Express Thoughts: Daniel Jacobsen, Purdue basketball recruiting and more

Gold and Black Exprss Three Thoughts with analysis of Purdue football, Boilermaker men’s basketball, recruiting, or whatever else comes to mind.

ON DANIEL JACOBSEN AND TEAM USA

This week, Purdue center Daniel Jacobsen begins try-outs for USA Basketball’s 19-and-under team, his first real competition since breaking his leg. It’ll come against high-end talent with real stakes.

For Purdue and the player alike, this is a great deal, one that can maybe accelerate the big man’s development into not just an impact player now, but maybe a great one a little further down the road.

Matt Painter and his staff plugged a gaping void by signing Oscar Cluff at center, but he is a stopgap; Jacobsen is not just central to the present but he is the future, the guy after Cluff and Trey Kaufman-Renn depart after this season. It’s maybe the best job in college basketball being Purdue’s frontcourt alpha, and that lies ahead for Jacobsen.

Purdue has had a few of these eruptors over the years. Zach Edey as a junior, Kaufman-Renn as a junior. Caleb Swanigan as a sophomore. Jacobsen might be next. Could it happen now? Sure. But it’s the season after next where it would be practically assured.

This competition now will be a significant nudge in the real direction and kick Jacobsen into the deep end of the competitive pool fresh off injury. Don’t forget about the conditioning piece of this, either. He has significant new bulk to acclimate to and that thin Colorado air is perfect for that process.

The guess here is he’ll be ready.

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ON PURDUE BASKETBALL RECRUITING

So here’s my thought on way Purdue can approach this new 15-man-roster, revenue-sharing world ….

Every year, there are quality prospects out there, particularly in Indiana, for whom Purdue would be a game-changing early offer, often making their recruitments open-and-shut cases. They may not necessarily project as Day 1 standouts, and Purdue’s program is at a level where those players are plenty attainable, but this tier I’m talking about jibes with the player-development and investment angles that have served Purdue so well.

Context: There are 15 roster spots that be filled, even scholarshiped and compensated with rev-share, but no obligation to use all that space. Matt Painter will never want 15 dudes on his bench who expect to be playing. No coach should.

What if maybe every other year, you took a guy who might have been a straight-up early-offer guy eight years ago, but did so now with the understanding that that player will redshirt. Be open about it. No misunderstandings. A scholarship is still a good deal, a modest rev-share check would amount to being paid to redshirt, and a year of development with a program that has been pretty good with it, that’s probably a better deal than playing a year at a mid-major, then trying to move up through the portal.

From a program perspective, this incubation program could safeguard you against ever falling short on numbers should players depart earlier than planned. It’s a step toward getting old without having to be in the portal every year if you don’t need to be.

You can still chase your highest priorities, and if you end up with an extra player at a certain position, so what? There’s nothing wrong with having high-major scout-teamers.

And if a player enrolls, redshirts, then doesn’t pan out, he leaves. What have you lost? The player will have benefited.

I’m just bringing this up because Purdue has been recruiting Plainfield’s Noah Smith and Avon’s Keriawn Berry and I think both are offer-level players on their own merits, but maybe not the just-add-water immediate contributors Purdue should prefer for a class that’ll come in after five seniors depart. Smith will need to develop his body and Berry will need to develop his skill.

There’s no right way or wrong to approach this weird new world, but there is the Purdue way, and this sort of strategy would seem to align with it.

ON BRADEN SMITH’S SENIOR SEASON

Mike Carmin’s flowery prose this morning posed the question of what might be next for Braden Smith at Purdue and reached the clearly correct conclusion: Winning.

Same as Zach Edey his senior, the numbers and accolades and NBA positioning matter, but only to a point. Great players — and like Edey, Smith is just that — are judged by winning, but Smith has his bona fides there already after having helped Purdue to a Final Four, with three Big Ten titles picked up a long the way.

But laying a legacy as a winner is one thing. Laying a legacy as all-time winner is another, and those are the stakes for Smith this season. Smith has a chance this coming season to leave college basketball as a peer to names like Bobby Hurley, Magic Johnson, Mateen Cleaves, Phil Ford and on down the line.

“Rings!” culture in sports is stupid. But that is truly the lone frontier left for Smith, adding more of them, maybe the biggest of all.