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f r o m e d i t o r b r i a n n e u b e r t Talent Only Part Of The Equation Talent wins in college sports, all sports really. There���s really no way around it: Far more often than not, the team that has bigger, faster, stronger and more-skilled players, or more of them, is going to win. Maybe someday a few years from now Darrell Hazell will have helped turn Purdue into one of those teams. That will certainly be his goal. But that���s a long way off, at least among Purdue���s Big Ten peers. In the meantime, here���s how the Boilermakers have to win: Effort and discipline. Both areas are lacking in the program Hazell inherited from Danny Hope, and it���s part of the reason Hazell���s here in the first place. The former Kent State coach comes in intent on immediately focusing on the most fundamental components of success, those mentioned above, and it���s starting now as the Boilermakers begin their early morning winter conditioning. Recently, Hazell got kind of a crazy look in his eye when talking about the looming workouts, almost a sadistic glare that made him look like a man eager to push all his new players to their breaking point to see who cracks at the crack of dawn and who doesn���t. If the past few seasons are any indication, there might be a pile of busted young men lying around the Mollenkopf Athletic Center, because Hazell will be very different than Hope in terms of how far he���ll push his players. But for Hazell, he���ll hope to preside over teams for which discipline and other such intangibles won���t have to be coached. He���ll look for it in recruiting. Easier said than done. Every coach says they want to recruit disciplined, intelligent, mature young men, but Hazell has to. At a school where the margin for error is almost always very slight, you can���t beat yourself, as Purdue���s done too often in various forms. But it���s tricky. In recruiting, coaches not only have to project players��� futures as athletes, but also their futures as people. If you���re a parent, you hope you have a pretty good idea how your kids will turn out, but seriously, how can you really know when they���re teen-agers? So how can a college coach really know? For Hazell, he���d undoubtedly have loved more of a chance to get to know the 11 players who committed to him in the span of three weeks prior to signing day, but the calendar wouldn���t allow it. Even with a standard time frame to work with, it���s a challenge to gauge what���s going on inside kids��� heads and chests, every bit as challenging as it is to project how they may read a defense or react to getting hit in the face by a Big Ten linebacker. It���s hard. And you can recruit all the obvious intangibles guys you can get, but it���s the fast track to getting fired if they can���t play. Ask basketball coach Matt Painter about such challenges; he has a talented team, but a terribly immature, selfish and petty one that has simply imploded the past few weeks. It might not always look like it right now, but Purdue has players enough to be winning, its young players in particular obviously being talented enough to win with. What that team doesn���t appear to have is the collective attention span ��� or respect ��� to listen to its coach; to pay attention to its coaches��� scouting reports; or to commit themselves fully to basketball off the floor. It���s a wonderful compliment to freshman Rapheal Davis that he���s stuck out this season with his effort and work ethic but also a terrible indictment of everyone else, because he���s merely doing what he���s supposed to be doing. Painter says his team���s culture has slipped with this group, one that���ll be watching the NCAA Tournament on CBS this year after one of the greatest runs of success in school history. That���s the predicament Purdue���s basketball program is in and, though it���s less apparent, the sort of situation football���s encountered, as well. In both cases, the goal is to change it. It starts in recruiting, but easier said than done. j Neubert can be contacted at BNeubert@GoldandBlack.com Watch for our weekly special guest. Shows run weekly through the Final Four. Show time is at 2 P.M.! Fridays this winter at a computer near you Gold and Black LIVE featuring the staff of GoldandBlack.com Interactive live video-stream sports talk show ��� ask questions, chat with other fans! Show will stream live on WLFI.com on selected Fridays during football and basketball season. For complete schedule, visit the college page on WLFI.com. Trent Johnson, Agent GBIprint.com GoldandBlack.com Gold & Black IllustrateD ��� volume 23, issue 4 ������ 13