There was that one play where Isaac Haas caught the ball, turned around, jacked a guy in the face (inadvertently of course) and dunked as if he was he throwing an orange foam ball through a plastic ring suspended from a closet door.
It wasn't all that big a play in the grand scheme of things during a 66-61 Purdue win over North Carolina State in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge, but there might have been no better play to encapsulate the evening for the Boilermakers than the mammoth center's jam, another instance in which opponents' issues dealing with him are almost becoming comical.
Here's what the play meant and/or represented, I guess.
• That Purdue's size, as was hoped, is going to be indomitable for most people.
• That Purdue, young as it is, is tough. The symbolism of a Boilermaker throwing down a violent dunk while the opponent was left holding his face as if battling a nasty cartoon toothache was rich.
• That this is a team fans respond to. Haas is well on his way to becoming an immensely popular Boilermaker, his uncommon dimensions, endearing charisma and overt willingness to fight people making him so. He's far from alone. This entire team, the way it functions, seems to be a group fans appreciate and will continue to, especially if the wins keep coming.
Thing about Purdue fans is they're smart and they understand basketball, by and large. Every fan base has its dullards and lunatic fringes. But Purdue fans, most of them, appreciate good basketball - not just if a team wins, but how it wins - and they're seeing it now.
Wait a minute, what does that have to do with the dunk? Anyway
Mackey Arena was alive again tonight. Not that it's been a crematory the past two seasons, but the crowd energy wasn't always rewarded with performance like it almost always used to be during the good times.
Purdue's been way too beatable at home lately, but Tuesday night, and maybe I'm embellishing - if embellishing is what it takes to get this blog cranked out, to hell with it - but you kind of got the sense that the arena's environment and the Boilermaker team had that symbiotic give-and-take going again.
I think you saw it when Haas dunked, you saw it when unsung hero P.J. Thompson made the biggest shot of the game and you were deafened by it in the final minutes when the crowd offered some Purdue some sonic support defensively.
Purdue fans have a good team to watch this season. I don't think that is too big a reach to say after seven games. Thirteen out of 14 halves played in 2014 have been good ones and you're seeing the signs of a good basketball team.
Among them (and who doesn't enjoy lists?):
• Purdue looks fairly complete. Its ying of perimeter shooting and penetrators and its yang of a formidable interior game jibe well. The Boilermakers have been very productive offensively - and better against high-major competition than early season riff-raff - and they have won games with defense and wherewithal. Purdue looks mature. If there was ever a game a young team could've phoned one in, maybe it was tonight after a successful trip to Maui and all the pats on the back that came with it.
• Good scorers are becoming good players. Rapheal Davis has become a good defensive player. Kendall Stephens is never going to be a great defender, but he's making plays on D, a lot of them. Both have become significantly better overall players, and you saw it tonight in games in which they sort of stunk on offense. Stephens blocked another shot and grabbed one of the bigger defensive rebounds of the game and Davis locked up on D late and took an important charge while handing out a career-high six assists.
• Youth doesn't seem to be an issue, at least not yet. I'm going to continue defiling everyone's Cheerios by promising inconsistency and the perils of running four 19-year-olds out there for big minutes every game. I could be wrong though. No sign of it yet.
If you just wanted to play pin-the-eligibility-on-the-player with this team, go in blind and be asked to tab every player on the team with what year in school you think they are just by watching them, you might end up flipping the whole roster up-side down.
(That make sense? Kind of late to pull off a sentence like that.)
Purdue's in a good place, positioned to be 9-1 when it heads to Nashville to face a young - and struggling accordingly, unlike the Boilermakers - Vanderbilt team, then Notre Dame.
It's too early, probably, to talk about, but not really, but Purdue is building a résumé.
And looking more and more like a team that might actually need one in a few months.
Copyright, Boilers, Inc. 2014. 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 wasn't all that big a play in the grand scheme of things during a 66-61 Purdue win over North Carolina State in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge, but there might have been no better play to encapsulate the evening for the Boilermakers than the mammoth center's jam, another instance in which opponents' issues dealing with him are almost becoming comical.
Here's what the play meant and/or represented, I guess.
• That Purdue's size, as was hoped, is going to be indomitable for most people.
• That Purdue, young as it is, is tough. The symbolism of a Boilermaker throwing down a violent dunk while the opponent was left holding his face as if battling a nasty cartoon toothache was rich.
• That this is a team fans respond to. Haas is well on his way to becoming an immensely popular Boilermaker, his uncommon dimensions, endearing charisma and overt willingness to fight people making him so. He's far from alone. This entire team, the way it functions, seems to be a group fans appreciate and will continue to, especially if the wins keep coming.
Thing about Purdue fans is they're smart and they understand basketball, by and large. Every fan base has its dullards and lunatic fringes. But Purdue fans, most of them, appreciate good basketball - not just if a team wins, but how it wins - and they're seeing it now.
Wait a minute, what does that have to do with the dunk? Anyway
Mackey Arena was alive again tonight. Not that it's been a crematory the past two seasons, but the crowd energy wasn't always rewarded with performance like it almost always used to be during the good times.
Purdue's been way too beatable at home lately, but Tuesday night, and maybe I'm embellishing - if embellishing is what it takes to get this blog cranked out, to hell with it - but you kind of got the sense that the arena's environment and the Boilermaker team had that symbiotic give-and-take going again.
I think you saw it when Haas dunked, you saw it when unsung hero P.J. Thompson made the biggest shot of the game and you were deafened by it in the final minutes when the crowd offered some Purdue some sonic support defensively.
Purdue fans have a good team to watch this season. I don't think that is too big a reach to say after seven games. Thirteen out of 14 halves played in 2014 have been good ones and you're seeing the signs of a good basketball team.
Among them (and who doesn't enjoy lists?):
• Purdue looks fairly complete. Its ying of perimeter shooting and penetrators and its yang of a formidable interior game jibe well. The Boilermakers have been very productive offensively - and better against high-major competition than early season riff-raff - and they have won games with defense and wherewithal. Purdue looks mature. If there was ever a game a young team could've phoned one in, maybe it was tonight after a successful trip to Maui and all the pats on the back that came with it.
• Good scorers are becoming good players. Rapheal Davis has become a good defensive player. Kendall Stephens is never going to be a great defender, but he's making plays on D, a lot of them. Both have become significantly better overall players, and you saw it tonight in games in which they sort of stunk on offense. Stephens blocked another shot and grabbed one of the bigger defensive rebounds of the game and Davis locked up on D late and took an important charge while handing out a career-high six assists.
• Youth doesn't seem to be an issue, at least not yet. I'm going to continue defiling everyone's Cheerios by promising inconsistency and the perils of running four 19-year-olds out there for big minutes every game. I could be wrong though. No sign of it yet.
If you just wanted to play pin-the-eligibility-on-the-player with this team, go in blind and be asked to tab every player on the team with what year in school you think they are just by watching them, you might end up flipping the whole roster up-side down.
(That make sense? Kind of late to pull off a sentence like that.)
Purdue's in a good place, positioned to be 9-1 when it heads to Nashville to face a young - and struggling accordingly, unlike the Boilermakers - Vanderbilt team, then Notre Dame.
It's too early, probably, to talk about, but not really, but Purdue is building a résumé.
And looking more and more like a team that might actually need one in a few months.
Copyright, Boilers, Inc. 2014. 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.
