Ethan Morton was clearly a Matt Painter favorite during the Class of 2020 recruiting cycle, for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was the heralded guard's reputed focuses on winning and making those around him better.

Now, Purdue hopes those elements can help make the Boilermakers better sooner rather than later.

GoldandBlack.com discussed this and much more with Morton here in this Entrance Interview.

GoldandBlack.com: Winning that WPIAL championship before your high school career got cut short — had it all just ended suddenly and you didn't have that thing to show for it necessarily, that had to be a pretty big deal for you to win that championship.

Morton: "Yeah, that was that was huge. I mean, that's something that I looked towards every year. Had we not been able to finish that I just would have been heartbroken. I don't think I ever would have really truly gotten over that. Thank God we were able to finish and win that not just not just for my sake, but I wanted to win it for my high school coach, who worked so hard. He had won one when he was young, but he had also lost a couple in high school. So just to win that for him and the rest of the guys on the team and for the community especially and just to experience what that was like, it was nice to have that experience of being on such a high before all this stuff happened."

GoldandBlack.com: What is your general expectation coming to Purdue next year?

Morton: "I think that's hard. I think the expectations are often kind of fluid just based on circumstances like (the pandemic) and that's a big one that affects it. Guys that come and go and just overall the (strength of the) league. For me, I'm just excited to be a part of this program. I know it's going to take a lot of hard work. We’ve talked a lot about that with the coaches and had speakers that have kept telling us, it's going to be really tough. It's going to be a big adjustment, probably the biggest one in your life. So just coming in, I think one of the main points is just trying to work as hard as I possibly can and earn guys’ respect because without that, it's hard to have an impact or have success on the team if guys don't really respect your work ethic and your game.