Purdue’s Swanigan goes 20-20 again, enters rare territory

Cliff December 22, 2016 0

By KEITH CARRELL
@BoilerColts
ISL Purdue Writer

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Caleb Swanigan led Purdue in doubling up Norfolk State 91-45 in the final non-conference tune-up Wednesday night.

Swanigan stuffed the stat sheet, scoring a career high 32 points and grabbing 20 rebounds for his third 20-20 game of the season and second straight. The 30-20 performance was the first for a Boilermaker since Bob Ford accomplished the feat in 1971.

👀 #Purdue pic.twitter.com/jrP9ZhO9uf

— Purdue Basketball (@BoilerBall) December 22, 2016

“I say it in recruiting a lot, ‘If you don’t like basketball, then don’t come play here at Purdue,’” coach Matt Painter said. “It should be your craft, and it’s become his craft.”

I promise, I didn’t copy-paste this story about Swanigan, but it was nearly a mirror image of his past outing against Western Illinois, with some improvements. In a game held on the day of the Winter Solstice (the shortest day of the year), Swanigan wasted no time as he had earned a double-double before halftime for the second-straight contest and third time this season. There are a number of words to describe how Swanigan performed against the Spartans from Virginia, but the most apt may be DOMINATION. In the first half alone, Biggie went 6-8 from the field (including the third consecutive game in which he scored Purdue’s first three pointer) and 7-7 from the free throw line on his way to 20 points, 14 rebounds, and two assists. For comparison, the Spartans, as a team, scored 25 points and were only able to corral nine rebounds… that’s five fewer rebounds than Swanigan.

🎥 Looking back — #Purdue 91, Norfolk State 45 pic.twitter.com/9gp4wAppUf

— Purdue Basketball (@BoilerBall) December 22, 2016

When asked about Swanigan’s impact on the team and games, P.J. Thompson stated, “He’s doing all the things that we need him to do to help Purdue win.”

Not that he needed it, but Swanigan did get some help from his teammates in the opening half, the rest of the team combined for twelve rebounds and chipped in another 33 points to give Purdue a 53-25 advantage at the break. Isaac Haas also had one of his better starts to a game this season by sinking all six of his field goal attempts on his way to twelve points, four rebounds, and one bock in the first half. Ryan Cline also got into the action early when Thompson dished the ball to him on a fast break layup that saw him score a rare two point shot. Cline managed to turn it into a three pointer, though, by making ensuing foul shot as he was fouled on the play by Carrington Ward and extended Purdue’s lead to 23-10.

Norfolk State entered the game at a disadvantage being severely outsized to the point that their center, 7-foot Dan Robinson, didn’t even attempt to control the opening tip against Purdue’s Haas and they played zone defense almost exclusively throughout the contest, err, scrimmage. The Spartans were athletic, though, and had some length so Purdue did have to exert some energy to control the pace and game; a seemingly easy task that isn’t always so easy when the student section is on break and the opponent doesn’t carry name recognition. Thompson summed it up well by saying you can’t take any team for granted, “Every time you step on the floor you have to respect your opponents no matter who you’re playing” and continued “my freshman year, we had a good team as well and we lost to Gardner Webb at home and lost to North Florida.”

Norfolk State kept the game within reach until about six and a half minutes remained in the opening stanza when Micah Goss made a three to close Purdue’s lead to 35-21. The Spartans would not score for nearly five minutes as the Boilers used a 12-0 run to enlarge the lead to 26 points.

The true highlight of the first half may have been the resurgence of a video segment titled “Cooking with Basil” that played during a media timeout midway through the half. The segment features Basil Smotherman sharing his culinary expertise. The segment during this game was holiday themed and Smotherman shared how to make gingerbread men, modeling them after the Purdue team and he began with a bit of humor by illustrating that the most important thing is to know that you need two sizes of cookie cutters, one for the frontcourt and one for the backcourt players. He then proceeded to indulge the Mackey crowd with humor as he decorated the cookies and finished by putting a mustache on Painter’s likeness, adding that he did that because he thought Painter would look good in a mustache.

By the time the opening buzzer of the second half rang, the game was virtually over it was just a matter of tallying the stat sheet and declaring a final score. But, still, the second half didn’t come and go without its moments. Two and a half minutes into the second half, Purdue freshman phenom Carsen Edwards jumped a passing lane to steal the ball from Ward and while inching out of bounds on the near sideline, managed to twist his body around and found an open Swanigan to save the ball and possession. Edwards recovered and the break was on as Swanigan advanced the ball to Thompson who used a perfectly timed and placed bounce pass just out of reach of the defender to hit Edwards in stride for a layup. Less than thirty seconds later, Swanigan was scoring from the paint again when he was fouled by Alex Long. The action continued a bit after the foul in which Long and Haas had a brief heated exchange which resulted in the referees going to the video replay to determine what happened and returned with a decision of a technical foul being assessed to both players.

“I think we had a good non-conference season. We had a couple disappointing losses against Villanova and Louisville,” Haas mentioned when asked how the season has gone thus far and he then continued, “Coach (Painter) was just telling is ‘it’s going to be a war every single game,’ so we’re just really looking forward to that and ready to get out of non-conference and into the real (Big Ten) stage.”

Following their dominating performance against the Spartans, Purdue will next take their six-game winning streak and 11-2 overall record into Big Ten play when they host Iowa in the conference opener on Wednesday night.

Quick Hits:

Swanigan’s 30-20 night saw his season total for 20-20 games come to three and two consecutive, both marks tying Blake Griffin for season highs for any players within the past 20 years… Swanigan also tied the Purdue record for most defensive rebounds in a game (15) a mark he also tied in the previous outing… The double-double for Swanigan was his tenth of the season, he still has a ways to go to match the Purdue single-season record of 18… Swanigan’s 30-20 was the first for a Purdue player since 1971 (7^th instance in school history), but it was also the first 30-15 for a Purdue player since Joe Barry Carroll had 35 points and 15 rebounds in 1979… Radio announcer Larry Clisby mentioned before the game that he was under the impression from Painter that Jacquil Taylor was unlikely to play this season while still recovering from his injury… Purdue forced 18 turnovers, six were steals and three steals were by Thompson… Thompson continued his stretch of ball security by contributing seven assists without committing a turnover… Haas had an efficient night scoring 14 points to go along with seven rebounds and three blocked shots in 24 minutes… The Spartans had multiple players in foul trouble and eventually saw three players foul out of the contest before time expired; Robinson and Long both fouled out with over nine minutes remaining and Stavian Allen fouled out with 3:35 left in the game… Purdue did not shoot well from long range (4-19), but took advantage of other opportunities outscoring Norfolk State 52-20 in the paint, 33-4 off turnovers, 21-2 second chance points, 18-2 on fast break, and 17-3 from the charity stripe… Grady Eifert, Tommy Luce, and Jon McKeeman saw a combined nine minutes of action, but only Eifert was able to get into the scoring column with four points (1-2 from the field, 2-3 from the line).