Purdue Basketball Has a New Walk-On

Purdue officially updated its men’s basketball roster this week and it came with an unexpected surprise. We already knew that Jared Wulbrun would be joining Tommy Luce at the end of the bench as a walk-on this year, but there was a third walk-on name:

Matt Frost.

No, Frost is not the son of Nebraska coach Scott Frost brought in by Jeff Brohm in an attempt to gain intel on the Cornhuskers. He is a freshman walk-on from Columbus East:

The 6-foot-5 Frost led the Olympians with 14.2 points and 6.2 rebounds a game as a senior in earning The Republic Boys Basketball Player of the Year honors. he also averaged 1.9 assists and 1.2 steals this season and shot 53.4 percent from the field and 73.5 percent from the free-throw line.

Those are numbers that sound a bit like Grady Eifert, to be honest. Front is listed at 6’5”, 200 pounds and Eifert was 6’6”, 220 pounds. Eifert averaged 15.8 points, 8.0 rebounds, and 2.3 assists in his final year of high school.

Obviously Frost has a long way to go to have the impact Eifert did, but I trust Painter to bring in a kid that is a solid practice player at worst. Columbus was around .500 in all four years of high school and has not won a sectional since 1996, but part of that comes with being in a tough sectional that includes both Bloomington schools and crosstown rival Columbus North.