'Boiler up' for Swanigan

Boiler up.
Ugh.
That is one of the worst catch phrases in all of sports.
It’s right up there with “who dey” (our grasp of the English language seems to be lacking), “who dat” (even worse), “chirp, chirp” (very intimidating) and “go horse” (just one horse, or all of them?).
Why stop at alienating just one fan base, right?
But a little jab at their silly cheer shouldn’t do much to dampen the moods of Purdue fans this week. After all, the Boilermakers seem to have vaulted themselves into contention for the Big Ten Title, and maybe more.
The news came Tuesday morning, when @Biggs_Swanigan tweeted a simple hashtag — #BoilerUp.
Homestead High School big man Caleb Swanigan is going to Purdue. He had called the coaches to make his commitment Monday, his guardian Roosevelt Barnes revealed the decision to several media outlets a day later and the tweet was the player’s nod to the Boilermakers.
Really, the decision is not that much of a surprise, at least after he decommitted from Michigan State on May 8.
Barnes said Kentucky, California and MSU all got consideration. But Kentucky never seemed to be a real contender, and he had already walked away from the Spartans. And while there was a lot of talk about Cal, schools like UCLA and USC would have made more sense if he had really planned to go out west.
So Purdue was the logical landing place, but Tuesday still had to seem like Christmas for Boilermaker basketball fans.

I saw Swanigan play twice this year. (Oddly enough, I didn’t make it to his Homestead squad’s sectional game against Jay County.)
The first was in the regional semifinal at Marion, where I was witness to an passionate argument between two Carroll fans about whether Swanigan is “NBA ready.” One fan was insistent that he is, flailing his arms and throwing his program to the floor to emphasize the point.
The second was at Banker’s Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, where it seemed as if the Spartans’ season would end in tears. That was before a furious last-minute comeback led to an overtime win for the Class 4A state title.
What was interesting about those games was that I don’t remember being all that impressed with Swanigan in either.
Senior guard Jordan Geist hit the game-winning shot with 1.7 seconds left against Carroll. Later in the day he scored eight of the Spartans’ final 10 points in a comeback win over Carmel. And it was Tahj Curry who sparked the rally in the state title game.
But numbers don’t lie. Swanigan had 18 points and six boards against Carroll, 18 points and 11 rebounds in the win over Carmel and 20 points, 14 rebounds and six assists in that state title game.
He got those stats quietly, but he got them. And I’ve often pointed out that there are no style points in basketball. A lay-up earns the same two points as a thunderous dunk.
Effective is effective. And Swanigan is.
He becomes Indiana’s first Mr. Basketball to choose Purdue since Glenn Robinson, who averaged 30.3 points and 11.2 rebounds per game as a junior, set the Big Ten’s all-time single season points record with 1,030 and was a unanimous selection for the John R. Wooden and Naismith awards. His 1994 Boilermaker squad lost in a bid for a spot in the Final Four to Duke, but that came only after Robinson suffered a back injury in the previous game.
This is not to say Swanigan will approach Robinson’s level of play. That would be unreasonable.
But his presence in West Lafayette does raise expectations.
Purdue finished fifth in the Big Ten last season with no one averaging even 12 points per game. Swanigan’s announcement immediately puts it in the conference championship conversation along with Maryland, Michigan and Indiana.
The Boilermakers’ top two scorers from 2014-15 — A.J. Hammons (11.9 points per game) and Rapheal Davis (10.7) — will return to play with the highly-touted recruit. Carmel graduate Ryan Cline, who was second to Swanigan in the Mr. Basketball voting this year, is headed to West Lafayette as well.
Delta High School graduate Matt Painter is a quality coach — he led Purdue to six straight 20-win seasons ending in 2012 — who gets the most out of his players. And this will be his most talented group in at least four years.
So I still don’t know exactly what it means to “Boiler up.” But given this week’s news, it seems there could be a lot of it happening in March.