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Caleb Swanigan recruiting: Who is Roosevelt Barnes? Plus Dan Dakich loses his mind

How odd.

By Avinash Kunnath

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Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports

Some quick weekend updates on Caleb Swanigan watch.

Since Swanigan decommitted from Michigan State, a lot of people have been asking about the relationship of Roosevelt Barnes to Swanigan, and whether he had any part to play in his recruitment. Barnes used to play college football at Purdue. When Swanigan moved to Fort Wayne as an eighth grade, Barnes took over as his legal guardian.

Barnes has worked as an agent for several NFL players post-career. Barnes has been active in Swanigan's recruitment. So he has been a crucial figure to mentor Swanigan on the murky recruiting waters.

Did Swanigan decommit from Michigan State because Barnes didn't like what he was seeing? Here's what one writer at the East Lansing Journal has to say about the possibility of Swanigan picking Purdue over Michigan State.

Swanigan's legal guardian in Fort Wayne is former Purdue basketball and football player Roosevelt Barnes, who is also supposedly close with Cal coach Cuonzo Martin, who played at Purdue. Swanigan chose MSU originally over Purdue and Cal, among others.

The popular narrative of the last day is that Swanigan prefers to play power forward and Purdue's situation — with two 7-footers on the roster — assures he will. This isn't a new narrative, though. Nor is playing the 4 position instead of center something he couldn't have tried at MSU. The Spartans, one might recall, return two seasoned centers, Matt Costello and Gavin Schilling.

This is a similar position to what Cal faces with the current class they have now. With two centers in Kingsley Okoroh and Kameron Rooks and the incoming Ivan Rabb likely to occupy most minutes at the four. However, it's quite likely that Cuonzo Martin would be creative and start Rabb at the 5 and Swanigan at the 4 and just play helter-skelter offense for most of the game with those 2 on the floor, then liberally substitute in the two centers when needed for more traditional size and post-up game. This is a flexible situation.

There's a reason Cal is not out of the mix at all in this race. Martin and Barnes are close and Rabb and Swanigan are close. It sounds like relationships are what matter the most in selling Swanigan on a particular school. Purdue is close and can afford playing time, so it might be the easier sell. But Cuonzo can sell a super team that would almost certainly have the number one recruiting class behind Rabb, Jaylen Brown, Tyson Jolly and Davon Dillard, and would have a real chance to compete for a national championship.

Now, it all depends on how comfortable Barnes is with that distance between Fort Wayne and Berkeley. It's a lot simpler for Swanigan to set up shop in West Lafayette where he can keep a close eye on him, which is why Purdue is the favorites so far.

Where is Dan Dakich committing to?

I'm not exactly certain who Dan Dakich is. The Internet tells me he used to be a college basketball coach at Bowling Green, spent a year at Indiana, was bad, then went into sports radio hosting in the Midwest, which is always the most noble of professions.

But here he is, saying that something is done when it isn't done.

Dan Dakich was the first to release the thought that Caleb Swanigan had committed to Purdue, which was then reported at multiple other outlets like 247Sports.com, which was then recirculated to Jeff Faraudo. But that's clearly not the case. Purdue has not received a commitment from Swanigan.

Let's see what Dakich's response was to all of this.

Okay then. The bright side is it's always good to find new Twitter accounts to mute. You have to improve that signal to noise ratio anyway.

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