on Persons as it became evident Simpson was on the fast track to committing.
Persons committed to Ball State last week, a really nice get for the Cardinals. (BN)
Purdue, we think, would really like wide receiver Trishton Jackson and/or DB Navon Mosley from West Bloomfield High School in Michigan.
They both have Purdue offers and we think are legitimate priorities.
No commitments are imminent and both look poised to get more offers, but Purdue does have an advocate on the inside in defensive tackle signee Eddy Wilson, whose extroverted personality might make him a solid peer-recruiter.
"He messes with us in the halls," Jackson said, "and tells us all the time we should go to Purdue."
His presence is a benefit to Purdue, Mosley said.
"He's in our ear at school a lot and that helps," Mosley said. "It would be good to know somebody down at Purdue, down in West Lafayette knowing what it's like and telling what I can expect it to be like."
Both players are planning to visit, separately, in June.
Here are our updates from this week on both players: Navon Mosley | Trishton Jackson (BN)
Much was made when Darrell Hazell and his staff came in about their relationships in Ohio.
Well, one of those relationships has moved on to South Carolina, but has been a productive one for Purdue nonetheless.
Hilton Head (S.C.) coach B.J. Payne has long been close with the Purdue staff, particularly Marcus Freeman (who annually works Payne's camps at Hilton Head), since his days as a coach in Ohio and for that reason, West Lafayette has been an annual stop for Payne's annual tour of college camps.
The last three summers, Hilton Head has brought its best players to Purdue in the summer for camp, part of the reason Purdue had a crack at high-end defensive lineman Poona Ford a few years ago.
Now, Purdue has early offers out to two of Payne's players - safety/linebacker Jeremiah Maddox and DB Jestin Morrow and stands as the best offer to date for both.
Either could be commitment possibilities assuming Purdue is willing to take them early and both will again be on campus with their high school teammates on June 10 as part of the tour.
This year's "Tour de Payne" will also hit Wake Forest, Toledo, Ohio University, Cincinnati, Tennessee and Clemson.
Stay tuned for in-depth updates on both Maddox and Morrow. (BN)
Purdue is involved in the recruitment of local lineman Coy Cronk, a 6-5, 275-pound offensive line prospect from Central Catholic.
Cronk, who made the long trek to West Lafayette for at least one Purdue game last fall, was offered by Wyoming yesterday, joining offers from Miami (Ohio) and Ball State.
Northwestern and IU are very interested, we're told.
One to watch. (BN)
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Copyright, Boilers, Inc. 2015. All Rights Reserved. Reproducing or using editorial or graphical content, in whole or in part, without permission, is strictly prohibited.
We appreciate everyone’s cooperation in helping us keep what is sometimes delicate information confined to this message board.
We certainly don’t want it to come to this, but if there are problems, subscriptions have and will be canceled over this.
We know there are a lot of blogs out there and a lot of you are on Twitter and other message boards, and we don’t want to come off like Darth Vader here, but we would be doing all our subscribers a disservice if weren’t proactive about protecting the value of their subscription. Thanks in advance for your cooperation.
Additionally, we address recruiting 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.
In the wake of his commitment and subsequent signing of scholarship papers with the Boilermaker program, we have talked to some people have coached him and will continue to do so to use somewhere at some point, and hopefully we will get Swanigan himself at some point.
Here is a comment from Eric Flannery, the coach at St. Edward High School in Ohio and twice Swanigan's coach with USA Basketball, first as an assistant coach for the 17-and-Under World Championships team that won gold in Dubai, then as Swanigan's coach at the Nike Hoop Summit a few weeks ago.
"First of all, he's a very impressive young man," Flannery said. "He is a little bit quiet, but he's very personable and likeable and says all the right things. He's very polite, fun and easy to be around, a good teammate in practice and off the floor. You could always tell the guys got along with him and respect him because of his work ethic. That translates to being on the floor because he works as hard if not harder than anybody. He's the guy who's there a few minutes earlier than most and there later than most."
This might seem like pretty standard fodder for a coach to say about a player, but it is an important topic in this case.
This was a chaotic recruitment, in part because it all had to play out in a shorter period of time than any other because of Swanigan's reclassification. It may seem like it took forever, but understand that this was two years of recruiting process rolled into one.
Roosevelt Barnes handled it, pretty much shielding the player from the bulk of the spotlight, in part in hopes of preserving some measure of normalcy. Swanigan credits Barnes for this.
But because Swanigan was so guarded, he's not been out there all that much, so his personality hasn't been on display for people to see all that much.
Even college coaches recruiting him, they didn't have as much access to Swanigan as they would most other prospects. This was just a situation where the onslaught had to be managed and such things are right up Barnes' alley given the nature of his work.
It's important to know Swanigan as a person, though, at least to some extent.
A player of this prominence coming to a team as established as Purdue is for the most part, it does beg the question of how he will jibe with the existing chemistry the Boilermakers have going, and so Flannery's comments are encouraging from a Purdue perspective. A freshman walking in the door with a superstar complex might be a recipe for disaster for Purdue, but there is no reason at all to fear such a scenario.
For the record, from everything we've ever seen and been told about Swanigan, he is a normal kid - many like him are not because of the alternative universe and warped reality these really high-end players typically exist in - who just wants to play and work at basketball.
High school teammate Ben Skowronek told us a while back that if you don't know who Swanigan is, you'll have no idea he is who he is, because of the unassuming way he carries himself.
Effort keeps coming up when people who know Swanigan talk about him and that's certainly a positive sign, too, for how he might fit at Purdue.
"The work ethic really stood out, the high motor he had," said Don Showalter, the coach at Iowa City High School and Swanigan's head coach on that USA Basketball 17-and-Under team. "He was always really aggressive and never took a play off. He played really, really hard every play and that really stood out. Being a young player in high school, sometimes that doesn't always happen."
That has been a long-standing theme with Swanigan. He is an elite player, but not one who is so physically gifted - aside from his power - that things come as easy for him as they might for others. He has had to rely to a significant extent on his basketball savvy and effort to become the player he is.
"He's not necessarily an above-the-rim sort of player," Showalter said. "But he's just a real hard-working, blue-collar type of guy who gets the job done.
"People at Purdue will really enjoy him. He's a tremendous kid and a joy to coach."
By the way, Showalter and Flannery are done coaching Swanigan now that he's moved out of their USA Basketball age range, lessening their need to blow smoke, so take it for what it's worth.
We are addressing this in some part because sometimes an eventful recruitment can paint a picture of a recruit as something of a diva or high-maintenance case, but from everything we have seen and been told, that is the opposite of the truth.
In our media dealings with Swanigan over the years - and we were the very first media to cover him, by the way - he has always been polite and accommodating (no matter what that weird post-4A title game interview might have come off) even though this stuff obviously wore on him.
Another Swanigan note: Winning Mr. Basketball was a big, big deal for him, but it remains to be seen whether he will wear that No. 1 jersey. The 19-and-Under Team USA try-outs will conflict with the two games vs. Team Kentucky. We suppose it would be up to him or the Indiana All-Star people whether he should play in the two junior scrimmages June 8 and June 10 if he can't play in the games that count.
Tough call, because the Indiana All-Star thing is important to Swanigan - it might not be as much to others in his position - but you can't walk away from USA Basketball and since he's only trying out for a team, it's not like they can really ask USA Basketball for an exemption from a portion of the try-outs, you'd think.
Good problem to have, but a problem nevertheless. (BN)
We still have to believe X is the decided leader in the clubhouse, but it would at least give Purdue a puncher's chance if it can get him on campus in June for the visit that has long been planned.
If Simpson doesn't commit to Xavier, Purdue may be one of the top schools in contention, as long as Michigan State keeps its distance and if the Spartans haven't come all in yet, you have to wonder if they ever will as long as Cassius Winston is in play.
Purdue has to have a point guard in its 2016 class now that the transfer possibility has gone by the wayside, with Simpson being Plan A. No idea who Plan B would be at this time, but Carsen Edwards now has an offer and more point guards will be recruited this summer.
It should be noted that Purdue did want Tayler Persons but Swanigan squeezed him out. Bad timing that way, but a good problem to have if you're Purdue, which was not willing to push a freshman to prep school to try to get Persons.
We can only assume that Xavier pulled out on Persons as it became evident Simpson was on the fast track to committing.
Persons committed to Ball State last week, a really nice get for the Cardinals. (BN)
They both have Purdue offers and we think are legitimate priorities.
No commitments are imminent and both look poised to get more offers, but Purdue does have an advocate on the inside in defensive tackle signee Eddy Wilson, whose extroverted personality might make him a solid peer-recruiter.
"He messes with us in the halls," Jackson said, "and tells us all the time we should go to Purdue."
His presence is a benefit to Purdue, Mosley said.
"He's in our ear at school a lot and that helps," Mosley said. "It would be good to know somebody down at Purdue, down in West Lafayette knowing what it's like and telling what I can expect it to be like."
Both players are planning to visit, separately, in June.
Here are our updates from this week on both players: Navon Mosley | Trishton Jackson (BN)
Well, one of those relationships has moved on to South Carolina, but has been a productive one for Purdue nonetheless.
Hilton Head (S.C.) coach B.J. Payne has long been close with the Purdue staff, particularly Marcus Freeman (who annually works Payne's camps at Hilton Head), since his days as a coach in Ohio and for that reason, West Lafayette has been an annual stop for Payne's annual tour of college camps.
The last three summers, Hilton Head has brought its best players to Purdue in the summer for camp, part of the reason Purdue had a crack at high-end defensive lineman Poona Ford a few years ago.
Now, Purdue has early offers out to two of Payne's players - safety/linebacker Jeremiah Maddox and DB Jestin Morrow and stands as the best offer to date for both.
Either could be commitment possibilities assuming Purdue is willing to take them early and both will again be on campus with their high school teammates on June 10 as part of the tour.
This year's "Tour de Payne" will also hit Wake Forest, Toledo, Ohio University, Cincinnati, Tennessee and Clemson.
Stay tuned for in-depth updates on both Maddox and Morrow. (BN)
Cronk, who made the long trek to West Lafayette for at least one Purdue game last fall, was offered by Wyoming yesterday, joining offers from Miami (Ohio) and Ball State.
Northwestern and IU are very interested, we're told.
One to watch. (BN)
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Copyright, Boilers, Inc. 2015. All Rights Reserved. Reproducing or using editorial or graphical content, in whole or in part, without permission, is strictly prohibited.
