Weekly Word: Redshirting, transfers and more

The Weekly Word is GoldandBlack.com's weekly, obviously, column covering Purdue football, basketball and recruiting, as well as college sports issues, the true meaning of life, or whatever other topics might come to mind in a given week.

As Purdue's season's been defined by inconsistency and offensive difficulty, putting the Boilermakers on an NCAA Tournament tightrope, there has never been a right or wrong answer to Matt Painter's eye-opening preseason decision to redshirt two of his three promising scholarship freshmen — Mason Gillis and Brandon Newman.

No one knows what difference one or the other would have, or could have, made this season, though there's very little rock-solid reason to believe things would be any different than they are now. That's the nature of redshirting. The right decision may not be revealed 'til years down the line, if even then.

But I also contend that a better way to look at redshirting isn't the results of the players who did redshirt, but rather what might have been for those who didn't. That's a much easier hypothetical, generally, to derive meaning from.

So with that said, I submit to you the new poster-boy for redshirting: Ryan Cline.

Cline, of course, didn't redshirt, even though he arrived on campus all teed up to do so, maybe even wanted to. Instead, he played 13-and-a-half minutes per game and averaged less than four points for a team that spent half the season playing too many shooting guards, to the detriment of all of them.

Yes, Purdue needed Cline more later in the season than it did at the start, for a variety of reasons that may not have even taken hold had Purdue's depth chart been more accommodating at first.

Yes, Cline helped Purdue win at Pittsburgh, without question. To the best of my recollection that was the only game that season in which Cline was the singular difference. That season ended in the NCAA Tournament — an NCAA Tournament Purdue would have qualified for either way — where Purdue got bounced in Round 1.

Was that worth this?

Today, Purdue struggles to score, struggles to make jumpers on the road and often struggles to pass. Its backcourt lacks the sort of weapons opponents must fear. It lacks general offensive savvy. Purdue often lacks steady hands and stabilizing influences in big moments.

Which recently departed Purdue guard would check every one of those boxes?

In my opinion, Ryan Cline, as a fifth-year senior on this team, is worth five wins already, and that's a conservative estimate on my part. That would represent the difference between 12-10 and 17-5, the difference between the Bubble and Big Ten contention.

In my opinion, of course. There's no way of knowing.

Purdue still would have done what it did last season, it can be safely presumed, because Cline's outstanding senior season wasn't made possible by anything that happened his freshman year, but rather by the experiences gained as a sophomore and junior, on top of the fact that he was simply always a good player. He just needed a full-scale opportunity.

Redshirting is about maximizing the value of assets, like stocks. Did you sell that Amazon stock back in 2015 to pay for new furniture or did you hang onto it a few years and pay for your kid's college?

That's the deal. There's never a right or wrong answer in the moment. Sometimes there's no right or wrong answer in the final analysis, either. Coaches have to just make the best decisions they can, at the time they must be made, with the information available to them at the time.

For years, Matt Painter's used Ryne Smith as the face of redshirt regret.

Now I wonder if maybe that distinction is changing hands.

So it was reported this week that the Big Ten has led the way on proposing a one-time exemption that would allow student-athletes to transfer without sitting out a year of competition.

It ought to tread lightly.

Kudos to the conference for getting out in front of the tidal wave that's coming the NCAA and its antiquated business model, but this is one area where the games must be protected.

While it is noble and honorable for the Big Ten to give a nod to the importance of student-athlete empowerment and surrender some control of those persons' careers, there is a line too far, and this is it.

Let's use college basketball, for example. What can not be allowed to happen is for coaches to not properly coach their players for fear of them bolting a week later. Coaches, at least in theory, are responsible for shaping young men and women and sometimes that involves telling people what they don't want to hear, having hard conversations.

Coaches mustn't be given reason — or more reason, I should say — to fear honesty.

Furthermore, coaches mustn't be given any more reason to screw around with other peoples' players. Tampering is bad now. You give immediate eligibility to anyone, anywhere, at any time, and college basketball turns into Deadwood.

Kansas doesn't have a point guard next year, you say? Hey, I wonder if some how, some way, Tulane's first-team all-league sophomore is going to end up in the Portal.

Can't have it.

Keep freaking out about autograph money splintering a locker room, though.

There's another layer to this.

Protecting young people from themselves.

Look, we were all 18.

Some of us at that point in our lives were better wired to make crucial, potentially life-shaping decisions than others.

If Tommy Twoguard gets mad at his coach one day over something trivial, testosterone would tell him to do what, you think? If Peter Powerforward goes through a bad breakup with a girl and just wants to get the hell out of Dodge, well ...

Look, the year-in-residence requirement is the one barrier that forces these young men and women to really think things through. It's a safeguard of sorts, the safeguard.

Want to give them more mobility? Fine. That's great. Give out more waivers. They're being handed out like Halloween candy as is. Make it known that if you want to find a better fit somewhere else, you can make your case to the NCAA and most of the time, you can do what you want, and play right away. But you should at least have to state your reasons out loud, if for no other reason, so you listen to yourself.

Just don't invite chaos.

Last week, Ohio State freshman D.J. Carton, one of the conference's best freshmen and a player who clearly has a radiant future in basketball, stepped away from the Buckeyes to tend self-described "mental health issues."

First off, it's impossible to not admire Carton's courage, not only to step away to tackle his challenges, but to do so publicly, on top of being so astute and self-aware as to recognize the importance of the fight.

I do genuinely hope he was completely transparent about this in order to set an example for others with such challenges and to raise awareness, as opposed to concern over the public's imagination running wild a few days after Kobe King walked out on Wisconsin. (New rule: Before you commit to a school, watch some of that school's games.)

Anyway, everyone should wish nothing but the best for Carton and admire his strength here, but also allow this to serve as a reminder: These players who sometimes seem larger-than-life, distant beings you see on TV or read about online, instead of honest-to-goodness flesh and blood, with feelings and problems and families, they are people same as us.

When Jalen Smith cursed out Indiana's fans and disrespected IU's home floor after Maryland's amazing comeback in Assembly Hall, prompting his coach to dress him down on national TV, then apologize on his behalf afterward, you think that happened in a vacuum, that nothing brought that about? "F-ck you, Haarms" wasn't all that long ago. And I have no sympathy for Maryland, either, considering that guy in the front row is the Big Ten's foremost fan-troll. But I'm sure he's a well-heeled fan-troll so he gets to do what he wants. (And no, I'm not suggesting Purdue fans have been historically perfectly saintly.)

Anyway, our culture these days is acidic and getting worse. Social media has torn down barriers between athletes and both fans and trolls, the line between the two sometimes getting particularly blurry. Animosity between the two sides grows every year because all the stuff you used to just yell at your TV in the solitude of your own home or as just another impermanent voice in a crowded bar, you can now yell right at those involved, hidden either by online or crowd-driven anonymity.

Anyway ...

I hope Carton gets the help he needs. I also hope his case reminds people, for a few hours, at least, that just because an 18-year-old future millionaire is playing basketball on national television and scores of people know their name, that doesn't make them impervious to challenges.

We've all got circumstances of some kind.

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