Basketball recruiting update

Purdue has three 2026 commitments now after adding forward Rivers Knight as a de facto 2027 commitment. He is going to redshirt. That much, we believe, has already been agreed upon. Doesn’t mean he can’t come in next season and play his way out of it, but he needs to be healthy for a while and keep working on his body. He is a program/system/developmental type of guy and has had absolutely nothing to do with any of the other targets on Purdue’s list.

We can tell you this right now: With Luke Ertel and Jacob Webber committed to a team now that will have no seniors as of this moment, there are no real needs that any high school player is going to come in and transform. Purdue needs frontcourt help. That probably has to come from the portal, but we’ll see. What’s to say Jack Benter isn’t Purdue’s long-term 4 man or Raleigh Burgess can’t change into whatever you might otherwise look for in the portal?

But Purdue may very well be cool with sitting tight adding high school players, not counting Jamyn Sondrup if he does end up committing before his mission. But that’s not a 2026 situation.

Purdue is still recruiting center Sinan Huan but a decision is apparently weeks off. We’ll see if Purdue really pushes there or commits to trying to find another Oscar Cluff in the portal.

If Cam Williams ups and decides he wants to come, of course that’s great, but there was no real urgency with other 4 men from what we could tell.

Purdue would have liked Ralph Scott, but recruited him for weeks and hinged its hopes on academics anf you know how that goes. adidas is running wild in recruiting right now and here’s guessing Tennessee got some help there. Our strong suspicion was Quinn Costello‘s commitment elsewhere was met with a shrug. It should have been, at least.

Bo Ogden and Junior County are guards and Purdue’s backcourt is spoken for through like 2030 at this point, but they were too good to not recruit.

The complexion of everything during this cycle has kept changing. Two years ago, it looked like Purdue needed a huge class. Now, it doesn’t. Two years ago, it looked like Purdue had to have its next point guard in this class. Instead it got its next point guard last spring and the guy who’ll replace him in this class.

There are really no needs in this class, but Purdue will present some with portal prospects.

Princeton transfer Caden Pierce is now posted and can be contacted. He will be offered if he hasn’t been already. Word has been out for months that he’d be transferring for his senior year so coaches, Purdue among them, flocked to Priority Sports’ pro day back before the draft to watch him.

Pierce will be presented with a starting position for a year at Purdue and a chance to be one of his team’s best players, if not its best. But the money part here is going to be a big deal.

Everyone is going to recruit Pierce. Please don’t misunderstand: “recruiting him” does not mean “getting him.” Purdue will need to get a comparable money situation together for sure, but it does bear mentioning that Pierce does have a pre-eminent agent working on his behalf in Mark Bartelstein, who previously had Robbie Hummel, Zach Edey and now Braden Smith. The seven-figure money Edey and Smith have made while at Purdue wasn’t just Purdue-aligned entities getting that done; it was their agents lining up marketing opportunities. You think Michael Rubin just woke up one morning and decided he needed Braden Smith at Fanatics Fest in NYC? That was Priority lining that up.

Purdue can do its best with its rev-share money after a ton of cash opens up after these seniors leave, but this isn’t a place that’s going to get silly. They did pay Omer Mayer a bit more than standard but simply because he had to buy out his contract in Israel. Still, he came cheap relatively speaking, because he and his agent saw the big picture of things.

Purdue has to get him in for an official visit during the season. You have to take him whenever you can get him, but if the Chicagoland native can get in at some point during that Dec. 6-13 window of home games (Iowa State-Minnesota-Marquette) that would seem ideal.

That will be a huge recruiting window for Purdue, as Chase Richardson and Jaxson Davis are among those who’ll be visiting around then and Purdue will try to get Isaiah Hill up as often as possible.