Express Thoughts: Purdue basketball’s spring

GoldandBlack.com’s Express Thoughts from the Weekend column, with analysis of Purdue football, Boilermaker men’s basketball, recruiting, or whatever else comes to mind.

STEADY AS SHE GOES

What should be another relatively drama-free spring begins in earnest for Purdue now that the portal opens and such things.

The really nice thing about being a low-maintenance, drama-free program is that life is pretty easy right now relative to what everyone else is dealing with. Barring any portal surprises — and they’re all surprises around Purdue — the roster seems pretty set, with an undercurrent of real promise.

It is a testament to Purdue that it does not have to deal with the same roster chaos that others do. It is proof that the opportunity and resources at Purdue are good enough, the players are treated well, they respect their coaches, and life here is good. Outside of the occasional player who’s just looking for more minutes somewhere else — because Purdue stocks that roster with good players and retains them — very rarely have players been just flat-out looking for more.

That is a hell of a compliment to Purdue and the way the operation is run. It may not be all that exciting while the fur is flying everywhere else in college basketball, but it’s that peace and calm you get when you run a stable and consistent program, as Matt Painter, his staff and his administration do.

Don’t think there’s not victory in retaining the guys you want to retain. Don’t think for a second that these guys all over college basketball aren’t being recruited 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

It is one of the many challenges these players face in this modern climate, and it has to be detrimental to their well-being as players.

Coaches who are tampering with other people’s players are doing those players a great disservice, because they’re taking their minds off the task at hand and thus presenting an obstacle to them being successful in the here and now.

Players ought to look at year-long contact as disrespect for that reason.

ON PURDUE AND THE PORTAL

It remains a misunderstood portion of Purdue’s success over the last several years — that Matt Painter is adverse to using the transfer market. It is 100-percent fact that he will use transfers to improve his team from year to year; he is just not going to recruit his best players, if he has a say in the matter, through the portal every single year the way a lot of other people are doing.

Painter is not anti-transfers. Any coach nowadays who is anti-transfers is not long for this business. But Purdue is just going to keep doing what it’s doing: Building through the high school ranks, building a strong developmental structure, and maintaining positive relationships with players in order to win with continuity and consistency.

Is there a limited upside in that? Perhaps. But the approach has gotten Purdue to an excellent place, with no apparent falling off any cliffs forthcoming.

Purdue has struck gold with Lance Jones and Oscar Cluff over the years and has already done it this cycle with Caden Pierce. While all hell breaks loose everywhere else right now, don’t forget that Purdue already got the guy it wanted. And don’t forget that last year it got the best guard it could’ve gotten for next season by signing, and subsequently retaining, Omer Mayer.

But Purdue, again, is going to have to find some help through free agency. It has to find a big man. The scenario in which Cluff returns for another season at Purdue is a narrow one, and Purdue has to move forward as if it’s not going to happen.

Purdue has to be able to rebound next season, and as it stands today, its size and physicality in the frontcourt fall off considerably. It may not need a star per se, or it might not even need a starter per se, but it is going to need some help for sure.

Purdue has a solid core returning and a potentially high-impact crop of newcomers about to show up, headlined by Caden Pierce and Luke Ertel, as well as redshirt freshmen Antione West and Raleigh Burgess. But there is still a flaw in the roster moving forward that has to be addressed, and it lies in the frontcourt.

COLLEGE BASKETBALL’S KEVIN BACON GAME

It’s funny how this season went down in the transfer era: Purdue basically started its season in the same building as former Boilermaker Myles Colvin, and then met former Boilermaker Camden Heide in the NCAA Tournament.

When Michigan plays Connecticut tonight in the national title game, it will be facing former Wolverine Tarris Reed, who is positioned to be the NCAA Tournament’s Most Outstanding Player if UConn wins this game. Michigan already played this season against two of its current players’ former teams in UCLA and Illinois.

The world is indeed flat now, and college basketball is becoming much like the NBA and even AAU, where everybody has played for, with or against everyone at this point.

Fans don’t know their teams anymore, and regional rivalries have to be losing something as they’re played by revolving lists of transients. But that’s the game nowadays, and there’s no going back. As long as this endeavor is tethered to higher education, you simply cannot tell people how often they can transfer, where they can transfer, etc.