I was thinking about how the remaining two players of the '12 class will be remembered around here.
My thought is this: These guys sucked it up and stuck through two majorly down years and never stopped working to get better. They shook off what seemed to be less than stellar relationships with former teammates, shook off losing another classmate to a medical condition, and kept a positive attitude after a last-place conference finish. AJ, for his part, shook off many fans' and commentators' pointed criticism that he didn't play hard enough and didn't care. You have to think RD was picturing his Purdue teams at the top of the conference way back when he committed, not the very bottom. Yet he figured out a way to set the tone for a young team to succeed last year.
Especially now with Hammons' decision to come back, and with the leader that RD has become, I think these guys will graduate and be remembered for laying a new foundation for this program -- at a time when it was not at all clear that the thing was going to get rebuilt any time soon at all.
Whether Biggie comes or not, we're in for a pretty good year. And if the pieces come together and this team can be as good as I think they might be, what a wild four years it will have been for those two.
Hats off.
My thought is this: These guys sucked it up and stuck through two majorly down years and never stopped working to get better. They shook off what seemed to be less than stellar relationships with former teammates, shook off losing another classmate to a medical condition, and kept a positive attitude after a last-place conference finish. AJ, for his part, shook off many fans' and commentators' pointed criticism that he didn't play hard enough and didn't care. You have to think RD was picturing his Purdue teams at the top of the conference way back when he committed, not the very bottom. Yet he figured out a way to set the tone for a young team to succeed last year.
Especially now with Hammons' decision to come back, and with the leader that RD has become, I think these guys will graduate and be remembered for laying a new foundation for this program -- at a time when it was not at all clear that the thing was going to get rebuilt any time soon at all.
Whether Biggie comes or not, we're in for a pretty good year. And if the pieces come together and this team can be as good as I think they might be, what a wild four years it will have been for those two.
Hats off.
