LAHAINA, Maui - The story of this season for Purdue has been its newcomers. There's so damn many of them.
The story of Tuesday's redemptive punking out of Missouri, though, was its returning upperclassmen, of which there's too damn few.
Give Rapheal Davis all the credit you can give. He drove this win, a win Purdue couldn't afford to not get.
Never mind the career-high 22 points and door-slamming perfection at the foul line in the home stretch.
Concentrate instead on the defense.
He took Missouri's top scorer, wunderkind Montaque Gill-Caesar, and got up in him so hard he could see through his nostrils.
Davis has never been regarded as a lockdown defender, but a high-effort guy. Today, the two were one in the same.
Gill-Caesar, solely because of Davis' man-to-man cruelty, scored two meaningless points in 16 pretty much useless minutes. None of it mattered anyway, since Purdue beat Missouri so bad, but Purdue beat Missouri so bad because of effort like the one Davis put forth, the definition of a proud upperclassman rising when his team needed him.
This was a game Purdue needed, and Davis responded like a champ, and so did his classmate, A.J. Hammons, after yesterday's egg-laying.
Many of the details were rendered immaterial by the one-sidedness of this game - Basil Smotherman's charge-taken, for instance, not standing out all that much because there were so many others of like significance - but Hammons got Purdue started, to where it never looked back.
First defensive trip, Hammons gets challenged one-on-one in the post and blocks the shot, then comes down and scores on a jumper that stood for about 10 minutes as his first career three until officials scrutinized foot placement and decided otherwise.
At 13:48, Smotherman attacks in transition, but his shot rolls off the rim. Hammons sprinted, got to the rim and redirected it into the basket.
In the second half, Hammons set the tone of, 'We're not letting up.'
Seconds into a second half, after a first half in which Purdue challenged everything, Hammons batted away a Missouri entry pass into the post, then blocked a shot, corralled the loose ball and drew a foul at the other end.
He was pretty good.
So was Purdue, looking like old Purdue, only with all new faces.
The defense was something unseen in years and the energy distinct.
It was exactly what Purdue needed.
Could be fleeting, though.
BYU could very easily still send Purdue home from Maui a failure tomorrow.
But as Davis himself said, Purdue just "set a new bar" for itself.
And looked very, very good doing. Everyone. Everyone who mattered played seemed to play well. I'm sure some suckage will be revealed on film for its coaches, but to the casual observer this was 11 guys playing pretty well for at least most of the game, second-half slop notwithstanding.
We'll see where this takes Purdue now.
Could get the ball rolling or could mean nothing.
But what a difference 24 hours makes.
The story of Tuesday's redemptive punking out of Missouri, though, was its returning upperclassmen, of which there's too damn few.
Give Rapheal Davis all the credit you can give. He drove this win, a win Purdue couldn't afford to not get.
Never mind the career-high 22 points and door-slamming perfection at the foul line in the home stretch.
Concentrate instead on the defense.
He took Missouri's top scorer, wunderkind Montaque Gill-Caesar, and got up in him so hard he could see through his nostrils.
Davis has never been regarded as a lockdown defender, but a high-effort guy. Today, the two were one in the same.
Gill-Caesar, solely because of Davis' man-to-man cruelty, scored two meaningless points in 16 pretty much useless minutes. None of it mattered anyway, since Purdue beat Missouri so bad, but Purdue beat Missouri so bad because of effort like the one Davis put forth, the definition of a proud upperclassman rising when his team needed him.
This was a game Purdue needed, and Davis responded like a champ, and so did his classmate, A.J. Hammons, after yesterday's egg-laying.
Many of the details were rendered immaterial by the one-sidedness of this game - Basil Smotherman's charge-taken, for instance, not standing out all that much because there were so many others of like significance - but Hammons got Purdue started, to where it never looked back.
First defensive trip, Hammons gets challenged one-on-one in the post and blocks the shot, then comes down and scores on a jumper that stood for about 10 minutes as his first career three until officials scrutinized foot placement and decided otherwise.
At 13:48, Smotherman attacks in transition, but his shot rolls off the rim. Hammons sprinted, got to the rim and redirected it into the basket.
In the second half, Hammons set the tone of, 'We're not letting up.'
Seconds into a second half, after a first half in which Purdue challenged everything, Hammons batted away a Missouri entry pass into the post, then blocked a shot, corralled the loose ball and drew a foul at the other end.
He was pretty good.
So was Purdue, looking like old Purdue, only with all new faces.
The defense was something unseen in years and the energy distinct.
It was exactly what Purdue needed.
Could be fleeting, though.
BYU could very easily still send Purdue home from Maui a failure tomorrow.
But as Davis himself said, Purdue just "set a new bar" for itself.
And looked very, very good doing. Everyone. Everyone who mattered played seemed to play well. I'm sure some suckage will be revealed on film for its coaches, but to the casual observer this was 11 guys playing pretty well for at least most of the game, second-half slop notwithstanding.
We'll see where this takes Purdue now.
Could get the ball rolling or could mean nothing.
But what a difference 24 hours makes.
