Takeaways: Blue-chip center Isaiah Hill's commitment to Purdue

Purdue landed one of the biggest recruits of the Matt Painter Era Friday, as elite center prospect Isaiah Hill announced his unsurprising commitment to the Boilermakers.

Below, GoldandBlack.com looks closer at the significance of landing the 7-footer from Pike in Indianapolis.

THE PROCESS

In this very different recruiting world, Purdue’s acquisition of big-time center recruit Isaiah Hill was a win for the old way. This is a golden era of sorts for Purdue in recruiting, and this was how it has gotten there. It was all over Hill from his freshman year in Indianapolis, if not earlier. It identified him right away, spent years building a relationship and basically froze everybody else out and wound up winning on a really high-level player, again leveraging its growing lineage of outstanding big men.

Recruiting’s a team effort, but this is a big win for P.J. Thompson, who’s torn it up since being fully empowered as a recruiter. After Brandon Brantley first got Purdue in on Hill his freshman season, Thompson took the reins once elevated into a full recruiting role. It was Thompson, well connected around Pike, the Indy Heat grassroots program and Indianapolis in general, who built the enduring bond with Hill and his family that essentially made this an open-and-shut case for Purdue. This was such a slam dunk for Purdue that last summer, other programs were standing down as to not waste their time.

TRUST

Landing Hill reflects Purdue’s staff’s ability to establish trust. When you have the sort of basketball promise that Isaiah Hill possesses, it is essential to find a coaching staff you trust with your career, and clearly that is where Purdue won out here as much as anything else. He might require some patience as he develops, but the reality is that seven-footers who can run the floor, reach feet above the rim, block shots and shoot threes do not grow on trees, and the NBA eventually will want to pay them millions of dollars.

That is the long view for Hill. Mind you, between today and that day, whenever it might come, there is a lot of work to do, and that is always central to Purdue’s recruiting message more than anything. In this case, it won out.

FIT

Make no mistake here: Patience is going to be required here on all fronts. Hill is just 16 years old and his 7-foot frame doesn’t yet carry as much size and muscle as would be optimal. The finished product is years away, and may not even realize until after college.

But, one can make credible projections of Hill being a game-changer defensively, an absolutely top-of-the-line shot-blocker with pre-eminent height, length, reach and bounce. Additionally, Hill’s lightness on his feet coupled with that length could make him as switchable a 5 man as you’ll find. Even in isolation situations, Hill would be vulnerable to a quicker player’s first step, but that doesn’t mean the shot’s going to come easy, because Hill is agile enough to keep in position and certainly long and springy enough to stack chase-down blocks, and importantly, do so with minimal body contact.

Offensively, Hill’s repertoire appears raw still, but as is, he can credibly be viewed as a potential weapon of mass destruction in pick-and-roll. He’s a natural catching flip-up lobs at heights he has all too himself. Pairing Hill with a real ball-screen-savvy facilitator at the next level could really unlock him. Hill’s three-point shooting ability isn’t just a novelty. It would add another layer to him as an offensive asset that can be weaponized as a screener. But it has to start with Hill being able to absorb a level of contact he’s probably yet to see. It starts in the weight room and in Purdue’s nutrition program.