FORT WAYNE - This weekend, we covered the first two days at Spiece up on Fort Wayne and got to see a bunch of guys Purdue is recruiting who were there. Not all of them, but a bunch. Here is a review of some of them.
Vincent Edwards: This was obviously Priority 1 on our itinerary, since it was our first and only crack at him this spring.
The 6-foot-7 2014 forward from Middletown, Ohio, who appears to be leaning toward Purdue (by a significant margin), is good. Very good.
What really jumped out in the two-and-a-half games we saw was the versatile forward's effort. Around the rim, he jumped for everything, over and over again, at both ends of the floor. He rebounded hard, threw his body around, sprinted back on defense and ran the floor on offense when he wasn't bringing the ball up, which he often did.
Right now, Edwards' skill makes him a strong face-up player. He passes, shoots from various distances, including long range, and handles and looks good doing all of it. He isn't one of those guys who says who theoretically can do a bunch of stuff but shouldn't necessarily be doing it at the expense of other parts of his games.
Though he's so comfortable on the perimeter, Edwards tried to post up at every opportunity, showing a real eagerness to do it. Sometimes those forwards with perimeter abilities tend to float on the outside and not mix it up. Edwards is the opposite of that.
Right now, Edwards looks to me at first glance like a skilled power forward prospect in college and the fact he expects to grow a couple more inches would certainly solidify his place there.
He can play the wing, but he's not an elite athlete, isn't overwhelming with his height or length (at least not yet) and does not appear to have the quickest feet on defense - his father even mentioned that as an area for him to develop - and had a hard time guarding out in space against guys who could penetrate.
But Edwards looked like somebody who sort of transcended position, because he just got things done in whatever function he was looking to fill.
Edwards is really talented and really skilled, but he also seems to have a great personality and urgency about him. Matt Painter always talks about recruiting "Purdue fits." Edwards seems like one. It's no wonder Painter's recruited him so aggressively.
Here's our obligatory Robbie Hummel comparison of the year. Can't have an AAU season without one.
Keita Bates-Diop: When Bates-Diop is on, he's brilliant, but consistency is still being sought by a player clearly just scratching the surface.
That was the story Saturday afternoon, when he looked like a McDonald's All-American-to-be in dumping 26 points in a double-digit win over The Family from Detroit, then just six in a second-round tournament loss (according to the scorebook).
In the game he was on, he was on. He made threes, turnarounds off post-ups, scored on tip-ins and was just active as anything and engaged. He's really skilled and he looks like he's going to be really big.
He's not a physical player right now, but he can block shots and rebound thanks to his athleticism.
He is very reminiscent to me of Christian Watford, a guy who'll be 6-9 before it's all said and done and just as comfortable shooting the ball from the perimeter or driving than he is playing down low, if not more so.
It could make for an interesting discussion in comparing Bates-Diop and Edwards, because there are some similarities there. They're two guys who could certainly play alongside each other in college due to their versatility, but if you have to tag both for a position, they both might qualify as 4s.
KBD is tall and long now - more so than Edwards on both fronts - and is getting bigger. But Edwards is further along physically, though he too should get bigger.
Edwards' physicality and motor exceed those of Bates-Diop right now, but Bates-Diop in two years might be an entirely different player.
They're both really good.
Jordan Ash: The 2015 guard with a Purdue offer is an elite athlete. Just a ridiculous athlete.
Haven't gotten a great sense for his actual game beyond that, but he's not very big, 6-foot-1 probably and not seemingly someone who'll get to 6-5 or anything like that. (He said in Merrillville he hoped to get to 6-2 one day.)
Physically he looks ahead for his age, but we haven't really gotten to see him really stand out yet, because we've only caught him with their 16-year-old team, when he's been playing up. With his own age group, he'd obviously get more of a chance to really show what he can do, as he apparently did Sunday at Spiece.
Off the court, he's incredibly polished and obviously very intelligent and mature beyond his years.
Kendall Stephens: Stephens has been great this spring, shooting it at a very high clip and doing more across the board than we've seen of him in the past. His rebounding and defensive energy, in particular, have picked up, as he's gotten healthy, grown as a player and developed his body some. He's just impacting games now more, all across the board.
But he's a shooter first and foremost and a deadly and efficient one. He has the prettiest form I've seen from a high school shooter who's been recruited by Purdue. It's effortless and Stephens has shown a quicker release when coming off screens this spring, a must for college. He has really looked good the past two weekends catching it in transition on the wing and firing.
Saturday night, he lost his legs a bit and missed a couple shots uncharacteristically badly. But if anyone should be prone to wearing down, it should be Stephens.
In his AAU team's offense, he's in constant motion without the ball, pin-balling off and around screeners looking for shots.
It's like a wide receiver in football. You notice the catches they make, but can easily overlook how much running they have to do on every play.
It will prepare Stephens well for college, though, because he'll be an offensive centerpiece in Painter's motion offense.
Bryson Scott: Not sure there's anything new to report here. Bryson Scott is just an outstanding player with a tremendous motor and will.
Kid can really score, the most able scorer Purdue's recruited since E'Twaun Moore. He has a way of getting to the basket, some how some way, damn near whenever he wants to either finish at the rim or draw contact and when he's making his pull-up jumper - as he was during a dominant stretch against Wisconsin Swing - he's damn near unstoppable. During that stretch, Scott made three pull-ups before missing a heat-check three that marked the end of the run of hot shooting.
And he'll be a great fit defensively at Purdue because it's just in his nature to get after people. An issue for him in college might be learning to defend without fouling, because he can over-do at times.
His intensity and competitiveness are his identity, but also can be his undoing. He's got to channel those things productively, because when things don't go his way, it still affects him.
Tyler Wideman: The 2014 big man looked really good this weekend.
The big and powerful Lake Central post finished pretty much every time we saw him get the ball down low this weekend in the two or three games we watched him. He really used his physical advantages to his benefit in that sense, but he also just looked like a hungrier player.
Wideman ran the floor as hard as he could have this weekend on offense, getting some scoring opportunities in transition off of it.
For a player who reminds us of mailbox-ish Michigan forward Jordan Morgan, you would not think scoring on the fast break would be his M.O. But Wideman really put in the effort in that phase.
One play Saturday morning, the 260-pounder (guessing there) grabbed a rebound, dribbled the length of the floor and stuffed it. It was pretty impressive.
Wideman's been making threes this spring, too.
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