Its not out of the realm of possibility that they'll be able to stay decent by recruiting kids ranked 50-150, and then developing them over a few years. What they usually fail to acknowledge, however, is that they're going to have to pay the kids that do develop well, to stay at Purdue. And most of them aren't going to take discounts to stay in West Laffy, of all places. I'm sure Braden Smith is getting a fair bit of money. And in order for them to stay at the top of the conference, they're going to need guys like Colvin, Catchings, Heide, etc... to hit and be really good. Those are the types of guys they'll struggle the most to keep. If Catchings comes in and has a really good freshman year, his NIL value will be potentially 7 figures. Which raises Braden Smiths NIL expectation, TKR's, etc...
They've been insulated from all this stuff because of Edey. Without him, they're going to need a bunch of guys to be good. And that ain't gonna come cheap.