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60 GOLD AND BLACK ILLUSTRATED BY BRIAN NEUBERT BNeubert@GoldandBlack.com O n paper, it seems as if a really good problem to have might be brewing for Purdue. "We're two or three deep at every spot. I wouldn't be shocked if any one of those guys in our top nine or 10 start," sophomore Dakota Mathias said this summer. "That's how com- petitive these practices have been, how much guys have been working on their games. There's no free ins here. Nobody is guaranteed a spot. You have to earn it." Every summer, every team every- where talks in rosy rhetoric about its presumed depth, often failing to delineate between proven depth and just numbers. Granted, Purdue has all sorts of questions to answer in advance of this much-anticipated season, but also numerous indicators that it might have the sort of proven depth it hopes to. It starts on the interior. A.J. Hammons may not be the best center in college basketball — he's certainly one of them — but between him and Isaac Haas, Purdue may just have the best center tandem in col- lege basketball. McDonald's All-America freshman Caleb Swanigan won't play center primarily at Purdue, but his addition certainly should make the Boilermak- ers even stronger in the paint. As deep as Purdue seems to be around the basket, it may be equally so away from it. Point guard is the Boilermakers' biggest personnel question, until the combination of senior trans- fer Johnny Hill and sophomore P.J. Thompson, and anyone else who may factor in, have a chance to prove it otherwise. But on the wing, Purdue may actu- ally be just as stacked as it is on the interior. Mathias, by many accounts, took a significant step forward this summer after starting about half the season as Purdue's shooting guard last season, stepping in for Kendall Stephens, whose season was adversely affected by injuries. Both players now have a wealth of experience and, more importantly, both are healthy. "(Confidence and health) kind of go hand in hand. Last year, I wasn't healthy, so I wasn't very confident," Mathias said. "This year I'm feeling a lot better so I feel a lot like I did in high school, when I could almost do M E N'S B A S K E T B A L L DIGGING DEEP Purdue may be loaded on the interior and perimeter alike Tom Campbell Dakota Mathias may have been Purdue's most improved player over the summer, but there's a chance the shooting guard, a starter last season, won't have the same role in Year 2 on a deep roster.