Anybody else worried about peaking too early?

[BoilerBulldog]

I’m worried about North Korea. That’s basically it. Oh, and injuries. And a terrible tourney draw. But that’s definitely it.

 

[Pistolman]

No. I worry about banked in 3s, dribbling off our knees, and back and knee injuries.

Who banked in 3 again? Ark State?

 

[New Pal Boiler]

Who banked in 3 again? Ark State?

Mitch Richmond. ‘88 at the Silverdome.

 

[Boiler Wolf]

I still think we can get better. Haven't peaked yet. I don't think we have a game yet where everything clicked at the same time. We've had games with Carsen, Vince, Isaac, Dakota being "on", but none with them all clicking in all phases. Yet we have beat many of the lesser teams easily. I think the more interesting and challenging part of the regular season is coming and we will struggle at times and hopefully get better.

 

[adamsnyder20]

Frankly, I am worried about everything - peaking too early, hitting a plateau, flu, injuries - name it and I will worry about it.

I agree with that, however, hopefully with a 1 or 2 seed we’ll get to knock off the rust in the first game without being challenged too much.

 

[SnowLeopard]

The question is: do we have another gear?

I think so. I remember watching the Baby Boilers the few games before Hummel went down. We were clicking in all phases of the game. It literally looked like our best, like we couldn't play any better

I don't get the feeling with this team so far. Still seems like we are going at 70-80%. There's one more gear left - and we'll bring it in March

 

[blockm2]

I don't really believe much in peaking too early, but you do want to be playing well heading into March. The tourney is such a crap shoot that plenty of red hot teams have lost early and plenty of teams that sputtered in got hot and went deep.

It all comes down to matchups and shooting in a 1 and done. You just hope your opponent doesn't pick the wrong day to go 15/20 on 3s against you.

 

[lbodel]

I still think we can get better. Haven't peaked yet. I don't think we have a game yet where everything clicked at the same time. We've had games with Carsen, Vince, Isaac, Dakota being "on", but none with them all clicking in all phases. Yet we have beat many of the lesser teams easily. I think the more interesting and challenging part of the regular season is coming and we will struggle at times and hopefully get better.

I think you're right. While we certainly haven't been playing POORLY, how we played against Nebraska would have been an L against a top 20 team, for example.

I think we're getting by with Ws, but if we were facing a more challenging schedule over the past 8 games, would we have the same record? Probably not.

It's no slam on Purdue - it's not a bad thing to be going through struggles and still winning, just as long as they are working through the struggles.

When I look at a guy like Vince Edwards - this is a guy who has had turnover issues in the past. He's had a combined 5 turnovers over the past 5 games (knock on wood). And while only one of those teams as a whole was good, he's played against some pretty good players one on one, so that's good to see.

If Vince starts getting sloppy and has 3-4 turnovers against bad teams, I'd be much more concerned.

So while the guys may not have been challenged significantly as a whole over the last 5 games, they aren't playing sloppy and still making sure they are carrying through on things that have been weaknesses (i.e. in a 40 minute blowout, even though it was not against a good team - we only had 9 turnovers against Wisconsin).

As long as we play like that, we should do quite well. But it is hard to maintain that focus for that long.

 

[kevindub]

Or do you feel this team still has another gear they can achieve or at least maintain the level of play they are at?

I am hopeful that there is more in the tank, I do worry at times that they are peaking a little early. Must just be the Boiler in me.

Yes, at the NBA final.

 

[MONROvÆ]

Not this team. Our seniors keep gaining confidence and players like Haarms and Nojel could be X-factors that win games for us in March if our veterans are having off-nights. I've never seen a Purdue team like this and my expectations have changed accordingly.