To be honest, Purdue did sign another Big man - Burgess. Jacobsen was not supposed to have arrived until next year. But he reclassified.
I’ve read multiple statements that the reason Burgess has contributed so little was that when he arrived at Purdue, he was not in proper physical shape or conditioning to play college basketball. I looked for further insider info as to what that meant and found nobody wanted to elaborate. I don’t know if arrived out of shape or was recovering from an injury or lacked the stamina to play the vigors of college basketball.
I just know this was said immediately following Jacobsen injury as the reason why Burgess was not receiving additional minutes.
Ideally it would have been great if Burgess was healthy enough to play at the beginning of the season. This was only mentioned at the beginning of the year. It may have been mentioned when it was announced that Jacobsen had beaten out the competition and would be starting
Maybe Burgess is still suffering from a lingering issue. Or maybe he still isn’t 100% conditioned yet. I remember Tractor Traylor. He had weight and conditioning issues. He was great for 5-10 minute spurts and then just stood there. He lost 50-80 pounds after the season right before the draft. When he played in all star games and for pro scouts, he never played more than 10 minutes, so they assumed he was going to be awesome. But after he signed his nba contract, he went off his diet, gained all his weight back. And his conditioning problems resurfaced. I remember the bucks making the mistake of drafting him and believing they could convert him into being a big PF. It never worked out.
Anybody know the story on Burgess? Is it a lingering injury? Conditioning issues? Lack of understanding the playbook? Yes, Jacobsen beat him out to be the starter. But a lot was expected from Burgess when he was recruited.