Post-July Breakdown: Purdue recruiting target Bo Ogden

Following our on-site coverage of numerous June and July recruiting events this summer, GoldandBlack.com will bring you in-depth analyses of several of the Boilermakers’ top basketball recruiting targets in coming weeks, to give you a look at their games, their personalities and their potential fits should they wind up at Purdue.

SCOUTING REPORT: PURDUE TARGET BO OGDEN

A case study in position-less basketball, Bo Ogden is 6-foot-6, every bit a guard as much as anything else. He can fit into four positions offensively and defensively.

He is serious defender and excellent rebounder who can do anything from pressuring the ball to sticking with wings off the ball. The most important part: He wants to defend, central to his winning-minded composition.

Offensively, Ogden blew up this summer as a scorer in much the same way Purdue commit Luke Ertel did. The 17U team he played with as a 16-year-old (and for years prior) graduated., loading more responsibility on the holdover. That responsibility bred clear aggressiveness and success bred distinct confidence.

Ogden stood out for ASAK Elite in years past, but in part because of his glue-guy nature. This year, he was in full-alpha mode and wound up averaging 20.9 point in adidas 3SSB circuit play, shooting 55 percent from the floor, 86 percent at the line and a really impressive 53 percent from three-point range, particularly notable given his urgency/need to get shots up. This is an almost identical summer story to Ertel’s.

All of Ogden’s connective-tissue qualities remain, but he should be considered a big-time prospect as a scorer, too. When big-time scorers do little things and make teammates better, their value is infinite.

And like Ertel, Ogden did his damage as his team’s primary ball-handler and lead facilitator, showing himself to be excellent in transition, effective running ball-screen offense either to pass or get to his own pull-up jumper or penetrare. Ogden can dribble and pass with either hand, sees the floor extremely well, understands angles and leverage and just knows how to get past defenders or get them wobbly enough to get to his spots. It’s more about being knowledgeable as opposed to crafty, but really all of the above, and certainly not uncommon for players who grew up in the game.

Ogden is probably going to be a wing as a high-major player, and his size, off-ball offensive ability and defensive versatility will fit well. But no one should bat an eye if under the right circumstances and with some decision-making growth he carries some point guard responsibility or fits in at “power” forward in a four-out sort of personnel configuration.

BO OGDEN VIDEO

From just portions of 3SSB games in Rock Hill in July and Omaha in the spring …

Some clips from last year …

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PERSONALITY PROFILE

Ogden is an extreme competitor who plays both ends of the floor with exceptional effort, his competitiveness and aggressiveness sometimes coming at the slight expense of poise, part of the development process, most likely, for what is otherwise a really cerebral and substantive player and a really smart basketball mind.

He is clearly a person to whom basketball is really important and winning an urgent desire.

THE POTENTIAL PURDUE FIT

Players like Ogden fit well anywhere, but he is perfect for Matt Painter and his program, which is built on such personality types, demeanors and offensive skill sets. Purdue recruits get compared a lot to Robbie Hummel, as he’s sort of its blueprint 4 man.

Ogden isn’t like Robbie Hummel. He is Robbie Hummel, though not as big and a different positional category. (Hummel did play grassroots ball in a a point guard sort of role, though, just as Ogden has.) But also think Dakota Mathias and a bit of Vince Edwards.

Again, winning qualities translate everywhere, but they star at certain schools. Purdue is a place where players like Ogden star.