Purdue Basketball Recruiting: Seniors Gain Revenge on Junior All-Stars

Tonight’s Junior-Senior All-Star Exhibition at Plainfield was a weird one. Before the game four players, including Mr. Basketball Kris Wilkes, were suspended for “a violation of team rules”. I haven’t seen anything like that in all the years of the All-Star series. The closest thing I can think of is Josh McRoberts whining about not being Mr. Basketball and dropping out. In reality, McRoberts probably just didn’t want Greg Oden to dunk on him in the junior-senior games again.

Anyway, both the girls and the boys were without two players each on the Senior squads. It didn’t matter as the seniors easily won both games.

Girls Game

Miss basketball Karissa McLaughlin had 12 points on 5 of 11 shooting as the seniors rolled to a 107-67 victory. On the junior team Kayan Traylor, a 2018 commit for Sharon Versyp, finished with 8 pints and 4 rebounds on 2 of 5 shooting. Keya Patton of Cathedral led the juniors with 20 points.

Boys Game

On Tuesday night at New Albany the juniors surprised their older counterparts with a 122-110 win. Tonight, even shorthanded, the seniors were on a mission and won 134-92.

The good news is that tonight Sasha Stefanovic was able to play. He started for the seniors and finished with 17 points on 6 of 16 shooting in 27 minutes. He was 3 of 9 from long range, but it was Jack Nunge, who is committed to Iowa, that dominated for the seniors. He was 11 of 17 for 28 points and he added 13 rebounds. Cooper Neese of Cloverdale who is headed to Butler had 25 points.

For the juniors several 2018 prospects for Matt Painter were once again in action:

Eric Hunter – Hunter was 4 of 10 from the field and 2 of 6 from long range for 12 points as a starter. He played only 19 minutes.

Robert Phinisee – The McCutcheon prospect had a rough night, going 1 of 6 from the field for only 2 points in 23 minutes. He also started.

Aaron Henry – The Ben Davis prospect, who is probably going to be my Desmond Bane Memorial “Hey, Let’s Go After This Guy” player, was 4 of 6 for 9 points in 20 minutes.

Damezi Anderson – Anderson came off the bench to play 20 minutes and also had a rough night. He was 2 of 11 from the field, but both makes were threes. He finished with 6 points and five rebounds.

The juniors are now done, but the seniors will play the Kentucky seniors Saturday night at Banker’s Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis before playing again in Kentucky on Sunday.