Little surprised that oldboiler52 isn't all over this already but today Alex Oriakhi's father announced he was going to transfer from UConn for his senior season because of UConn's terrible APR which will prevent them being in the NCAA Tournament. He will be a senior next year and will not have to sit out a year due to NCAA rules about APR. With the Barlow scholarship that opened up there is a spot for Oriakhi for a year with out having to worry about over signing or scholarship issues going forward.

For Purdue it is a completely logical pick up on many levels, uses a scholarship that would otherwise not be used or given to walk-on, adds a much needed solid post presence, adds a big body to bang down low and grind it out during B1G season, hell it might even give Hammons a chance to redshirt with I think would be a great thing(in general I'm a fan of redshirting big guys when ever possible).

This would be a great pick up but personally I'm not overly optimistic about Painter's chance to land Oriakhi for two main reason. The first being that Oriakhi appears to have no connections to Purdue or the mid-west in general and the second being that Oriakhi wants to play in the NCAA tournament. I'm not saying Purdue isn't going to make the tournament but it's far from a lock. Either way, in my opinion, it is 100% worth Painter at least making a phone call to Oriakhi and his family to judge is possible interest in coming to Purdue.