With Purdue basketball set to officially open preseason practice on Oct. 14, we are keeping busy with a series making projections on each of Purdue's scholarship players, keeping in mind that we are basing such things off less than ever because of this bizarro world off-season. Please keep in mind that more in unknown — to people like us and maybe even to coaches and such — than ever before heading into a season.
Anyway, we continue today with Sasha Stefanovic, as we go in descending order by eligibility.
Prior Editions: Trevion Williams | Eric Hunter | Aaron Wheeler
The point in his career
As with his whole class, Stefanovic has now played a lot of basketball at Purdue, and now after his first year as a leading-role sort of player last season, he's a legit veteran now with three years in the program and two seasons left to presumably play the best basketball of his career. He'll be a starter (probably), carry big minutes and be one of Purdue's most relied-upon leadership candidates for the next two seasons.
Projected role
Stefanovic is going to be Purdue's No. 1 third guard, the wing position in effect, and its foremost shooting threat. He'll be a crucial element to Purdue's offense whether he's getting shots or creating them for others by acting as a decoy in its offensive structure. He may not be the highest up-side player on Purdue's roster — he is probably pretty close to his ceiling at this point — but the importance of his experience and intelligence on top of his offensive presence are big, big deals for Purdue and should assure him big minutes, with Brandon Newman probably slotted behind him at his position at this position.
Best case scenario
The best case is Stefanovic is one of the best three-point shooters in the Big Ten and a bit more consistent than he was last season. The road-shooting issue probably gets overblown because things turned around late in the season, as he was 8-of-24 in Purdue's last five road games, which isn't awful by any means. He made big shots at Indiana, Wisconsin and obviously Northwestern, as well as Iowa. But his best case would involve him evening out some of the highs and lows from last season, when he was a great temperature check for Purdue's offense. When he was on, Purdue rolled, and he was guarded accordingly late in the season.
Additionally, defensive improvement has always been Stefanovic's priority, and it would be welcomed this season, but intangibles are also a big deal for him. Purdue needs to strong leadership presences and that's a void he wants to/can fill, and part of that may lie in how he carries himself. He's a competitive dude and sometimes that really showed in his reactions to his own struggles at times. He's said poise and keeping his cool are emphases for him this season.
Worst case scenario
There probably is no real worst-case for Stefanovic because he's probably the most known commodity on this whole roster, with there being room for incremental improvement but probably very little room for regression. He's probably not going to transform for the better and he's too stable a person and probably pretty close to his ceiling as a player, so the chances of him taking a step backward are remote, so the worst case for him may lie in him just staying the same, as can be said for the whole junior class.
Reasonable expectations
It's close to certain that Stefanovic will be a heavily relied-upon player, an important personality and a pretty productive player. Expect him to be one of the most respected shooters in the conference, for Purdue to feature him as such in its offensive design. His scoring output will be heavily dependent on the three obviously, so it could vary greatly from game to game, but expecting 9-10 points a game isn't unreasonable, but the dimension he provides and the intangibles it's hoped he can provide will be a big piece of his worth, too.
