AKHoosier

Seriously, what in the world is that kid wearing? Eh what do I care, as long as he wears the candy stripes someday he can look as homeless as he wants.

Is Waters definitely waiting until the spring to decide?

Haha that was my first thought too. Those are some skinny dudes who will need to beef up wherever they play college ball.

I know I can't be the only one incessantly checking this thread to see if Wilkes committed. Man I want this guy at IU!

"Bold strategy there Cotton, let's see if it pays off."

As long as the poll has nothing to do with politics, I'm in.

Yeah they are panicking over there in Purdue-land after missing out on another of their top prospects. Painter banked a decent number of scholarships for 2017 in the hopes he'd be able to fill them with quality players, but they are striking out left and right. Highest ranked guy left on their board is Eastern I think, a guard from Chicago who also is a lean to Michigan State. Painter has to be so frustrated being Purdue's coach, he just can't catch a break sometimes no matter how hard he tries.

Man I would love it if we got Waters and OU got Young. UK would be scrambling for PGs since they want to take 2.

He seems like a good kid, gave a nice interview. So is the consensus that we want him? Tell me what to think haha. It'd be nice to have a 6'10" kid committed so Wilkes would be assured he wouldn't be playing the 4, and I don't think we have much of a chance we have with any of the other bigs we're going after like Billy Preston and Deng Gak.

I still like us more than UK (knock on wood) in this because we've been recruiting him longer. It reminds me of the late pushes other schools were making with DeRon Davis last year, but ultimately all the time put in with him won out in the end. Sometimes that means something, sometimes it doesn't though.

I know what you're saying but think about it like this: Tom Crean has been recruiting Kris Wilkes since 8th grade. He's not going to turn away Kris Wilkes because Collin Hartman can take an additional year, which means he may not even be given an additional year to begin with. Just sucks all around.

Both parents are Illini graduates. That makes this sweeter.

Wilkes doesn't even want to be a stretch 4? Is Smith ok with being one?

I definitely am, but all that would (should) get cleared up this weekend during his official visit. If Smith commits, the timing is good in that regard, because I'm sure he'll have questions for the staff on their ability to play together.

Very true, Eric Bossi seems just wrote an article yesterday thinking we're about to get a big bump in our class rankings with Smith, Waters, and Wilkes deciding soon. He seems to think we lead for all 3.

They're both guards, that's the connection. If we miss on Waters, the next best option is we go and get a 5* talent at another guard spot rather than take a flier on some unknown 3* PG. We need talent regardless of position.

This is probably a sign the staff isn't confident in getting Tremont Waters now.

Makes me wish the season was here so we could beat them by 40 points again.

Chances are high that UK is pushing for his commitment before he steps foot on campus this weekend. If he makes it to his visit, then I like our chances as much as I did before. He's probably riding high with all the Kentucky attention and post-visit momentum, but that can all come crashing down when he steps on to campus during what should be a beautiful weekend in Bloomington. He likes us a lot. Edit: Just checked UK boards and they're expecting his commitment any minute now. Dammit, they're probably getting him.

Slightly off tangent but not really - I think Fred Glass is really helping IU athletics make strides where he can. He may not be able to directly produce wins on the court, field, etc., but he's making sure our athletic teams have what it takes to compete and keep up with the joneses. You really can't take that for granted.

They're saying it as in a permanent backup PG. They expect to get Young this year, another 5 star the next year, etc. Whereas at IU, he'd all but be guaranteed to be the starting PG his sophomore year.

Exactly, that's what I'm hoping too. He'd get recruited over very quickly at UK. But he won't be starting at IU next year though, so it's not like we can offer him that much more immediate playing time than UK would. I guess it's all about 2018 for Waters then, hopefully he knows he'd probably get recruited over by some 5 star PG he doesn't know about yet. I ventured over to the UK boards, and he's getting no attention at all there, and most are saying how it makes sense to recruit a backup PG like Waters.

LOL wait now let's analyze this for a second. So at about 4:00 yesterday afternoon, it's learned that all Purdue players begin following him on Twitter. This comes not long after he announces his intent to decide his college on Thursday. Not long after that, the Crystal Ball takes a heavy pro-Purdue turn from 72% Maryland to 70% Purdue in just a few short hours, which could indicate these Crystal Ball experts were using that information to make their picks. This indicates two things to me: this was very likely a sad, last-ditch ploy by Matt Painter to recruit Jackson by saying "ok guys, now go follow Jackson on Twitter because I think it'll go a long way in his decision-making" and it also goes to show that the Crystal Ball has about as much merit as a 2016 presidential election poll taken in January before the primary races even start. I'm just glad he didn't go to Purdue.

Well that sucks, there's been almost a complete 180 on his crystal ball in the last 2 hours to heavily favoring PU now. He'll probably end up there which is weird because of the rumors he wanted to be out east, and also Swanigan doesn't even like it there much. Lots of smoke Caleb wanted out this past year.

This is long overdue, I've always felt this would be a great documentary.