MERRILLVILLE, Ind. - In the two games - one of them just an intrasquad scrimmage - I saw Purdue 2013 commitment Kendall Stephens play in Saturday, he more than lived up to his billing.
Hopefully by now you know that I don't hype Purdue recruits. To do so would be a disservice to readers and the players themselves alike. But I can say without hyperbole that I expected Stephens to be good, based on all I'd heard and read, and he was better.
The term 'natural shooter' gets thrown around way too often and has almost become synonymous with just 'good shooter.'
Stephens, though, looks like a natural. It looks like it just comes easy to him. Sometimes, it's telling not just that players make shots, but how they make shots.
Stephens exhibits picturesque form, great rotation on the ball and dead-eye accuracy. Granted, this was the extraordinarily small sample size of two AAU games, but you generally only have to see somebody do something a couple times to know they can.
Furthermore, throughout Stephens' sophomore season and AAU spring so far, he's been very productive and consistent beyond his years.
His Illinois Wolves team's Saturday morning opponent didn't show up, so his AAU team broke up into two squads and scrimmaged. If you know that program, you know that practicing against itself provided much greater competition than any first-round pool play riff-raff team would have.
Stephens dominated that scrimmage from the jump and made it look easy, scoring 12 quick points right out of the gate. Not sure what he ended up with; the format of the scrimmage changed up. I know one of the few threes he missed, it looked to me like he was fouled.
The obvious knock on Stephens right now - if there is one - is size and strength. But he's 16 and quite frankly he showed some signs Saturday of being a little more physical than a lot of 165-pounders his age would be.
Stephens did look to have fairly wide shoulders for his frame, suggesting the potential is there for him to show up at Purdue much bigger than he is today.
The comparisons to Anthony Johnson are striking, not only because of their skills, but also their similar bodies and facial resemblances. But I think Stephens is taller and longer than Johnson.
Stephens reminds me of Jaraan Cornell, because of the way he shoots the ball and how effortless he seems to make everything he does look.
I know little about Derek Willis - but of the three guys who preceded Stephens in committing to Purdue for '13 - I have a hard seeing Stephens not being the star. And my opinion of Bryson Scott is very high.
Stephens is too good right now and clearly has significant room for improvement.
I've made the mistake before of saying that I could see Stephens being a McDonald's All-American type in two years. I call that a mistake because that's a lot to put on a kid, especially with the exaggeration quotient of the Internet nowadays.
But I really think he's that kind of prospect, probably the jewel of a 2013 Purdue class that will rival the '07 class on the meaningless-but-fun rankings front. That's not to say it will be as good when all's said and done - it would be unreasonable to expect it to be - but it will be ranked similarly, assuming the class committed now is the one that actually shows up on campus three summers from now.
Bryson Scott could be the top prospect in Indiana's loaded 2013 class. When rankings are updated in coming weeks, that opinion could be corroborated.
Smotherman may be a top-100 player and Stephens could debut in the top 50, if what I've been told comes to pass.
I've never seen Willis, but I've had multiple people tell me now that he's big time. Assuming Purdue can hang on to him - and I only say that because he'll have Pitino over one shoulder, Calipari over the other - he's the frontcourt player who rounds out an otherwise perimeter-heavy class.
You know what's also nice about this class, too, is that it does not seem like a group that's going to walk in the door like it owns the place. That's part of what made the 2007 class special. They knew they were good and they knew they were moving right to the front of the line on the depth chart, but they were willing to fit in. There was no entitlement to any of them, not even the one guy who didn't work out.
With Indiana's 2012 class turning AAU tournaments into Hoosierpalooza (clever, I know) and lighting up Twitter like a pinball machine, Purdue's outstanding 2013 class could go largely unnoticed locally. There will be no chest-beating, no AAU collusion for spectacle's sake, no nickname and no grown men chasing 17-year-olds' autographs.
That sort of culture is dangerous, but it's becoming more the rule than the exception in basketball recruiting, which is under so much more scrutiny nowadays. These kids are becoming rock stars.
The early commitment game is a dangerous one for all involved and one Purdue's knee-deep in having filled up a four-man class literally years before it can sign. It comes on the heels of Purdue landing its first three 2012 commitments in 2009, though as it turns out, it's class is clearly far from complete, no matter what the black-and-white numbers may say on paper.
Taking early commitments - remember, if you don't, someone else will - is all fine and good as long as the players pan out.
But when you fill up early and the landscape changes around you, things can get dicey.
Remember, in the fall of 2006, JaJuan Johnson had yet to be a full-time varsity player at Franklin Central; Robbie Hummel had accomplished next to nothing to that point in his career at Valparaiso High School.
What might have happened had Purdue not had scholarships for those guys?
Look at Ronnie Johnson. He's blown up in the past year and now's a player who's too good for Purdue not to recruit.
But it's all a moot point if the players taken early are good enough, and by every account, the players Purdue has lined up for 2013 are without question so.
With that class following up what could be a great 2012 group, depending on how things finish up, it's pretty clear Purdue's going to have the talent in place to keep up its run of success of these past couple seasons.
Hopefully by now you know that I don't hype Purdue recruits. To do so would be a disservice to readers and the players themselves alike. But I can say without hyperbole that I expected Stephens to be good, based on all I'd heard and read, and he was better.
The term 'natural shooter' gets thrown around way too often and has almost become synonymous with just 'good shooter.'
Stephens, though, looks like a natural. It looks like it just comes easy to him. Sometimes, it's telling not just that players make shots, but how they make shots.
Stephens exhibits picturesque form, great rotation on the ball and dead-eye accuracy. Granted, this was the extraordinarily small sample size of two AAU games, but you generally only have to see somebody do something a couple times to know they can.
Furthermore, throughout Stephens' sophomore season and AAU spring so far, he's been very productive and consistent beyond his years.
His Illinois Wolves team's Saturday morning opponent didn't show up, so his AAU team broke up into two squads and scrimmaged. If you know that program, you know that practicing against itself provided much greater competition than any first-round pool play riff-raff team would have.
Stephens dominated that scrimmage from the jump and made it look easy, scoring 12 quick points right out of the gate. Not sure what he ended up with; the format of the scrimmage changed up. I know one of the few threes he missed, it looked to me like he was fouled.
The obvious knock on Stephens right now - if there is one - is size and strength. But he's 16 and quite frankly he showed some signs Saturday of being a little more physical than a lot of 165-pounders his age would be.
Stephens did look to have fairly wide shoulders for his frame, suggesting the potential is there for him to show up at Purdue much bigger than he is today.
The comparisons to Anthony Johnson are striking, not only because of their skills, but also their similar bodies and facial resemblances. But I think Stephens is taller and longer than Johnson.
Stephens reminds me of Jaraan Cornell, because of the way he shoots the ball and how effortless he seems to make everything he does look.
I know little about Derek Willis - but of the three guys who preceded Stephens in committing to Purdue for '13 - I have a hard seeing Stephens not being the star. And my opinion of Bryson Scott is very high.
Stephens is too good right now and clearly has significant room for improvement.
I've made the mistake before of saying that I could see Stephens being a McDonald's All-American type in two years. I call that a mistake because that's a lot to put on a kid, especially with the exaggeration quotient of the Internet nowadays.
But I really think he's that kind of prospect, probably the jewel of a 2013 Purdue class that will rival the '07 class on the meaningless-but-fun rankings front. That's not to say it will be as good when all's said and done - it would be unreasonable to expect it to be - but it will be ranked similarly, assuming the class committed now is the one that actually shows up on campus three summers from now.
Bryson Scott could be the top prospect in Indiana's loaded 2013 class. When rankings are updated in coming weeks, that opinion could be corroborated.
Smotherman may be a top-100 player and Stephens could debut in the top 50, if what I've been told comes to pass.
I've never seen Willis, but I've had multiple people tell me now that he's big time. Assuming Purdue can hang on to him - and I only say that because he'll have Pitino over one shoulder, Calipari over the other - he's the frontcourt player who rounds out an otherwise perimeter-heavy class.
You know what's also nice about this class, too, is that it does not seem like a group that's going to walk in the door like it owns the place. That's part of what made the 2007 class special. They knew they were good and they knew they were moving right to the front of the line on the depth chart, but they were willing to fit in. There was no entitlement to any of them, not even the one guy who didn't work out.
With Indiana's 2012 class turning AAU tournaments into Hoosierpalooza (clever, I know) and lighting up Twitter like a pinball machine, Purdue's outstanding 2013 class could go largely unnoticed locally. There will be no chest-beating, no AAU collusion for spectacle's sake, no nickname and no grown men chasing 17-year-olds' autographs.
That sort of culture is dangerous, but it's becoming more the rule than the exception in basketball recruiting, which is under so much more scrutiny nowadays. These kids are becoming rock stars.
The early commitment game is a dangerous one for all involved and one Purdue's knee-deep in having filled up a four-man class literally years before it can sign. It comes on the heels of Purdue landing its first three 2012 commitments in 2009, though as it turns out, it's class is clearly far from complete, no matter what the black-and-white numbers may say on paper.
Taking early commitments - remember, if you don't, someone else will - is all fine and good as long as the players pan out.
But when you fill up early and the landscape changes around you, things can get dicey.
Remember, in the fall of 2006, JaJuan Johnson had yet to be a full-time varsity player at Franklin Central; Robbie Hummel had accomplished next to nothing to that point in his career at Valparaiso High School.
What might have happened had Purdue not had scholarships for those guys?
Look at Ronnie Johnson. He's blown up in the past year and now's a player who's too good for Purdue not to recruit.
But it's all a moot point if the players taken early are good enough, and by every account, the players Purdue has lined up for 2013 are without question so.
With that class following up what could be a great 2012 group, depending on how things finish up, it's pretty clear Purdue's going to have the talent in place to keep up its run of success of these past couple seasons.
