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God Bless the Big Ten Network. I have to admit, I have a soft  spot for Purdue. My dad went there and I have been to a lot of Purdue football games. Still, I went to IU, and when the band plays the song I strike the trident. I normally ignore college basketball that isn't IU but with the advent of the Big Ten Network my ability to watch other teams play has grown exponentially. Several times on weekenders the network has played IU and Purdue back to back which gave me a chance to see Purdue up close. If you can't enjoy the way Purdue plays the game, you can't enjoy basketball. Period. They give up size at every position and nobody averages more than 11 points a game. They start two Freshmen and Sophomores (really three Freshmen but they are bringing Jujuan Johnson off the bench lately) and they are only five guys deep. With first place on the line, Purdue went into a nearly impossible place to play and won with heart and heart alone. Joe Hardy would have been proud. (Yeah, thats a musical theater reference. Wanna fight about it?)
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I don't think Matt Painter feeds his basketball team enough, they all seem skinny and hungry. The strategy works, though, to the tune of first place in the Big Ten.
In a potential Coach of the Year match-up, Purdue went north to figure out who would lead the Big 10. Purdue (19-5, 10-1) beat Wisconsin (19-4, 9-2) 72 to 67. Purdue is lighter and shorter than nearly every team they play. They aren't a deep shooting team and they lose a lot of deep rebounds and slap aways because of their lack of interior presence. With all of that, they fight harder to win than anybody else. Yeah, they have given up some cheap losses, but that seems to be in the past. They are tenacious and unrelenting despite a serious lack of depth.
 Purdue does two things I like a lot. 1. They play hard-fought defense and crash the boards as a team to try to make up for being wee. 2. They run their offense off of screens and intelligence. It is an amazing thing considering how young they are. Their offense is centered around a quick pass to the post followed by a kick out to the wing. They screen a guard off the top who floats into the high part of lane. If the defense collapses the perimeter guy takes the shot. If not, they pass to the cutter and he takes the mid-ranger or penetrates to the hoop. The playside poster slides back a step to open up for a pass and the weaksider cuts the baseline. It isn't a complex play, but it is run well and opens up their guards for mid-range shots and prevents them from being forced to settle for deeper shots because of the motion. They run other plays, too. They run a stacked flex against man to man often enough to keep things different.
They are tough on defense. They all play with a high motor that I find appealing. Their sophomore leader, Chris Kramer (The Pride of Huntington, Indiana) is the spark plug. Not a great shooter, not a great percentage shooter, he still takes smart shots. He grabs two steals a game and does everything else by being mean and hungry. They don't do a whole lot well, but they try so hard, and sometimes thats enough.
They have some talent, but not a whole lot and none of it is very seasoned. E'twaan Moore is their best player. Keaton Grant and Robbie Hummel, the long-armed shooter from Valpo, have raw skills as well. That is a freshman a sophomore and a freshman respectively.
Purdue got up on Wisconsin early and was able to keep a lead somewhere between 8 and 12 points for most of the game. The game got interesting when Purdue's Moore picked up his fourth foul early in the second half. With Moore out, Purdue struggled to find a scoring threat and Wisconsin clamped down on Hummel (a great adjustment by Ryan since he was Purdue's only other real scoring threat). Since they aren't deep and they play defense so aggressively, the Boiler squad was exhausted with 6 minutes to go. Wisconsin cut into the lead and brought it within a bucket and was able to foul Moore out, but Purdue's defense rose to occasion. The physicality of Purdue's defense held Wisconsin to 37% from the floor and it was enough. This is a fun team to watch.
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Moore and Hummel are the real deal. I'm an IU fan and it's scary to think how good Painter's team is now and how good they will be in the years ahead. I only hope we can beat them in Bloomington this year because after D.J. White and Eric Gordon leave, I don't see us having a good chance in West Lafayette next season.
I've long admired Purdue's coaches and players because, no matter how much or how little talent they have, they play hard and play as a team. They maximize their abilities and--as cliche as it sounds--their teams really do become better than the sum of the parts. Too often in recent years, IU's coaches and players have been content to rely on talent alone. At Purdue, that's simply not part of their culture.
Between IU, Purdue, Notre Dame, Butler, and IUPUI (19-5 and second place in the Summit League), it's a good time to be a college basketball fan in the state of Indiana.
Matt Painter is to PU/Gene Keady as Steve Alford is to IU/Bob Knight. Alford was a much better player, but I think in just a short time Painter has shown himself to be the better coach. I like this class he's brought in and you're spot on in regard to the effort the Boilers exert game after game. For the last season and a half, that has been my gripe about IU and Sampson's teams. The defense is not played with 100% heart, and the offense is nowhere near crisp. This year especially, the IU offense has become a series of one-on-one moves and typically results in a bad shot (Jordan Crawford), a jump-pass turned turnover (Eric Gordon or Jamarcus Ellis), or a fortunate dump-off to DJ White for a score down low. Yes Eric Gordon makes a lot of plays, but there is nothing consistent from an offensive flow so IU struggles against teams that really get out there and play hard defense. At this point in the season, I don't really have much hope of that changing, as it has shown no signs of doing so thus far. As a Hoosier fan, I just have to hope we can keep winning on the talent of EJ and DJ, because Sampson hasn't really shown me a great deal of coaching this year. Matt Painter grew up a Hoosier fan. If IU would have gone after him, I think he would have jumped at the chance to play at IU. Apparently Knight didn't want him, and now having matured into a talented coach AND recruiter, we will be forced to watch him lead our rival into being a more consistent winner then we are likely to be. Amazing how 1 recruit passed on roughly 15 years ago can turn out to make such a huge difference in the direction of 2 programs so many years later. IU is good this year, but Purdue may still be better. Some think Devin Ebanks will aptly fill Gordon's shoes next year at IU, but even then Purdue will probably be better. A tough pill to swallow in such a bitter rivalry.
On a sidenote, I think that Notre Dame is the best team in the state this year with Purdue and IU right behind. I only leave Butler below because I haven't watched them play this year and I know they've lost some surprising games. By the time the season ends, it may very well be ND, Purdue, and Butler playing deeper into March than the Hoosiers.
Scott Martin (Valparaiso) was supposed to be their best freshman (#4 SF recruit in the nation) and one day a 'big team leader in scoring'. His is better than Moore and Hummel. He went down earlier this season with an injury and has been heard from very little since and I haven't heard why, have you?
Purdue is a team that plays like a team. IU is a team that plays like individuals. They have a lot of talented individuals, but it's not always pretty to watch. A week from Tuesday we'll find out which one is better this season.
Purdue was out-rebounded 38-18 yesterday. You normally can't do that and win in the Big Ten and actually, that might be the only time a team has EVER been out-rebounded by 20 and still won in the Big Ten. Luckily, they forced 18 turnovers against a normally decent Wisconsin ball handling team.
Yeah, Martin was the other phenom out of Valpo (along with Hummel) that made Purdue the recruiting class that it was. I think a big reason he is sitting is because Painter believes that the team he has now was sorta forged in their early season losses and since Martin was sitting, he doesn't want to screw it up. He used to be starting JuJuan Johnson as well, but because they were so weak for a dynamic player off the bench, he asked Johnson if he would sit (in exchange for that European fella) and come off the bench. It has dramatically improved Purdue late in the first half, which has generally been a time where they can make defense based runs with easy buckets since team will push a little hard to make late runs as well. So with that, Martin may be in the same situation. Painter may be bringing him off the bench to have talent on the floor when other guys have to sit. That is my only guess. As for statistical impact, his stats have dropped with reduced playing time but they have stayed near their average per minute. He had a decent game against Iowa, which turned out to be a close one, so i don't think its an issue of him not being able to play, it may just be a depth issue like I outlined or he may need to add some bulk and durability to be a bigger impact. If you want more stats out of him, though, I wouldn't bother. The team concept is so overpowering with Purdue, no one dominates control of their game.
I actually looked it up and Martin keeps spraining the same ankle and now has a high ankle sprain that isn't getting better.
Painter is the one who said Martin would one day lead the Big Ten in scoring. That's why I remembered it, since it seemed out of character.
Being a huge Purdue fan this is one post that I never expected to see on this website...(although it did take Bruce Paine to write it) I do hope that Purdue can continue the way that they are playing now atleast until Feb. 20. My only concern is that they will soon hit a wall b/c of the long season and the effect on all the young players. any thoughts? I believe that Purdue has been passed over as far as rankings considering they have beat Wisconsin TWICE which I believe is 13 and lost to Michigan State by 3 at Michigan State. True they lost a few early but with a young team some struggles are expected although it isn't always bad to be able to sneak up on some teams.
The one thing that hurts IU is their inability to play team ball(as already mentioned) They are lacking one player, which I believe is highly highly underated and that is the role player. If they can develop an individual(I believe they are trying to do this with Stemler)to set picks and rebound then they will vastly improve. I am saying this based on the few games that I have seen.....With the Comcast and BTN dispute I still can't watch half of the games.........Damn Comcast!!!!!