Now that it's all said and done, now that Caleb Swanigan has committed to the school he very well may have pledged to four years ago had Purdue issued a wildly premature offer at that time, let's look back and try to make sense of the eventful recruitment that brought the five-star big man to West Lafayette and gave the Boilermakers instant cache as maybe more than just a nice team growing into something more.
First off, we have to make this clear: Swanigan decided he'd be coming to Purdue. This was not a gun-to-the-head situation. We have told you for weeks now that Purdue did win over the player's influential inner circle and that might have been a deterrent for him going to certain schools, but the player himself was not forced to Purdue.
Had it been that kind of situation, it wouldn't have worked out, and it would have been profoundly bad business on the part of those doing the alleged steering and probably a situation Purdue wouldn't have wanted any part of it, but maybe I'm being naïve there.
Moving on …
How did Purdue win over those around Swanigan and ultimately Swanigan himself? Here's a detailed breakdown.
Basketball Fit: This is the biggest reason Purdue got Swanigan and it is not close.
A "business decision" was promised here long ago and Purdue has long been the business decision, largely because of the detailed model and plan Painter presented for Swanigan.
That plan has him playing the power forward position alongside mammoth post presences who assure him of a playing-center-free existence for at least this coming season. Purdue will surround him with shooters who'll presumably make shots this season and allow him to pass and make decisions for a team that needs to reduce its turnovers in order to take the next step.
Is Swanigan a better fit facing the basket than backing up to it? Probably not at this stage, but the thought is that playing him outside the low block will allow him to grow as a player while still having opportunities to play to his long-time bread-and-butter strengths also.
When Purdue has been good at the 4, it's had a decision-maker in that role. Swanigan can be a Robbie Hummel-like decision-maker, only in a much different body with a much different skill set otherwise.
Purdue made the most appealing case from a basketball-fit perspective and this was a recruitment where the long-view (i.e. life after college) was absolutely a consideration.
Painter has some credibility with big men, too, from the successes Carl Landry, JaJuan Johnson and now A.J. Hammons and Isaac Haas have had at Purdue. There are plenty of schools out there with more impressive NBA lineages but Purdue's built a solid rep for developing big men and it just so happens that Swanigan's circle crosses over some with Hammons' circle, so there was some advocacy at play there, some folks standing up for the job Painter has done in developing Hammons as both a player and person.
Effort: Painter and Jack Owens deserve a ton of credit here for sticking with this one and laying out such a compelling case for a program that easily could have fallen to also-ran status as all of college basketball's sexiest programs lined up.
Painter did not actively recruit Swanigan while he was committed to Michigan State, but the job he did prior percolated 'til the very end and ultimately won out and there's almost no putting into words the personal investment Owens made in the day-to-day management of what had to be an exhausting recruitment.
Barnes is very good at his job and has millions of dollars to show for it because details and such things matter in his business. Every detail was dissected over and over and over again as part of what was as much a negotiation - don't take that the wrong way - as a recruiting matter.
Trust: Purdue's ace in the hole, a term I'm probably using too liberally here, has long been this dynamic.
Painter has recruited Fort Wayne players before from the circle it recruited Swanigan from. It didn't get any of them.
But while his way of recruiting - forthrightness, etc. - may cost him recruits sometimes, it can also help with others as a result of those prior misses.
In the coach's prior dealings with Roosevelt Barnes and others involved, Painter's words have been backed up. Everything he said he was going to do, he did. Things he said would happen, they happened.
You hate to talk about young people as commodities, but one of Swanigan's ability is a very precious one for a lot of people, and you don't just give the keys to a Mercedes to anybody. Trust is important and that long-standing development of credibility mattered here, at least in some small way.
"Home": Swanigan isn't from Indiana, and Purdue is no closer to his Fort Wayne home than the school he originally committed to, Michigan State.
But whether it's LeBron having made going/staying "home" cool, I don't know, but I think that mattered, too, if for no other reason than from a rationalization standpoint, a way to explain breaking up with Michigan State or turning down Cal the school or Cal the coach without it reflecting poorly on them. There's no good counter-argument to, "I want to stay home."
Purdue may be equidistant to Michigan State, in essence, but there is something to be said for the way an Indiana kid, especially a Mr. Basketball, is perceived, and covered, when he plays for an in-state school.
This was probably a small consideration, but a consideration nonetheless.
A strong network: Purdue has long-standing ties to Barnes and some of his contemporaries, but that mattered little here in this business-minded decision.
What did matter, at least in some small way, was a unified front among the Purdue-tied peripherals, in a lot of cases former players with connections to the Fort Wayne group, connections to current Boilermaker players or whatever else, people like Eugene Parker and Frank Kendrick, who had no horse in this race but was part of a message that was pro-Purdue, from everything we can tell. This was a deal where the slightest bit of negativity, the slightest bit of dissension in the ranks, could have really made things difficult.
Painter and Elliot Bloom, among others undoubtedly, have emphasized in recent years the importance of alumni relations, something that's burned Purdue on occasion in the past. Here was your classic example of why it matters.
We have said this before, but you can never do enough for your former players. There's no such thing as too much when it comes to keeping the family together, the circle tight, because it's those people who can be your greatest ally in the court of public opinion, one of your greatest assets when you may not know you'd need an asset.
You never know when a former player's kid may be 6-foot-8 in the eighth grade, or you need a guy who knows a guy to help with another guy. No matter the circumstance, it's important, and something to keep in mind next time you may be mildly outraged by Purdue tweaking its banner-raising criteria for this guy or that guy or something.
Dumb luck/Perfect timing: This player came along at a time when Purdue just happened to have two good centers, something it has never before had and wasn't supposed to have considering the overwhelming expectation that A.J. Hammons would turn pro early.
Hammons and Haas were central figures in Purdue's basketball-fit case, the biggest of the many factors that went into it landing the program's highest-profile recruit in a generation.
First off, we have to make this clear: Swanigan decided he'd be coming to Purdue. This was not a gun-to-the-head situation. We have told you for weeks now that Purdue did win over the player's influential inner circle and that might have been a deterrent for him going to certain schools, but the player himself was not forced to Purdue.
Had it been that kind of situation, it wouldn't have worked out, and it would have been profoundly bad business on the part of those doing the alleged steering and probably a situation Purdue wouldn't have wanted any part of it, but maybe I'm being naïve there.
Moving on …
How did Purdue win over those around Swanigan and ultimately Swanigan himself? Here's a detailed breakdown.
Basketball Fit: This is the biggest reason Purdue got Swanigan and it is not close.
A "business decision" was promised here long ago and Purdue has long been the business decision, largely because of the detailed model and plan Painter presented for Swanigan.
That plan has him playing the power forward position alongside mammoth post presences who assure him of a playing-center-free existence for at least this coming season. Purdue will surround him with shooters who'll presumably make shots this season and allow him to pass and make decisions for a team that needs to reduce its turnovers in order to take the next step.
Is Swanigan a better fit facing the basket than backing up to it? Probably not at this stage, but the thought is that playing him outside the low block will allow him to grow as a player while still having opportunities to play to his long-time bread-and-butter strengths also.
When Purdue has been good at the 4, it's had a decision-maker in that role. Swanigan can be a Robbie Hummel-like decision-maker, only in a much different body with a much different skill set otherwise.
Purdue made the most appealing case from a basketball-fit perspective and this was a recruitment where the long-view (i.e. life after college) was absolutely a consideration.
Painter has some credibility with big men, too, from the successes Carl Landry, JaJuan Johnson and now A.J. Hammons and Isaac Haas have had at Purdue. There are plenty of schools out there with more impressive NBA lineages but Purdue's built a solid rep for developing big men and it just so happens that Swanigan's circle crosses over some with Hammons' circle, so there was some advocacy at play there, some folks standing up for the job Painter has done in developing Hammons as both a player and person.
Effort: Painter and Jack Owens deserve a ton of credit here for sticking with this one and laying out such a compelling case for a program that easily could have fallen to also-ran status as all of college basketball's sexiest programs lined up.
Painter did not actively recruit Swanigan while he was committed to Michigan State, but the job he did prior percolated 'til the very end and ultimately won out and there's almost no putting into words the personal investment Owens made in the day-to-day management of what had to be an exhausting recruitment.
Barnes is very good at his job and has millions of dollars to show for it because details and such things matter in his business. Every detail was dissected over and over and over again as part of what was as much a negotiation - don't take that the wrong way - as a recruiting matter.
Trust: Purdue's ace in the hole, a term I'm probably using too liberally here, has long been this dynamic.
Painter has recruited Fort Wayne players before from the circle it recruited Swanigan from. It didn't get any of them.
But while his way of recruiting - forthrightness, etc. - may cost him recruits sometimes, it can also help with others as a result of those prior misses.
In the coach's prior dealings with Roosevelt Barnes and others involved, Painter's words have been backed up. Everything he said he was going to do, he did. Things he said would happen, they happened.
You hate to talk about young people as commodities, but one of Swanigan's ability is a very precious one for a lot of people, and you don't just give the keys to a Mercedes to anybody. Trust is important and that long-standing development of credibility mattered here, at least in some small way.
"Home": Swanigan isn't from Indiana, and Purdue is no closer to his Fort Wayne home than the school he originally committed to, Michigan State.
But whether it's LeBron having made going/staying "home" cool, I don't know, but I think that mattered, too, if for no other reason than from a rationalization standpoint, a way to explain breaking up with Michigan State or turning down Cal the school or Cal the coach without it reflecting poorly on them. There's no good counter-argument to, "I want to stay home."
Purdue may be equidistant to Michigan State, in essence, but there is something to be said for the way an Indiana kid, especially a Mr. Basketball, is perceived, and covered, when he plays for an in-state school.
This was probably a small consideration, but a consideration nonetheless.
A strong network: Purdue has long-standing ties to Barnes and some of his contemporaries, but that mattered little here in this business-minded decision.
What did matter, at least in some small way, was a unified front among the Purdue-tied peripherals, in a lot of cases former players with connections to the Fort Wayne group, connections to current Boilermaker players or whatever else, people like Eugene Parker and Frank Kendrick, who had no horse in this race but was part of a message that was pro-Purdue, from everything we can tell. This was a deal where the slightest bit of negativity, the slightest bit of dissension in the ranks, could have really made things difficult.
Painter and Elliot Bloom, among others undoubtedly, have emphasized in recent years the importance of alumni relations, something that's burned Purdue on occasion in the past. Here was your classic example of why it matters.
We have said this before, but you can never do enough for your former players. There's no such thing as too much when it comes to keeping the family together, the circle tight, because it's those people who can be your greatest ally in the court of public opinion, one of your greatest assets when you may not know you'd need an asset.
You never know when a former player's kid may be 6-foot-8 in the eighth grade, or you need a guy who knows a guy to help with another guy. No matter the circumstance, it's important, and something to keep in mind next time you may be mildly outraged by Purdue tweaking its banner-raising criteria for this guy or that guy or something.
Dumb luck/Perfect timing: This player came along at a time when Purdue just happened to have two good centers, something it has never before had and wasn't supposed to have considering the overwhelming expectation that A.J. Hammons would turn pro early.
Hammons and Haas were central figures in Purdue's basketball-fit case, the biggest of the many factors that went into it landing the program's highest-profile recruit in a generation.
