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Purdue is in a bit of a numbers crunch headed into next season. What are the most likely of outcomes that put the Boilers at their thirteen scholarship limit?
Following their runner-up finish in the NCAA Tournament, the Purdue Boilermakers find themselves having some work still to be done heading into the 2024-2025 season. Purdue will be saying goodbye to seniors Zach Edey, Mason Gillis, Lance Jones, Ethan Morton, Carsen Barrett, and Chase Martin with the first five of those six being on scholarship. That now leaves eight scholarship players on the current roster with six incoming freshman getting ready to enroll at Purdue.
As you all can probably realize, that means Purdue is currently one player over their limit for scholarships heading into next season. There are plenty of different avenues that Purdue could take to get to that thirteen scholarship limit. First, let’s take a look at the scholarship projection starting with the 2023-2024 roster and moving through until 2027-2028 when the incoming freshman would be seniors.
Scenarios:
There are a number of different ways Purdue can get at or even under that hard cap of thirteen scholarships under NCAA rules. I do want to make myself very clear on some things before I proceed:
This is probably the easiest way to get under the scholarship limit. Simply put, Purdue is one over the limit with six incoming freshman next season. There will be a LOT of competition at all positions next season and a player currently on the roster may feel it is in their best interest athletically to find a new program. There may also be a current player who may feel they are better served academically at a new school because Purdue may simply not have the program they would like to be in.
One of the six incoming freshman could be sent to a prep school for a year which would also allow Purdue to be at their thirteen scholarship limit. I do know that multiple players in that class have stated they will not be taking a prep year and that was part of the deal coming to Purdue, so this may not be as simple as it may sound. Is this still a possibility? Sure, but I don’t think you want to take a risk at that player being able to be recruited again by outside forces (although we all know that goes on even when a player is at their program).
A player that is currently on the roster may want to step away from the program and focus solely on academics for the remainder of their time at Purdue. In this scenario, the athletic scholarship is converted into an academic one and that scholarship is freed up to be used immediately. This is common for players who sustain injuries or may simply want to put their focus solely into academics.
This is probably the most intriguing of the potential solutions. Purdue’s NIL Collective could offer an incoming freshman an equal amount of money to the cost of attendance that is provided on a scholarship to help free up the hard limit of thirteen scholarships. This could be done through the entire career of that student-athlete to free up that scholarship and my guess is this practice may be used more frequently in football than in basketball.
The issue for the Boilers on this one is that every one of the six incoming freshman signed a National Letter of Intent which guarantees their scholarship for the next school year. This simply isn’t an option for Purdue as it stands right now.
This is probably the most extreme of cases. If there simply isn’t room and the movement isn’t taking care of itself, a coach may simply have to tell a player that their scholarship is not being renewed and they need to look elsewhere. Remember, scholarships are one year guarantees and they can simply not be renewed but there are some limitations to this process.
A player cannot be removed simply because they are not performing to the level needed. This means that a coach’s hands are tied a bit as the only way to truly remove a student is based on them meeting their academic goals as deemed by the NCAA. That basic attainment level changes based on the year you are in college with sophomores needing to be at a cumulative 1.8 GPA, juniors at 1.9 GPA, and 2.0 for seniors and fifth year players.
With the academic support and focus on school that Matt Painter has built around his program, I highly doubt this would be an avenue Purdue could take.
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