UNCASVILLE, Conn. - Well, the spotlight got a little brighter and the opposition a lot better Saturday at the Mohegan Sun and Purdue sure looked ready.
It will be interested to see what Old Dominion goes on to do so this season, to see how good it is, because the guess here is that Purdue just made a good team look pretty bad.
After outscoring - as if it mattered how Purdue won - its first three opponents of the season - the Boilermakers lived up to their long-standing defensive identity against the Monarchs, another opponent who looked like they may as well have been cowering at Isaac Haas' feet in the streets as he stomped Tokyo.
Purdue won this game with its perimeter defense and game plan, at least if the post-game narrative is to be believed, but my lord, its size, again, just cast a shadow of everything in its path.
Haas has been tremendous this season. He's scoring and rebounding, yeah, but if you're watching the game, you're seeing a player who's just profoundly impacting play just by being physically present, even more than he did last season because he seems more active, maybe more comfortable now.
A.J. Hammons was as good on offense today as he's been in his Purdue career and his size, too, mattered a whole lot even if he wasn't swatting shots by the handful per usual.
(Great sign for Hammons, who needs to play well in November and December for his own sake as well as Purdue's.)
That two-headed monster dominated, utterly dominated to the point where Purdue got a combined six points from Caleb Swanigan (four), Vince Edwards (two) and Rapheal Davis (doughnut) and still blew the doors off a team that won 27 games last season and brought back a team expected to be just as good.
Edwards is better than he played today and so is Swanigan. Davis, there's going to be games where opportunities just don't present themselves, like today.
That Purdue can win a game like this this decidedly with crucial pieces misfiring is a testament to both its depth and the quality of its centers, both of them.
But this team does stand to improve offensively.
Its eight assists to 23 field goals doesn't look great, but gets warped by the fact Purdue scored 15 off the offensive glass. This group still looks like it's learning how to pass to another, to Swanigan in particular, and Painter doesn't seem content with how it's screening, cutting etc.
It was good for Purdue to show the other half of the puzzle today in winning with defense, with both planning and execution.
But the best part of this game from a Purdue perspective might have been Old Dominion making that Trey Freeman-driven run, cutting the favorites' lead to six with 14 minutes left. The Boilermakers had their feet to the flame there for a bit and responded to the adversity by coming up with two survivalist-type putbacks, followed by Kendall Stephens' executioner-type threes that made Old Dominion kiss the curb.
Painter has wanted to see how his team would respond to adversity. Had it just ridden its first half defensive dominance to a one-sided win, that would have been one thing.
But that it had to see its comfortable lead almost frittered away, then re-assert itself, that was another.
The latter is the more important experience.
See you tomorrow.
-----------------------
Copyright, Boilers, Inc. 2015. All Rights Reserved. Reproducing or using editorial or graphical content, in whole or in part, without permission, is strictly prohibited.
It will be interested to see what Old Dominion goes on to do so this season, to see how good it is, because the guess here is that Purdue just made a good team look pretty bad.
After outscoring - as if it mattered how Purdue won - its first three opponents of the season - the Boilermakers lived up to their long-standing defensive identity against the Monarchs, another opponent who looked like they may as well have been cowering at Isaac Haas' feet in the streets as he stomped Tokyo.
Purdue won this game with its perimeter defense and game plan, at least if the post-game narrative is to be believed, but my lord, its size, again, just cast a shadow of everything in its path.
Haas has been tremendous this season. He's scoring and rebounding, yeah, but if you're watching the game, you're seeing a player who's just profoundly impacting play just by being physically present, even more than he did last season because he seems more active, maybe more comfortable now.
A.J. Hammons was as good on offense today as he's been in his Purdue career and his size, too, mattered a whole lot even if he wasn't swatting shots by the handful per usual.
(Great sign for Hammons, who needs to play well in November and December for his own sake as well as Purdue's.)
That two-headed monster dominated, utterly dominated to the point where Purdue got a combined six points from Caleb Swanigan (four), Vince Edwards (two) and Rapheal Davis (doughnut) and still blew the doors off a team that won 27 games last season and brought back a team expected to be just as good.
Edwards is better than he played today and so is Swanigan. Davis, there's going to be games where opportunities just don't present themselves, like today.
That Purdue can win a game like this this decidedly with crucial pieces misfiring is a testament to both its depth and the quality of its centers, both of them.
But this team does stand to improve offensively.
Its eight assists to 23 field goals doesn't look great, but gets warped by the fact Purdue scored 15 off the offensive glass. This group still looks like it's learning how to pass to another, to Swanigan in particular, and Painter doesn't seem content with how it's screening, cutting etc.
It was good for Purdue to show the other half of the puzzle today in winning with defense, with both planning and execution.
But the best part of this game from a Purdue perspective might have been Old Dominion making that Trey Freeman-driven run, cutting the favorites' lead to six with 14 minutes left. The Boilermakers had their feet to the flame there for a bit and responded to the adversity by coming up with two survivalist-type putbacks, followed by Kendall Stephens' executioner-type threes that made Old Dominion kiss the curb.
Painter has wanted to see how his team would respond to adversity. Had it just ridden its first half defensive dominance to a one-sided win, that would have been one thing.
But that it had to see its comfortable lead almost frittered away, then re-assert itself, that was another.
The latter is the more important experience.
See you tomorrow.
-----------------------
Copyright, Boilers, Inc. 2015. All Rights Reserved. Reproducing or using editorial or graphical content, in whole or in part, without permission, is strictly prohibited.
