Recruiting Website Bumps Purdue Commit Luke Ertel Into Top 50 in 2026 Class
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Luke Ertel continues to climb in the recruiting rankings. This week, Rivals/On3 re-ranked the top 150 college basketball prospects in the 2026 class, with the Purdue pledge now officially inside the top 50.
Ertel, a 6-foot-1 guard from Indiana, is now ranked No. 46 in the 2026 recruiting class, per Rivals. He's also listed as the No. 7 point guard and the No. 2 player in the state. He has been committed to Purdue for a year.
The bump in Ertel's recruiting ranking comes after a stellar year at Mt. Vernon High School and on the AAU circuit this summer.
Ertel finished the 3SSB Circuit with Indiana Elite, averaging 19.2 points and 5.4 assists per game, and shot 40% from behind the three-point line. He also posted an assist-to-turnover ratio of 2.32. With those numbers, the future Boilermaker ranked second in assists, seventh in scoring, fifth in assist-to-turnover ratio, and ninth in three-point percentage on the circuit, per Synergy Basketball.
During the 2024-25 campaign at Mt. Vernon, Ertel averaged 22.7 points, 4.0 assists, 6.4 rebounds, and 1.4 steals per game. He also shot 51% from the floor and 45% from three-point range. The Marauders finished the season with a 21-6 record, reaching the semi-state round of the IHSAA Boys Basketball Tournament.
Ertel is now ranked No. 46 by Rivals, No. 53 by 247Sports, and No. 98 by ESPN.
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Dustin Schutte is the publisher of Purdue Boilermakers on SI and has spent more than a decade working in sports journalism. His career began in 2013, when he covered Big Ten football. He remained in that role for eight years before working at On SI to cover the Boilermakers. Dustin graduated from Manchester University in Indiana in 2010, where he played for the men's tennis team.
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