FNF: Purdue Basketball Begins Season Inconsistently
By Keith Carrell (@BoilerColts)
ISL Purdue Columnist
As a reminder, Purdue FNF (Fan NonFiction) is a column that I’ll be writing intermittently throughout football and basketball season to provide you with some commentary from a Purdue fan. While I am a Purdue fan, I do try to remain unbiased and at times will throw accolades or criticism as I see fit as these opinions are my own. It’s okay if you disagree and I welcome friendly conversation whether you agree or disagree. These opinions are related to the sport and games; in no way are a reflection of how I view a person’s character – in fact, one of the proudest aspects I’ve had of Purdue sports is their high standard of character for coaches, players, and staff (with very rare exceptions over the course of my lifetime). That said, I will try to be as respectful as I can in my musings and I hope you enjoy this content, exclusively on ISL.
Before this season began, a number of people asked me how I thought the Purdue basketball team would perform this season. My response was that I believe they’ll be a fun team to watch, but they’ll be frustrating at times too where they’ll likely win some games they should lose and lose some games they should win. I also said that Purdue was still getting a lot of respect nationally, but that I wasn’t as high on them at least to start the season. In my mind it was hard to consider them a top-25 team (I’ve also said I think they’re likely a top-40 team) when you lose so much scoring from Carsen Edwards and Ryan Cline’s departures in addition to the loss of Grady Eifert’s grit and leadership.
Nine games into the season, I feel like my prediction is holding fairly true. Although the Boilermakers have picked up six wins, including a blowout victory over defending champion and undefeated Virginia, they’ve also dropped three contests, including a home bout against Texas that Purdue had control of late before literally fumbling the game away. I’m not a giant fan of preseason (or early season) rankings, but Purdue opened the year at 23 in the AP poll and currently sits just outside the rankings.
Among Purdue’s best wins was the victories over #20 VCU at a neutral site (Emerald Coast Classic) and the aforementioned win over #5 Virginia. Those two wins couldn’t have been more stark either, the VCU win was an ugly grinder whereas the Virginia win was probably the most complete game Purdue will play all season with the defense locked in or picking their spots and the offense, led by Sasha Stevanovic’s career high 20 points, was on fire against one of the best defenses in the NCAA.
THE PROGRESS REPORT –
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Offense: C+
While it’s unsurprising the scoring has been harder to come by this season than last, the offensive flow has been disconcerting at times. Eastern has been virtually invisible, averaging three points per game (and four total points over the last four games). My biggest concern is Purdue can’t seem to feed the post when either big is fronted, although the past couple games have been slightly improved. The team as a whole has also been too turnover prone, averaging nearly 12 per contest. That carelessness gets exacerbated when you consider Purdue deploys one of the slowest offenses in the nation.
Defense: B-
The first couple of games this season were bad and lower this grade. Defenders were slow on switches and often resembled a youth soccer team with everyone collapsing on whomever had the ball, leaving wide open shooters. As players have gotten more used to one another this has gotten better and generally the team has played solid defense, aside from when Evan Boudreaux is tasked with playing the five. Purdue’s defense has improved so much, they just recently held consecutive opponents (Virginia and Northwestern) to below 45 points since 1947.
Coaching: A-
One of the loudest knocks on Matt Painter early in his coaching career was that he often would allow opposing coaches to dictate the game and rotations with a conservative, reactionary approach to game changes, rotations, and defensive assignments. Painter has bucked that trend in recent years and continues to get better. This season, in addition to the lineup changes, Painter has tried to adjust his game plan based on the opponents tendencies and strengthen to give Purdue the best change to succeed. In years past, Painter might have allowed Virginia to control the games tempo, but Painter adjusted the lineup to encourage more scoring and looked to increase Purdue’s tempo to throw the Cavaliers off balance. One improvement I’d like to see this year is a more proactive approach to calling timeouts; with experienced teams it’s okay to let it play out sons and trust your players, but this group needs a bit more steering yet.
Fading Star: Wheeler
You might be surprised that I don’t have Eastern listed here, but those that know me or follow me know I’ve always been underwhelmed by his play – he has immense talent and build, but has never truly capitalized on that. For those reasons, I’m listing Wheeler here who I expected to be one of the team’s leaders and best all-around players to help fill the gargantuan gap left by the departed trio. So far this season, Wheeler has been averaging a paltry 5.4 points and six rebounds in 24 minutes per outing. Last season he needed less than 14 minutes to net 4.7 and three rebounds while shooting more efficiently from the field (44% versus 27%) and from long range (37% to 26%). The biggest issue, though, is he’s seemingly regressed when it comes to ball security as he’s turning it over almost two times a game and has a negative assist-to-turnover ratio. His turnovers (others tightened up as well) were a big part in Purdue’s home loss to Texas. I think Wheeler will turn it around once he understands his new role, but in the meantime Stevanovic is capitalizing on his opportunity.
Emerging Star: Jahaad Proctor
Judging from what I’ve heard from fans and read on Twitter, nobody knew who Proctor was prior to transferring to Purdue for this season after playing the past two years at High Point (yes that school in North Carolina that produced Tubby Smith). The stunner there is Proctor has now scored in double figures for 25 straight games. It’s not his scoring that impressed me, though, but rather how he scores and how he carries himself on the court. On a young team, his leadership could have a Jon Octeus type of impact. My tweet from the regular season opener:
Obviously I’m high on Proctor, but he just keeps reinforcing that thought regardless of the opponent. He finds a way to open the offense when the team is stagnant or to be more aggressive on defense when the team needs to ratchet it up. He may not get the limelight this season, but no question from me; he is the heartbeat of this team.
FINAL THOUGHTS
I firmly believe Purdue will land in the top half of the Big Ten and comfortably in the NCAA tournament, but this year’s team will likely continue to appear inconsistent as they learn to play with one another and as the coaching staff learns to understand which lineups bring the best continuity. They’ve already made some adjustments like this with the biggest being a switch in the starting lineup where Stevanovic and Trevion Williams have supplanted Nojel Eastern and Aaron Wheeler. The first game for that lineup? Virginia. Purdue has one conference game under its belt and a second on the slate today (at Nebraska) which the Boilers should win. The other games at Ohio, at Banker’s Life Fieldhouse against #18 Butler, and home against Central Michigan. I’d expect Purdue to hold a nine-and-four record by the time Big Ten play resumes on January Second in Mackey against Minnesota. Lastly, a tip of the hat to all Purdue fans who have sold out Mackey Arena for 14 straight games; even the exhibition tilt this season was a sellout.
