The Purdue Boilermakers (27-6, 14-6) won two tight games over States Pennsylvania and Michigan. They were low-ish scoring affairs for the Boilers, a team comfortable with games in the 80s.
Purdue is more a less a consensus 3 seed. Maybe they move up to the 2 if things break their way over the next 22 hours. Good for them. Us? I don’t know. Royal “we” I guess, as an alum.
Their best wins are sweeping Iowa and Illinois. Villanova in the non-conference. Those Iowa wins looked different, considering the Hawks were without Keegan in the first matchup and had not flipped Tony Perkins into the starting lineup for the second. What’s held them back, though, are really tight losses. The only of their six losses they lost by more than five points was that weird blowout from a desperate Michigan team. Overall, they’re 4-5 in five point games with two wins in OT outside that arbitrary number.
Jaden Ivey. Zach Edey. Trevion Williams. Purdue’s three best players. Due to Edey and Williams being true centers, they’ll never play those three guys at the same time which seems like a double edge sword. Other guys have been around forever and each had their success against Iowa: Sasha Stefanovic & Isaiah Thompson to name a pair.
Season averages: Team / Opponent
PPG: 80.4 / 68.5
RPG: 38.1 / 28.9
APG: 16.9 / 13.5
TOPG: 11.6 / 9.8
FG%: 49.7% / 42.7%
Coach:
Matt Painter, 17 seasons at Purdue, 18 overall
Overall: 27-6 (.818), 407-194 (.676)
Big Ten: 14-6 (.700), 194-111 (.636)
B1G Tourney: 13-14 (1 tourney championship, 2009)
Team Leaders:
PPG: Jaden Ivey 17.2, Zach Edey 14.8
RPG: Edey 7.5 (2.9 Off); Trevion Williams 7.3 (2.3 Off)
APG: Sash Stefanovic 3.3; Williams 3.1
FG%: Edey 66.4%, Caleb Furst 57.1%
3P%: Eric Hunter 45.2%, Mason Gillis 44.2%
Last 5 games:
W - v Michigan State, 75-70
W - v Penn State, 69-61
W - v Indiana, 69-61
L - @ Wisconsin, 70-67
L - @ Michigan State, 68-65
KenPom: ($)
AdjEfficiency: +22.72 (14)
AdjOffense: 122.0 (1)
AdjDefense: 99.2 (103)
AdjTempo: 65.8 (246)
Conference only
Offense: 112.8 (2)
Defense: 105.4 (9)
NET: 13 (not including today’s result)
vs Quad 1: 8-5
Bart Torvik: 12
Since Feb 1: 23