The team was flat and seemed “hung over” still from the bama game. They seemed to think they could just go in and win because they are who they are. But our backcourt needed to step up and they did not.
I love smith and am his biggest fan and have been on here saying he’s the best PG in our programs history.
HOWEVER. While he has been good, I have noticed that his body language (yeah yeah I know Colvin blah blah blah 😂) isn’t great when it comes to his teammates not being in the right spot or missing one of his passes, or even when a call doesn’t go Purdues way. I feel, at times, he acts a bit entitled, like he has earned the right to a call or he can kind of half ass it on a play. He got up for the bama game, but it seems for some of these other games he’s lost that “chip on his shoulder” mentality.
He needs to understand real quick that this is HIS team and we go as far as he takes us. It may not be pretty and all great stats this year for him, but just win in any way possible. He had lazy passes last night and that set the tone for others on the team too. Sure Marquette was physical, but so what? So is northwestern and every other big ten team. Players take notice who is called better than them—individually and team wise. We are the hunted and will be all year, as other teams can smell blood/will try to take advantage of no NPOTYx2 in the middle anymore.
The sky is not falling and this is why you schedule these type of games. You learn a lot more in these as compared to scheduling a majority of cupcakes/mid majors and beating them by 20+. Hope the team can learn from this and get better and have the mentality of “hunting” and not being “the hunted”.
Excited to see how they bounce back over the next few games.
