The Boilermaker forward knows his fate.
If you’ve paid any attention during the offseason of Purdue Basketball you know that Purdue forward Mason Gillis had some legal trouble. He was arrested in June on suspicion of operating a vehicle while intoxicated (OWI). In August he was sentenced to one year of unsupervised probation.
Matt Painter put out his general statement that he was aware of the situation and was monitoring it and any punishment would be handled in house. This is what Painter generally does with any such incident. Well today the suspension was announced.
Purdue’s Mason Gillis will not play in the Boilers’ first four regular season games, per Matt Painter.
Gillis will also not play in the team’s exhibition game or its scrimmage vs. Providence.
Gillis was recently sentenced to probation after pleading guilty to a count of OWI.
— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) September 20, 2021
This is in line with what Painter has done with other legal related issues in years past. Casey and I discussed this on the podcast a few weeks back and I believe this is what we thought was going to happen.
For Gillis this comes at a very difficult time in his progression as a player as he left the season as a starter but now will start the season on the bench. To add to this he now has to compete against Trey Kaufman-Renn and Caleb Furst. So Gillis is putting himself in a bad situation with two young guys coming up behind him, and there’s aren’t just a couple of no names, these are very big names coming in.
With the suspension now known it will be interesting to see what Coach Painter does throughout the start of the season as well as what will happen to Gillis going forward. With the legal wrangling out of the way it’s time now for Gillis to focus on getting back in Painter’s good graces and be ready for when his number is called.
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