Ohio State men's basketball recruiting | Brandon Newman takes official visit to Purdue
It’s been a busy few weeks for Brandon Newman, and there’s no sign of things slowing down anytime soon.
A four-star shooting guard prospect in the class of 2019, Newman had been squeezing in unofficial visits during the summer before transferring from Valparaiso, Indiana, to Montverde (Florida) Academy for his senior season when plans changed. Not long after getting situated in Florida, a family situation resulted in Newman returning home to finish out high school at Valparaiso instead.
Throughout that, Newman has managed to cut his list of top schools and start scheduling official visits. After announcing a final four of Purdue, Indiana, Ohio State and Xavier on Sunday, Newman finished an official visit to check out the Boilermakers during the weekend.
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— brandon (@ballislife_219) September 2, 2018
It was his first official visit.
“It was good,” Newman told The Dispatch about his trip to Purdue. “I had a good time. The hospitality was great. It was a pretty good visit, pretty good weekend I would say.”
The trip wasn’t about seeing new things compared to his prior visits to campus, Newman said. The point of the visit was to spend time with the staff and players while on campus. That included time with coach Matt Painter and assistant coach Brandon Brantley, his primary recruiter.
Among their key points were how the Boilermakers see Newman fitting into their style of play.
“They like to shoot a lot of threes,” he said. “They like to play fast, but also they can do both: they can play slowly, they can play it fast, they can get up and down in transition and shoot transition threes and stuff like that. My ability to make shots and defend, and they believe they’ll need that in the upcoming years depending on how their roster changes.”
Purdue has a pair of in-state commitments for 2019 in Mason Gillis, a four-star power forward from New Castle Chrysler School, and Isaiah Thompson, a three-star point guard from Zionsville. Newman said he’s familiar with both and that those relationships could help make Purdue more attractive to him.
Up next is an official visit to Indiana this weekend, with official visits to Ohio State and Xavier to follow. His visit to check out the Buckeyes is likely to take place during the weekend of Sept. 22.
Ohio State has one spot remaining for its class of 2019. It hosted four-star power forward prospect E.J. Liddell from Belleville (Illinois) West last weekend on an official visit, and although Newman said he keeps tabs on who is visiting where, Liddell’s trip didn’t impact his thoughts on the Buckeyes.
“I went down (to Ohio State) unofficially a couple weeks ago,” he said. “I loved it. It was a really good visit. That’s why I plan to come back again. Just to go off of that, I have a really good relationship with coach (Chris) Holtmann and (assistant) coach (Ryan) Pedon, with coach Pedon being the guy mainly I talk to.”
Through it all, Newman continues to re-acclimate himself to his Valparaiso teammates. It’s been a welcome return, he said.
“It feels really good,” he said. “They could have had every reason to be upset with me, but they accepted me with open arms and I appreciate that.”
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@AdamJardy