Headed off-grid here for a couple days, but I did want to leave the site with some notes from our travels during the early July evaluation period.
This is generally stuff that doesn't pertain to Purdue's existing commitments. We'll hit one more AAU tournament at the end of the month, after which we'll do thorough inspections of all seven Boilermaker recruits between the classes of 2012 and 2013.
When I return to the site, we'll have lots more stories, blogs, etc., and will have a big chat session or something interactive to get your July questions answered.
Anyway, some random notes ...
A.J. Hammons is absolutely gigantic.
Yes, there are some motor issues there that could make the 7-footer a boom-or-bust proposition.
But big men with far worse motors than Hammons' have succeeded at the college level - Ralph Sampson plays like a narcoleptic and I'm pretty sure most would take him on their college teams right now - and size like Hammons' makes certain he will get an opportunity to do so.
Looking at Purdue's roster moving forward, one thing missing - maybe the only thing missing - is a defensive game-changer in the middle.
Can Hammons' be that guy? Absolutely. He can rebound with relative ease above everyone else's reach and be a beast of a shot-blocker.
On a team with so much damn skill already lined up and potentially more on the way if Purdue can get Gary Harris, do you really need any more than that?
In the Class of 2014, Indianapolis' Perry Poindexter is big-time. I can say crap like this, because I'm not the one who's stuck with the kid for seven years if I'm wrong, but he's a guy worth offering today.
He's all of 6-7 I think and really athletic and really springy. What sometimes separates very good players from just good players isn't the first jump, but the second, and Poindexter has that sort of playing-on-a-trampoline thing going, sort of like Donnie Hale.
Additionally, the 15-year-old has shown he can hit an open spot-up jumper. He's ahead of the game in that sense for a player who looks to me like he'll be a 4 in a couple years.
In the AAU games I saw him play, the most recent of which was the championship game of the Best of the Midwest, Poindexter rebounded in traffic and showed he could back people down and score at the rim, even if strength is still a deficiency.
As we can say about damn near every kid nowadays because the recruiting process has been so dramatically accelerated, he's going to grow. If he gets to 6-8 or taller and keeps his athleticism, look out.
And, his name is awesome.
I don't know if Purdue will recruit a point guard in the 2014 class after bringing in Ronnie Johnson in 2012 and Bryson Scott in '13, but Brebeuf's P.J. Thompson is really good and would seem like a great Purdue fit.
He's only 5-8 or so and it remains to be seen whether he'll grow much more, but he just comes off as a take-charge type of point guard who can facilitate for others and score equally well. Seems like a tough-minded, intelligent kid.
When Brebeuf barely lost to Hamilton Southeastern at Purdue's team camp a couple weeks ago, it wasn't obvious who the best player on the floor was, and you know who else would have been out on that floor in that game.
Two 2015s who are gonna be big-time are Cathedral point guard Jalen Coleman and Chesterton's Matt Holba.
Coleman already got offered by Indiana after playing up this month so far with the Eric Gordon 2014s. He already has Marquis Teague's body - but certainly not the speed or gears - and looks amazingly polished for a 14-year-old point guard.
I only saw the 6-6ish Holba play one game with Meanstreets 2014s in Bloomington in the spring, but in that one game, he stood out. He's tall, white, versatile and from Northwest Indiana, so guess who he'll be compared to.
Meanstreets was at two of the three tournaments I attended last week, but Holba has an injured meniscus and didn't play.
Darius Austin is the exact same player as Kelsey Barlow, but it would be reasonable to suggest Barlow wasn't as far along as a high school freshman as Austin is right now.
Seriously, though, they're the same player. It's uncanny.
This is generally stuff that doesn't pertain to Purdue's existing commitments. We'll hit one more AAU tournament at the end of the month, after which we'll do thorough inspections of all seven Boilermaker recruits between the classes of 2012 and 2013.
When I return to the site, we'll have lots more stories, blogs, etc., and will have a big chat session or something interactive to get your July questions answered.
Anyway, some random notes ...
Yes, there are some motor issues there that could make the 7-footer a boom-or-bust proposition.
But big men with far worse motors than Hammons' have succeeded at the college level - Ralph Sampson plays like a narcoleptic and I'm pretty sure most would take him on their college teams right now - and size like Hammons' makes certain he will get an opportunity to do so.
Looking at Purdue's roster moving forward, one thing missing - maybe the only thing missing - is a defensive game-changer in the middle.
Can Hammons' be that guy? Absolutely. He can rebound with relative ease above everyone else's reach and be a beast of a shot-blocker.
On a team with so much damn skill already lined up and potentially more on the way if Purdue can get Gary Harris, do you really need any more than that?
He's all of 6-7 I think and really athletic and really springy. What sometimes separates very good players from just good players isn't the first jump, but the second, and Poindexter has that sort of playing-on-a-trampoline thing going, sort of like Donnie Hale.
Additionally, the 15-year-old has shown he can hit an open spot-up jumper. He's ahead of the game in that sense for a player who looks to me like he'll be a 4 in a couple years.
In the AAU games I saw him play, the most recent of which was the championship game of the Best of the Midwest, Poindexter rebounded in traffic and showed he could back people down and score at the rim, even if strength is still a deficiency.
As we can say about damn near every kid nowadays because the recruiting process has been so dramatically accelerated, he's going to grow. If he gets to 6-8 or taller and keeps his athleticism, look out.
And, his name is awesome.
He's only 5-8 or so and it remains to be seen whether he'll grow much more, but he just comes off as a take-charge type of point guard who can facilitate for others and score equally well. Seems like a tough-minded, intelligent kid.
When Brebeuf barely lost to Hamilton Southeastern at Purdue's team camp a couple weeks ago, it wasn't obvious who the best player on the floor was, and you know who else would have been out on that floor in that game.
Coleman already got offered by Indiana after playing up this month so far with the Eric Gordon 2014s. He already has Marquis Teague's body - but certainly not the speed or gears - and looks amazingly polished for a 14-year-old point guard.
I only saw the 6-6ish Holba play one game with Meanstreets 2014s in Bloomington in the spring, but in that one game, he stood out. He's tall, white, versatile and from Northwest Indiana, so guess who he'll be compared to.
Meanstreets was at two of the three tournaments I attended last week, but Holba has an injured meniscus and didn't play.
Seriously, though, they're the same player. It's uncanny.
