CANCUN, Mexico - Purdue dispatched Utah State with relative ease tonight, as a top-20-ranked team should be expected to do.
Tomorrow here in Cancun comes a different challenge.
Auburn is scary. Maybe not a great basketball team right now but scary nonetheless.
The reason they're scary: Bruce Pearl has turned a football school into an elite basketball recruiting enterprise pretty much over night. They have some absolute beasts on that team. They're incredibly athletic, fast and very talented.
Purdue, buoyed by outstanding Caleb Swanigan and an Isaac Haas who's showing flashes of budding greatness, are going to face an athletic deficit as Purdue as a whole will. Purdue's going to have to be the smarter, more disciplined team and play like veterans against a bunch of kids.
But tonight was a good outing for the Boilermakers to open this event, or at least the off-campus portion of this event. Purdue played strong defense, strong enough to have been able to blow this game open early had it just not turned the ball over a number of times in the first half.
Haas is showing real progress. There were some maturity questions about him coming into this season in terms of how ready he was mentally or whatever to be that guy. So far, so good.
Caleb Swanigan is going to be one of the most consistent players Matt Painter's had this season, in my opinion.
And while Dakota Mathias isn't going to score 25 every night, maybe not again this season, if he plays like he's playing the past 48 minutes of basketball, he's going to be a difference-maker.
Purdue has to get Vincent Edwards going and get Ryan Cline re-acclimated quickly, but there was a lot of positive from tonight's game as it can be applied to what's to come.
But Wednesday night is a far bigger test, akin to last year's Florida game in some ways.
Tomorrow here in Cancun comes a different challenge.
Auburn is scary. Maybe not a great basketball team right now but scary nonetheless.
The reason they're scary: Bruce Pearl has turned a football school into an elite basketball recruiting enterprise pretty much over night. They have some absolute beasts on that team. They're incredibly athletic, fast and very talented.
Purdue, buoyed by outstanding Caleb Swanigan and an Isaac Haas who's showing flashes of budding greatness, are going to face an athletic deficit as Purdue as a whole will. Purdue's going to have to be the smarter, more disciplined team and play like veterans against a bunch of kids.
But tonight was a good outing for the Boilermakers to open this event, or at least the off-campus portion of this event. Purdue played strong defense, strong enough to have been able to blow this game open early had it just not turned the ball over a number of times in the first half.
Haas is showing real progress. There were some maturity questions about him coming into this season in terms of how ready he was mentally or whatever to be that guy. So far, so good.
Caleb Swanigan is going to be one of the most consistent players Matt Painter's had this season, in my opinion.
And while Dakota Mathias isn't going to score 25 every night, maybe not again this season, if he plays like he's playing the past 48 minutes of basketball, he's going to be a difference-maker.
Purdue has to get Vincent Edwards going and get Ryan Cline re-acclimated quickly, but there was a lot of positive from tonight's game as it can be applied to what's to come.
But Wednesday night is a far bigger test, akin to last year's Florida game in some ways.
