It would be great to win another BT championship, but Purdue fans really want a run to the Final Four and NC. Purdue has had too many good teams to not have reached a FF since 1980.
We have the talent to do it. The biggest question is whether we can do it or not. We have 3 major items that we have to fix to accomplish this.
The biggest problem we have right now is PG play. We had this last year also. We don't have a PG that can lead our offense the way that it needs to be lead. IT started last night. IT can hit shots and do some things on offense. However, he is a match up problem with any team that has physical guards. He just does not have the body to compete with those types of teams. Unfortunately, that is most teams now. Hunter has regressed over the last 2 years. I am not sure what else to say on that, but wondering why. Morton has the best physical make up to compete at PG, but I am not sure Painter has the confidence in him yet. All of our PG telegraph their passes, stop their dribble too quickly and way too far from the basket, and make poor decisions. This is going to be the hardest to completely fix this year, because it is a personnel issue.
Along with our PG play, our 3 point defense is terrible. How many teams have had their guards have season highs in shooting 3s. while playing and shooting poorly against our teams? It is not a coincidence. We are not making the right defensive switches, slow to get to wide open 3 point looks, etc. Teams, and not good teams, are exploiting our 3 point defense, because they know that they cannot beat us by post play with Williams and Edey in the middle.
The last one you would think would be the easiest thing to correct, but this again was a problem last year. We have to hit our FTs, especially at the end of the game. We should have lost that Illinois game and a couple of others with poor FT shooting, especially at the end of the game. In the NCAA tournament, we are going to definitely have close games, and our FT shooting, especially at the end could decide those games.
Just my opinions.
We have the talent to do it. The biggest question is whether we can do it or not. We have 3 major items that we have to fix to accomplish this.
The biggest problem we have right now is PG play. We had this last year also. We don't have a PG that can lead our offense the way that it needs to be lead. IT started last night. IT can hit shots and do some things on offense. However, he is a match up problem with any team that has physical guards. He just does not have the body to compete with those types of teams. Unfortunately, that is most teams now. Hunter has regressed over the last 2 years. I am not sure what else to say on that, but wondering why. Morton has the best physical make up to compete at PG, but I am not sure Painter has the confidence in him yet. All of our PG telegraph their passes, stop their dribble too quickly and way too far from the basket, and make poor decisions. This is going to be the hardest to completely fix this year, because it is a personnel issue.
Along with our PG play, our 3 point defense is terrible. How many teams have had their guards have season highs in shooting 3s. while playing and shooting poorly against our teams? It is not a coincidence. We are not making the right defensive switches, slow to get to wide open 3 point looks, etc. Teams, and not good teams, are exploiting our 3 point defense, because they know that they cannot beat us by post play with Williams and Edey in the middle.
The last one you would think would be the easiest thing to correct, but this again was a problem last year. We have to hit our FTs, especially at the end of the game. We should have lost that Illinois game and a couple of others with poor FT shooting, especially at the end of the game. In the NCAA tournament, we are going to definitely have close games, and our FT shooting, especially at the end could decide those games.
Just my opinions.