I went back and rewatched how we went from 51-38 to 64-65, an 13-27 run by PSU in which they hit 10-of-12 shots, including 8 straight.

1. Ivey gambled to double Pickett, leaving Johnson open for a corner 3 (culprit: Ivey)
2. Lundy misses a contested 3 (credit: Sasha)
3. Pickett made a contested 3 (Hunter was as tight as he could without fouling Pickett, so Hunter deserved credit, but also has to tip your hat to Pickett)
4. Pickett missed a fadeaway (credit: Hunter)
5. Lundy hit a step-back 3 (Sasha was the defended, it's those shots you just have to give the credit to offense, and you chalk it up as a win if that's what he has to do to score)
6. Lee scored an and-one (but missed FT). It came off ball-screen, where Morton and Furst both went after Pickett, leaving Hunter in a bind between two PSU players, and Lee got an easy basket.
7. Pickett got Ivey in mid-air, then scored an easy 2 (just good offense)
8. Harrar screened Ivey; Tre helped, leaving IT in a bind to either stay in the paint to stop a rolling Harrar, or run to the 3-pt line to defend an open Dread. Dread hit open 3.
9. Harrar screened Ivey; Tre helped; Harrar rolled and Sasha helped, leaving Lundy to hit open 3.
10. Harrar screened Ivey; Tre helped; Harrar rolled and Gillis helped. The ball swung to Lee (Gillis' man), and he hit a long jumper.
11. Pickett scored over Gillis 1v1 (good offense)
12. Pickett bullied Ivey to the paint, Gillis helped, and Pickett found Lee and he hit 3 (2-of-8 in 3 games this season coming into the game; was a 25% and 32% 3-pt shooter in his last 2 seasons)

So here's what I gather:

• Hunter did play some good D when he was in the game in that run. The one he gave up he was in a no-win situation when he has to guard two PSU players.
• Sasha wasn't bad as people made him out to be. He held Lundy below his season average, and the one he got scored on was just a good step-back 3 that if someone is hitting it it's unguardable.
• Ivey's D in that stretch was suspect. He gambled and failed for the first one. Then he let Pickett bullied him a couple times. Lastly, PSU kept running the same play with Harrar screening Ivey to get Tre to help, and all 3 times they were able to score.
• It isn't only Ivey struggling with ball-screen D. Morton and Furst got caught for the same thing, leaving Hunter in a no-win situation.

Since we are off this until Friday, Paul Lusk as our DC should really spend this off week revamping our ball-screen D.

This may have been posted:
1 Seed: Duke, Baylor, GU, AU
2 Seed: MSU, Auburn, KU, and PU
3 Seed: Iowa State Villanova, UCLA, LSU

Long way to go. What do you think?
AtlantaJim

As I see it, Purdue started the season hot and looking dominant because there was arguably no other team in America with as much continuity combined with talent as Purdue. At that point, they could almost literally show up and win. Everyone else was feeling things out, seeing who was good, who could make shots, what worked/what didn't. Purdue already had a great sense of that since it returned basically everyone.

After a month, other teams have closed that gap and have better senses of themselves. In addition, Purdue his heavily scouted, and is getting every team's best shot every night out. Of course things aren't as smooth as they were in November.

The normal progression of things at Purdue is similar to other places: it takes some time to feel things out, and Painter's teams usually start hitting on all cylinders by January. I think this year that might be delayed a little bit because Purdue is just now going through the phase where they figure things out. What they did early in the year doesn't work quite so easily right now, and they're having to defend where in early games, they could score at will and defense wasn't even really required to win games.

So let's say Purdue is developmentally delayed by about a month this year, and doesn't really hit its stride again until February. That's not the worst timing in the world. We'll see what happens.

AOC shouldn’t have been dancing in Florida

Hopefully Painter gave Newman a blanket when he sent him to the dog house. It’s cold out.

Looks like Maryland found out at the last minute they had a game.

Seen lots of posts about and it seems pretty obvious as a potential solution to our PG problem. But curious if painter has weighed in on it…like has he said why he doesn’t want to do that? Is it a defense thing? Doesn’t think Morton can press opposing pgs like IT/EH can?

Just watched the game tonight Westfield vs Carmel. Smith almost single-handedly won that game tonight as Westfield beat Carmel 43-42. He had a chance to ice it with FT's but his first one just rimmed out, but boy was he impressive tonight. He has such a beautiful 3pt shot and his basketball IQ is impressive. Carmel had the taller more athletic players but Westfield just outhustled and out-scrapped Carmel and Smith was huge as always. Fun game to watch. We're gonna love watching Braden for 4 years.

Just a couple odds & ends that you may not have noticed on Saturday.

Wheeler had 15 pts & 4 reb - he was 3/3 from 3 against Providence.
Cuonzo's Mizzou team (7 - 7) upset #15 Bama for a much needed win.

Lots of ranked teams fell on Saturday:
# 2 Duke
# 6 KU
# 11 Iowa St
# 14 TX
# 15 Bama
# 18 TN
# 20 Colorado St

Enjoy your weekend!

The kid that went to Northwestern from one of the Lafayette schools. Barnhizer? What happened to him? Looks like he’s barley seen the floor.

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — A closer look back at Purdue's 74-67 win at Penn State Saturday.

Login to view embedded media
DEFENSIVE IMPROVEMENT
The written word doesn't do this justice and would be unbelievably boring, but there's a ton of little examples of Purdue playing good defense, from Trevion Williams and Jaden Ivey communicating about downing an early side ball screen, to Ethan Morton disrupting a Penn State cut, to Caleb Furst doing a great job staying in front of Sam Sessons in a switch and contributing to a turnover, to Ivey going over every screen like he's supposed to, to Ivey forcing a five-second call on an in-bound, on and on.

Purdue did a really nice job with its switches against Penn State's continuous screens and got out to shooters effectively.

Jaden Ivey was clearly pretty dialed in and spent much of the game jamming the ball full-court, which was a change.

I thought Ivey played hard and with energy on D and forced, or contributed to, at least three turnovers. He did a great job on Pickett when they were head to head. Got scored on once early and it was a tough shot, then a second time in the second half. Ivey did make a mistake fishing for a steal and giving up that wide-open three right after Purdue went up 13, but otherwise he was very good on defense.

For a guy who got scored on a bunch of times, I thought Eric Hunter played great defense on Pickett. He was always in Pickett's shirt, between him and the rim and playing straight up and not fouling. He made Pickett make tough shots, and Pickett did.

Some of the success Penn State had offensively came via working Isaiah Thompson into off-ball switches onto forward Greg Lee, then using his size to establish position and draw help, then kick to the corners. Purdue was lucky Penn State missed a bunch of those corner threes.

MISC
• What a great set to open the game for Purdue and perfectly executed, using Jaden Ivey on that baseline-screening decoy action to clear out the paint, get Zach Edey one-on-one and set up the 4-to-5 entry from the opposite side of the floor.

Excellent use of Ivey's gravity there. Seth Lundy is absolutely sprinting after him and Purdue's happy to let him, thus spreading Penn State way out and making sure there's no secondary defender buzzing around Edey.



Purdue ran this again later, or some variation of it, and scored again.

• Nice little example of "knowing how to play" here, as Sasha Stefanovic claps for the ball here with the shot clock dwindling.

Jalen Pickett's guarding him — off a switch, I assume — and shades Stefanovic to force him outside.

Stefanovic waits a few seconds to give Zach Edey an opportunity to get on John Harrar's back in the post, so that there's no help at the rim and Edey has offensive rebounding position. Once Edey's in place, then Stefanovic goes, and Edey's seal gives him a clean finish at the basket.



Excellent patience and understanding of his surroundings by Stefanovic.

There's this play, too, early in the second half that's just straight improve.

Sam Sessoms goes over Trevion Williams' screen chasing Stefanovic and gets so wide that he winds up behind Stefanovic when Stefanovic gives the ball back to Williams. With his defender behind him, and John Harrar coming out to guard Williams, Stefanovic darts to the basket and Williams finds him for a layup.



• You know, I think one of the biggest shots of this game might have been Jaden Ivey's three with just under two minutes to go in the first half. That was Penn State's second possession in box-and-one, and Purdue probably didn't have much of a plan for that.

• The three-pointer Thompson made late in the second half was a big one, but made possible by him running down the offensive rebound of a badly missed Ivey three. Effort rewarded.

• Real time I thought Painter went too long in the second half before bringing Trevion Williams back in. Purdue was just launching threes and not making them for a couple possessions in a row and they needed to get back to some normalcy offensively to stop the bleeding.

Between Williams and Edey, they still had three fouls between them to give. It would have been risky, I guess, to bring Williams back with 10 minutes left, but if he does what he wound up doing later two minutes earlier, it might have headed off Penn State's run, though the run did continue after Williams came back with eight minutes left.

I do think Painter stayed small too long.

• How about that sequence by Ethan Morton late in the first half, where he takes and misses a quick three — good shot, I thought — but then immediately steals Penn State's advance pass, and draws an intentional foul. How many guys can miss a shot like that and immediately switch to defensive mode so seamlessly?

That stretch of three straight turnovers by Penn State when Purdue didn't have Williams or Edey on the floor was big.

• Hooray for the pass fake, which Purdue doesn't do enough of. That's what made Mason Gillis' big three late possible.

• The hidden value of Jaden Ivey's ability to get in the lane: Reboundable misses. I think four of his misses resulted in put-backs.

• Seems to me as if Purdue put a bit of a moratorium on celebrating stuff. Very stoic game for the Boilermakers.

Login to view embedded media

But halftime is "Chris Collins time". Stay tuned for legendary half time adjustments by Collins.

Was looking over the box scores of the last two games, and was really surprised to see that IT has led the team in plus/minus the last two games. He's collectively +27 in 46 minutes and has 3 total points. I don't know if that's a weird coincidence or if he's being that effective of a ball distributer and defender. Do you guys think he needs more minutes or the numbers are kind of misleading?

Here's the 2022 edition of Mitch's annual letter for those who enjoy reading them:

The Penn State fan boards today were some of the sanest I've read this year after a game with Purdue. They are realistic about their team's expectations, recognize the talent Purdue has, and love their new coach. Very few complaints about the refs, lots of acknowledgment for good plays by both Penn State and Purdue players, and an understanding of the coaching changes and their results. Unlike the Tennessee boards where I felt I needed a long shower after wading their them, these were very enjoyable to read.

This will be a huge test and two weeks ago I would agree that Penn State had no chance. Right now, Penn State has elevated its game, they are playing solid defense, and when not turning the ball over they are shooting very well. The key I look forward to is not paying too much attention to Edey in the post where you leave the shooters open. If Penn State can outscore Purdue from the arc and free throw line they stand a chance in this one.

Purdue is not playing their best ball right now. Hopefully they will take one more game off before they wake up and play to their ability. If they continue their weak play and PSU plays to top of their ability, than PSU will pull an upset.

Our transfer guys are better than theirs.

Curtains are closed. And does not appear to be a sellout of lower bowl with 12 min til tip. Student section pretty sparse. Lots of seats section 115. Purdue shooting lights out in warmups.

Two wide open looks for us early. Gotta hit them.

I just don’t see how we can keep this close. They are just really a good team.

I like what we're doing so far with the hi-low to get a cutting big to the basket. Also weird not seeing Purdue rebound well.

Team is locked in… Pickett playing like a super hero so far.

PSU out-rebounding Purdue 7-4 early.

And there's Sessoms' first boneheaded turnover of the day.

That white kid can really shoot it!

White going to the basket is working though!

Has someone inhabited White’s body today? Playing really well!

I think our coaches can coach bigs.

Shrews pulled Sessoms after he failed to inbound the ball and then dribbled away the shot clock before turning it over. Sending a message there. Sessoms had only been in for 2 minutes but was replaced by Johnson.

We really got us a hell of a coach I think.

This is the most cohesive I've seen a PSU offense in a long time.

Wow! We are playing so damn well.

If we had Greg Lee all year we prob have 3 more wins.

Refreshing to see us mixing up defenses. We've been a man to man team forever it seems.

Purdue changing things up offensively, catching PSU a bit flat footed.

Purdue with a 9-0 run after Painter called timeout.

Williams having his way at the rim.

Ivey is really good!

I am stunned their bigs have more fouls than ours… this is a game where I fall in love with a team regardless of outcome.

There it goes! Edey with 3 before the half. Williams has 2 at the moment as well, so Purdue may be giving us some more room to operate if we can press them inside.

Very winnable…you can see the energy in the team.

A box and 1 defense! Throwing it all at them.

Ugh, Cornwall with the turnover, then intentional foul.

I seriously don't understand why Shrewsberry keeps playing Cornwall. He hasn't done a single good thing all year.

Ugly first half for Lundy. Gonna need him to wake up in the 2nd half.

Who would have thought the game would be this close with no points from Lundy in the first half?

Very impressive performance against a talented boiler squad. Team seems to be playing hard for Shrews.

We can be more aggressive on D in second half too since no one has even 2 fouls. Getting an early 4th on Edey would change their preferred subs too.

This is our home court, you shoot here every day...some of you for years. Please make shots and lets make history beating a #3 team.

Turnover coming out of the halftime break is not ideal. Interesting that Sessoms is starting this half. He and Cornwall both struggled in the first.

It’s like we forgot how to play!

Gotta hit the 3 to loosen Purdue’s interior D. They're pressuring the ball and packing the paint. Open guys gotta hit.

Gotta love Harrar. Now Edey has four fouls and Williams three,

Have always loved Harrar. Wish he had 17 more years of eligibility.

PSU is 1-of-9 from 3. So it'll have to really pick it up.

Just tell Pickett there's 2 seconds left in the shot every trip.

Amazing how much different the game is when you hit 3s eh?

Time to attack Williams and get his fourth.

This team has some balls!

Pickett…master of the old man’s game. Love it!

Lol. When they were down 12, I knew they’d do this. This is just this teams style.

I'm all in on Micah Shrewsberry!

At this point I don't care if we win or lose but I love Shrews and this team!!! I don't know how many noticed, but Shrews called a timeout, I believe when we got down by 12, since then we made our comeback. This is a real coach, folks!! Team is playing hard. Let's go!!!!

Just too much talent. Hell of an effort though. If painter doesn’t take this team to the final four.... lol

This Purdue team has all the pieces. Really skilled team.

Helluva a defense play by Ivey.

Hat tip to Ivey. Great player!

Good game…good fight. Would have been nice to pull off.

Great effort by our guys. I have no complaints with the effort. Purdue has a lot of weapons.

Hell of an effort by PSU. Was down 13 with 12:03 to go.

Competitive game, lots to like here. Some touchy calls but Purdue just executed better in some spots, hit clutch shots. Have to like what you saw though.

That Purdue team is loaded. And relentless on D. PSU gave it a helluva go.

Purdue players post game said they were not expecting the box and one that Shrews rolled out. That echoes some of the post game stuff from Indiana that they weren't expecting the 2-3 zone.

Disappointed but they play hard and had a legitimate chance to steal it in the final minutes. In Shrews I trust. I think this team might be able to squeeze an NIT appearance out when all is said and done which would make the season a success after the mass exodus in the off-season

We had a shot but the refs and number 50 too much to overcome. Our cheerleaders were awful at half, too.

OK experts. After having some terrible food at Martin's and Acme last week, looking for Louisville recs for this weekend. Whatcha got for BBQ selects? And before anyone asks, yes I already emailed the football staff.

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — A few final musings from Purdue's 74-67 win at Penn State, because I know how you like musings.

Login to view embedded media
• You know, offensive rebounds really probably won Purdue this game as much as anything. The power of just getting it up on the rim when you have Trevion Williams and Zach Edey, though you hardly saw him today.

• Trevion Williams delivered today. Sasha Stefanovic played a great game today. And Eric Hunter was really good on D, I thought. Nice response from the seniors.

• Lost in the story of this game was the huge three Isaiah Thompson made. He needed that one. Seems to me as if he might be rushing his shots ever so slightly of late.

• Jalen Pickett's fantastic. That was some performance Purdue overcame. Penn State did a good job getting him downhill and playing inside-out with him, he did a good job scoring and passing around the basket and his shot-clock-beating jumpers would have been one of the stories of this game had Penn State pulled it out.

• Never thought it would come to the point this season where Brandon Newman would DNP-CD, but when he was skipped over in the first half, it was apparent.

The key word there is trust. Painter has to trust him to do the right things at both ends of the floor. This season is different, because Ethan Morton's been so valuable. There's no more just playing through it.

He'll get chances again. Here's hoping for his sake this doesn't affect him too much, or at all, mentally, because this was probably hard for him.

• Underscoring this: Stefanovic was really good today. He was a big part of the reason Seth Lundy didn't do anything in the first half, and that assist he had to Caleb Furst and that bucket he scored on the give-and-go with Trevion Williams were great improv plays.

• Lots of Purdue fans at the game.

• Jaden Ivey is Spider-Man. That putback of his own miss and that driving bucket he had during that key stretch in the second half, just ridiculous. I thought his decision-making on offense was again very good and he did a better job defensively today. Some lapses, yes, but a better job. He was on the ball more bringing it up, so maybe that can lock a guy in right away.

• Screw you, BJC wifi.

Thanks for reading, everybody, and have a good night.

He is back at practice and available but he is going to be eased back into things, sounds like.

He hasn’t practiced much and does have some physical recovery left to do, sounds like

Back in the League, Baby! Had a cup of coffee in the Covid season with Philly, and did ok. Had a start or two, and had a game winner. Now, just made an appearance with Memphis on the 8th. This may also be a covid temp, but the fact remains: You have got to be Really, REALLY good to play pro ball, even for 1 game. Congrats to the Cowboy!

With a huge block. Congrats.

The 09-10 team went undefeated in conference play then proceeded to lose three straight games in early January. One of those was at home to an average Ohio State team and one on the road to a crappy Northwestern team (does this sound familiar). I guess I remember them going on that losing streak, but don’t remember many of the details. Did the simply play bad? Were there injuries? It’s hard to believe that the team we saw later that year before Hummel went down could lose three straight Big Ten games. What turned it around?