Purdue Men's Basketball Recruiting/Update

(note: Posted this past Thursday, Sept. 18)

Busy time …

• Highly recruited Ralph Scott made special effort this week to officially visit Purdue. He was at practice Wednesday. It really was special effort, a rare midweek visit that he wanted to get in before he and his IMG Academy team go on an international trip, which is the kind of thing they do at IMG.

Scott has been recruited by Purdue a long time, but really only recently offered. There’s some academic alignment here. Scott is very interested in engineering apparently.

Houston, Texas A&M and Tennessee have had him for visits and all have offered him. He is a priority for Houston in particular.

Seems like this is a real possibility for Purdue, though.

Scott is more of a raw combo forward from what we understand than a real 4 but would probably be a 4 at the next level.

This has been a strange, hard-to-cover cycle, as Purdue doesn’t seem really locked in to any particular absolute needs at the high school level. Priorities keep coming and going on.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Lt0_JiRxxbQ%3Fenablejsapi%3D1

• Matt Painter will be at LaLumiere today, to see commit Jacob Webber but also lay eyes on forward Rivers Knight, who’s a knockdown shooter and high-effort guy in a 6-foot-9 body, with the upside that’ll come from being healthy now after a tough go of things this summer. From what we’ve gathered, he’d be really amenable to redshirting, and Purdue will absolutely look to take a player here and there for just that situation.

Knight is definitely a potential offer if Painter likes him, especially now that Quinn Costello is out and Cam Williams continues with his visits. Williams is going to be really tough to get. Don’t let anyone tell you different.

Purdue has to go to the portal at forward regardless. If they’re gonna break the bank on anybody, it would have to be Caden Pierce once he’s in the portal in October.

• Texas’ Chase Richardson is a major 2027 priority. He’s supposed to unofficially visit for the Marquette game, then come back for an official. You’ll see another run of in-season officials for 2027s. Jaxon Davis will be another and probably Georgia’s Kevin Savage Jr.

Not sure what Purdue is doing visit-wise with Isaiah Hill, but they can get him up pretty easily for unofficials. He’s going to Kentucky in a few weeks; here’s guessing he gets offered.

Purdue will push to get Chase Branham for an official, too. IU has an advantage with him right now and will probably push for an early commitment on his visit, but Kansas is going to get every opportunity to recruit him, so it would be surprising if anything happened soon. Branham is a great player.

• Bo Ogden goes to Tennessee, Virginia and Texas the next three weeks. Among those who didn’t get visits were Gonzaga and Kansas. Texas waiting ’til the very end is ominous but also suggestive that maybe they’re spending their time on national guys — as is the obligation at Texas — in the meantime. Texas has pushed for a commitment and hasn’t gotten it done.

It’s still difficult to imagine him getting out of Austin, but Purdue has done a great job here and we’ll remind you too that this is a basketball-savvy family that sort of proactively initiated the mutual interest here. If this comes to a decision between maybe blending in at Texas or being a star someplace else, Purdue’s going to have a chance. Ogden would be a star at Purdue. (BN)

PURDUE BASKETBALL​

• Purdue’s now done with summer/early fall practice and starts up preseason practice in six days. Beforehand, they’re doing Navy SEALs training again, a preseason bonding exercise Matt Painter’s done in the past. That’ll be this weekend.

• The emergent player of the off-season: Gicarri Harris. He’s had a great off-season and will enter preseason practice, in our opinion, as a frontrunner to start, which doesn’t matter, but it is something he has earned. The other day, they played pickup. One team ended up with both All-Americans and it was the team with more “backups” that won. Harris dominated. Pickup is just pickup, but Purdue has a pretty competitive roster, so it’s more meaningful here than it might be other places.

• Liam Murphy is out there full go, as is Raleigh Burgess. Murphy does one thing, but he is elite at that one thing. It is going to be interesting to see what Purdue does offensively when Trey Kaufman-Renn is out in terms of whether they try to generate threes for Murphy or Jack Benter or if it’s just going to have to happen organically.

They’re going to give Burgess every chance to earn a spot this season, but the best case here is obviously for him to redshirt, though that doesn’t have to be decided any time soon and you always want players preparing for seasons like they’re going to play.

• Omer Mayer has a lot on his plate right now, learning to function in a more structured environment than professional levels of basketball generally do. In the pros, it’s one action, and if it doesn’t work, iso. In college with a 30-second shot clock things are more methodical. And, he has to take care of the basketball. Throw in the fact he’s preparing at multiple positions and it’s a lot. Keep in mind, he has been presented as Superman but he is still an 18-year-old freshman. He will play a major role this season — at minimum he has to be Purdue’s No. 2 PG and he has to get experience for next season — but he’ll probably have his ups and downs like most freshmen do. (BN)