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It looks like Purdue is after a point guard after I wrote my piece on Matt Carlino, but it is not Carlino. Tyler Lewis, a point guard who is transferring from North Carolina State, is in contact with coach Painter:
NC State point guard transfer Tyler Lewis is in contact with Matt Painter, will visit #Purdue in the coming weeks.
— Chris Emma (@CEmmaScout) April 3, 2014
Lewis is coming off of his sophomore season where he started 18 games and led North Carolina State to the NCAA Tournament, where they won one of the play-in games in Dayton before an epic collapse against St. Louis in the next round. He is not the scorer that Carlino is, but he is more of a distributor as he had an assist-to-turnover ratio of nearly 4:1 this season. He is not an accurate shooter at all, hitting less than 35% from the field and under 24% from three.
Backing the Pack, SB Nation's NC State blog, had this to say:
There were rumors about a potential Lewis transfer last year and they extended into this season, but he found his place in the rotation during the latter half of the year and I was hoping that would be enough to encourage him to come back. Guess not. State doesn't have a point guard in its 2014 class, but maybe Lewis felt like ultimately he wouldn't be able to permanently claim the starting job from Cat Barber.
Lewis was a McDonald's All-American and the Virginia Gatorade Player of the Year in 2012. He also has a connection with Purdue, as he was the point guard for A.J. Hammons at Oak Hill Academy where he averaged 12 points and 8 assists for a 44-0 team.
Lewis is considering a few other schools, one of them being just down the road from Purdue at Butler. Also, he is going to have to sit out a season if he comes to Purdue, meaning he cannot immediately help the 2014-15 team that greatly needs a point guard. By the time he is eligible we'll know if Bryson Scott is the answer as a junior and P.J. Thompson will have a year under his belt as well. He would walk into a crowded backcourt for sure.
Still, he would be a very talented facilitator, so we'll see.