EAST LANSING, Mich. - So let's get this straight: Minnesota beats Michigan State, which blows out Purdue, which beat Illinois, which blew out Ohio State.
It's going to be a fascinating year in the Big Ten, now that the conference season began and pretty much everything changes from the non-conference season and things kind of start anew.
On paper, Purdue got hammered by the Spartans in the Breslin Center Saturday, taking a figurative punch to the gut as well as an actual punch to the gut.
But the Boilermakers didn't get beat as bad as the box score says. Did they play a heavy hand in their own demise at Michigan State? Absolutely. But Michigan State wasn't 23 points better for 40 minutes.
What happened Saturday was merely Purdue getting snowed under by circumstance and handling it poorly. The fact that Michigan State is good helped also.
Yes, the game got away from Purdue as the whistles blew. Full disclosure: I didn't see the Anthony Johnson elbow; the basket blocked my view. But I'm like you in feeling some elbow-related foul fatigue here.
(Imagine if they'd determined Jacob Lawson's elbow to have flown at an inappropriate angle in the final moments against Illinois, giving the Illini two shots and the ball, down five, in an otherwise less-than-hopeful situation.)
I did get a decent look at A.J. Hammons' third foul, though. Looked weak. That really hurt, because Purdue needed him in the game at that point and got him in for just a few seconds. If he's able to stay in, maybe he helps stave off the avalanche.
He was Purdue's most important player today, as he's quickly becoming every day.
Travis Carroll has been a fine fill-in, but as I said prior to the season, he'll have a major role against certain matchups. This is not one. Michigan State is too big with Derrick Nix and too quick and explosive with Branden Dawson around the basket.
(Speaking of Dawson, I'd imagine his one-game suspension will be coming down here in a few days for his Mike Tyson Punch-Out act. That was actually the second time he's gone at Carroll. In an all-star game a couple summers ago, Carroll was playing too hard for his liking, so he cracked him in the face in an all-star game and jacked up his nose.)
Back to Hammons
I can't give you an accurate full-game total here because of some apparent irregularities with the official play-by-play, but can tell you that Purdue outscored Michigan State in the first half when Hammons was in the game and scored nine of the game's 14 points prior to him checking out for the first time in the second half. He was really, really important, so the cheap foul stung.
Matt Painter played it safe by getting Hammons right back out with three fouls, but had to come right back with him shortly thereafter, so it's not like Purdue had to play without him for an extended stretch, but had he not picked up 3 there, he wouldn't have picked up 4 at 10:09 and come out. With Hammons on bench with four fouls, Michigan State's 11-point lead doubled.
The whistles killed Purdue, but it had chances to counter with positive plays.
Not to sound condescending here, but you can't expect to compete in, let alone win, a game like this when you miss more free throws than you make. I thought Terone Johnson got the bumper-car treatment a few times in the lane in the first half with no calls, but in a game like this where Purdue is 9-of-20, be careful what you wish for.
It should be noted that while that stretch of foul calls gave Michigan State nine points in succession and was the turning point in the game, the home team was called for only one fewer foul and shot only two more free throws for the game. The difference was that the Spartans made their free throws and Purdue did not. One stretch during Michigan State's run, Purdue missed four in a row, including two one-and-one front ends.
Does Purdue win if it makes 17-of-20 instead of nine? No, probably not. But the game doesn't go sideways on it either.
Again, the fouls and non-fouls didn't lose this game for Purdue; how Purdue reacted to them lost the game for Purdue. That and Michigan State turned the table on the glass in the second half and Gary Harris' and Travis Trice's ability to make transition jump shots, particularly in the first half.
Obviously, the final 16 minutes of this game didn't exactly go as planned, but the first 24 did, or came close to anyway. Purdue was highly competitive and I guess that if you can ever take positives from a 23-point loss, you can here.
Purdue won a big game against Illinois, then played winning basketball - or close to it at least - for 60 percent of a game at a very difficult place to play.
If Purdue can repeat that performance a couple times, and not run into the train-wreck that occurred during that brutal stretch in the second half, it's going to beat some people this year.
That's the dichotomy of this game.
Twenty-four pretty good minutes followed by a spectacular implosion and loss by nearly two dozen.
That was life on the road in the Big Ten Purdue experienced today, but it's never going to get any worse that it did in that one pivotal stretch.
So maybe the residuals of this game will help out in coming weeks in games at places like Nebraska, Northwestern, Iowa, etc. If Purdue is going to be a .500 team (or even better) in the Big Ten, those are games it has to get.
Maybe Saturday's experiences will help them do that.
Copyright, Boilers, Inc. 2013. All Rights Reserved. Reproducing or using editorial or graphical content, in whole or in part, without permission, is strictly prohibited. E-mail GoldandBlack.com/Boilers, Inc.
It's going to be a fascinating year in the Big Ten, now that the conference season began and pretty much everything changes from the non-conference season and things kind of start anew.
On paper, Purdue got hammered by the Spartans in the Breslin Center Saturday, taking a figurative punch to the gut as well as an actual punch to the gut.
But the Boilermakers didn't get beat as bad as the box score says. Did they play a heavy hand in their own demise at Michigan State? Absolutely. But Michigan State wasn't 23 points better for 40 minutes.
What happened Saturday was merely Purdue getting snowed under by circumstance and handling it poorly. The fact that Michigan State is good helped also.
Yes, the game got away from Purdue as the whistles blew. Full disclosure: I didn't see the Anthony Johnson elbow; the basket blocked my view. But I'm like you in feeling some elbow-related foul fatigue here.
(Imagine if they'd determined Jacob Lawson's elbow to have flown at an inappropriate angle in the final moments against Illinois, giving the Illini two shots and the ball, down five, in an otherwise less-than-hopeful situation.)
I did get a decent look at A.J. Hammons' third foul, though. Looked weak. That really hurt, because Purdue needed him in the game at that point and got him in for just a few seconds. If he's able to stay in, maybe he helps stave off the avalanche.
He was Purdue's most important player today, as he's quickly becoming every day.
Travis Carroll has been a fine fill-in, but as I said prior to the season, he'll have a major role against certain matchups. This is not one. Michigan State is too big with Derrick Nix and too quick and explosive with Branden Dawson around the basket.
(Speaking of Dawson, I'd imagine his one-game suspension will be coming down here in a few days for his Mike Tyson Punch-Out act. That was actually the second time he's gone at Carroll. In an all-star game a couple summers ago, Carroll was playing too hard for his liking, so he cracked him in the face in an all-star game and jacked up his nose.)
Back to Hammons
I can't give you an accurate full-game total here because of some apparent irregularities with the official play-by-play, but can tell you that Purdue outscored Michigan State in the first half when Hammons was in the game and scored nine of the game's 14 points prior to him checking out for the first time in the second half. He was really, really important, so the cheap foul stung.
Matt Painter played it safe by getting Hammons right back out with three fouls, but had to come right back with him shortly thereafter, so it's not like Purdue had to play without him for an extended stretch, but had he not picked up 3 there, he wouldn't have picked up 4 at 10:09 and come out. With Hammons on bench with four fouls, Michigan State's 11-point lead doubled.
The whistles killed Purdue, but it had chances to counter with positive plays.
Not to sound condescending here, but you can't expect to compete in, let alone win, a game like this when you miss more free throws than you make. I thought Terone Johnson got the bumper-car treatment a few times in the lane in the first half with no calls, but in a game like this where Purdue is 9-of-20, be careful what you wish for.
It should be noted that while that stretch of foul calls gave Michigan State nine points in succession and was the turning point in the game, the home team was called for only one fewer foul and shot only two more free throws for the game. The difference was that the Spartans made their free throws and Purdue did not. One stretch during Michigan State's run, Purdue missed four in a row, including two one-and-one front ends.
Does Purdue win if it makes 17-of-20 instead of nine? No, probably not. But the game doesn't go sideways on it either.
Again, the fouls and non-fouls didn't lose this game for Purdue; how Purdue reacted to them lost the game for Purdue. That and Michigan State turned the table on the glass in the second half and Gary Harris' and Travis Trice's ability to make transition jump shots, particularly in the first half.
Obviously, the final 16 minutes of this game didn't exactly go as planned, but the first 24 did, or came close to anyway. Purdue was highly competitive and I guess that if you can ever take positives from a 23-point loss, you can here.
Purdue won a big game against Illinois, then played winning basketball - or close to it at least - for 60 percent of a game at a very difficult place to play.
If Purdue can repeat that performance a couple times, and not run into the train-wreck that occurred during that brutal stretch in the second half, it's going to beat some people this year.
That's the dichotomy of this game.
Twenty-four pretty good minutes followed by a spectacular implosion and loss by nearly two dozen.
That was life on the road in the Big Ten Purdue experienced today, but it's never going to get any worse that it did in that one pivotal stretch.
So maybe the residuals of this game will help out in coming weeks in games at places like Nebraska, Northwestern, Iowa, etc. If Purdue is going to be a .500 team (or even better) in the Big Ten, those are games it has to get.
Maybe Saturday's experiences will help them do that.
Copyright, Boilers, Inc. 2013. All Rights Reserved. Reproducing or using editorial or graphical content, in whole or in part, without permission, is strictly prohibited. E-mail GoldandBlack.com/Boilers, Inc.
