It's not often you see the sort of disconnect between effort and result than has been seen with Rapheal Davis and his jump-shooting.
Trust me: When people talk about the work he's put into his shooting, it's not lip service.
His freshman year, he was a fixture on Keady Court hours before tip-off, shooting threes from corner to corner around the arc, and then some. He has not changed his approach since, a frequent "extra" guy when it comes to working on that phase of his game.
What's he gotten out of it?
Hardly a damn thing.
And so it was a nice story - a real nice story - to see Davis carry Purdue past Iowa, sinking three treys, a single-game career-high, and sticking the biggest jump shot of maybe his career to down the Hawkeyes.
"Coaches always told me, even in high school, the work you put in when nobody's watching, it's going to come out," Davis said. "It showed tonight."
He has now made five threes in the past two games, weeks after Matt Painter literally had to tell him to stop shooting because he was laying so many bricks.
Prior to the past two games, Davis made two threes for the entire season.
Is it sustainable long-term? No idea.
But cross that bridge when it comes. Right now all that matters was that Purdue found a way, playing mostly without its leading scorer, to beat a good team playing mostly without its leading scorer.
It was Davis in the leading role, but a Best Supporting Actor nod has to go to Basil Smotherman, whose awesome physical gifts too often languish on the bench because they too often blend in during games. Smotherman was a great example of a seemingly passed-over player getting a chance and not punting it away.
(Bryson Scott is not playing because coaches don't appear to have faith in him to follow scouting reports, and it's been pointed out often how Purdue has improved defensively since the rotation was cut down. Hopefully for Scott's sake he took note of today's developments with his fellow sophomore. This is up to him now.)
If this wasn't the most improbable two-man show Purdue's seen in some time, I'll be damned.
Davis and Smotherman - today's John Hart-at-Illinois - won this game for Purdue and covered up so much.
In any game Purdue allows two dozen offensive rebounds and shoots 20 percent shooting threes in bulk and misses nearly half its free throws, it should lose.
It will lose.
In any game in which Mike Gesell is made to look like Chris Freaking Paul off the dribble - the product of shoddy ball-screen defense by the big men - with the game on the line, then Purdue should lose.
Purdue, instead, won in spite of all those things, taking down a ranked team that'll be ranked for 36 more hours.
It was a great win for Purdue but one rife with sirens.
The past two box scores scream at the tops of their paper lungs - wait, what? - about rebounding. Purdue's centers - the Boilermakers' physical mismatch in every game - have stopped doing it.
Purdue's 14 feet-and-change worth of post presence the past two games has totaled 16 rebounds while opponents have swarmed the boards like sharks to a bucket of chum. Purdue is getting beaten to balls off the rim. Maybe someone should take some air out of them.
Isaac Haas had shots at clean rebounds early but struggled to secure them. I wonder if some of his edge has been lost to the fear of those Hulk-smash fouls he tends to attract. Hammons needs to be more aggressive, almost always does.
"I thought we played hard," Painter said of rebounding, "until the shot went up."
Meanwhile, Purdue has reverted to last year's form from long range, and it's not just because of Kendall Stephens' injury. The shots Dakota Mathias, Vince Edwards, P.J. Thompson might have made in November, they're missing in January, masked the past few games by non-shooters like Davis and Jon Octeus making some shots.
If this continues, Purdue will get zoned into oblivion from here on out, starting Wednesday night because Tom Crean will watch film of Purdue and cackle maniacally over facing such a limited offense, twiddling his hands together with a certain evil to him like Montgomery Burns in "The Simpsons."
Purdue did some really good things in zone offense against Iowa, but could rarely capitalize because it couldn't make a shot.
Six turnovers, though, that goes a long way.
Purdue is doing some really good things defensively. Illinois shot 35 percent; Iowa shot 33. The Hawkeyes scored all of zero fast-break points, because the Boilermakers' transition defense was uncommonly sound and they didn't turn the ball over.
But Purdue breaks down when it can't afford to break down.
Mike Gesell averages six points a game. In the final minutes against Purdue, he scored twice that in a row with the game on the line.
But, Purdue won, somehow, in many ways in spite of itself. This is its second Big Ten win now we have said this about.
It's great for Purdue that Purdue got this win, but Purdue has to better, much better, starting Wednesday.
Copyright, Boilers, Inc. 2015. 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.
Trust me: When people talk about the work he's put into his shooting, it's not lip service.
His freshman year, he was a fixture on Keady Court hours before tip-off, shooting threes from corner to corner around the arc, and then some. He has not changed his approach since, a frequent "extra" guy when it comes to working on that phase of his game.
What's he gotten out of it?
Hardly a damn thing.
And so it was a nice story - a real nice story - to see Davis carry Purdue past Iowa, sinking three treys, a single-game career-high, and sticking the biggest jump shot of maybe his career to down the Hawkeyes.
"Coaches always told me, even in high school, the work you put in when nobody's watching, it's going to come out," Davis said. "It showed tonight."
He has now made five threes in the past two games, weeks after Matt Painter literally had to tell him to stop shooting because he was laying so many bricks.
Prior to the past two games, Davis made two threes for the entire season.
Is it sustainable long-term? No idea.
But cross that bridge when it comes. Right now all that matters was that Purdue found a way, playing mostly without its leading scorer, to beat a good team playing mostly without its leading scorer.
It was Davis in the leading role, but a Best Supporting Actor nod has to go to Basil Smotherman, whose awesome physical gifts too often languish on the bench because they too often blend in during games. Smotherman was a great example of a seemingly passed-over player getting a chance and not punting it away.
(Bryson Scott is not playing because coaches don't appear to have faith in him to follow scouting reports, and it's been pointed out often how Purdue has improved defensively since the rotation was cut down. Hopefully for Scott's sake he took note of today's developments with his fellow sophomore. This is up to him now.)
If this wasn't the most improbable two-man show Purdue's seen in some time, I'll be damned.
Davis and Smotherman - today's John Hart-at-Illinois - won this game for Purdue and covered up so much.
In any game Purdue allows two dozen offensive rebounds and shoots 20 percent shooting threes in bulk and misses nearly half its free throws, it should lose.
It will lose.
In any game in which Mike Gesell is made to look like Chris Freaking Paul off the dribble - the product of shoddy ball-screen defense by the big men - with the game on the line, then Purdue should lose.
Purdue, instead, won in spite of all those things, taking down a ranked team that'll be ranked for 36 more hours.
It was a great win for Purdue but one rife with sirens.
The past two box scores scream at the tops of their paper lungs - wait, what? - about rebounding. Purdue's centers - the Boilermakers' physical mismatch in every game - have stopped doing it.
Purdue's 14 feet-and-change worth of post presence the past two games has totaled 16 rebounds while opponents have swarmed the boards like sharks to a bucket of chum. Purdue is getting beaten to balls off the rim. Maybe someone should take some air out of them.
Isaac Haas had shots at clean rebounds early but struggled to secure them. I wonder if some of his edge has been lost to the fear of those Hulk-smash fouls he tends to attract. Hammons needs to be more aggressive, almost always does.
"I thought we played hard," Painter said of rebounding, "until the shot went up."
Meanwhile, Purdue has reverted to last year's form from long range, and it's not just because of Kendall Stephens' injury. The shots Dakota Mathias, Vince Edwards, P.J. Thompson might have made in November, they're missing in January, masked the past few games by non-shooters like Davis and Jon Octeus making some shots.
If this continues, Purdue will get zoned into oblivion from here on out, starting Wednesday night because Tom Crean will watch film of Purdue and cackle maniacally over facing such a limited offense, twiddling his hands together with a certain evil to him like Montgomery Burns in "The Simpsons."
Purdue did some really good things in zone offense against Iowa, but could rarely capitalize because it couldn't make a shot.
Six turnovers, though, that goes a long way.
Purdue is doing some really good things defensively. Illinois shot 35 percent; Iowa shot 33. The Hawkeyes scored all of zero fast-break points, because the Boilermakers' transition defense was uncommonly sound and they didn't turn the ball over.
But Purdue breaks down when it can't afford to break down.
Mike Gesell averages six points a game. In the final minutes against Purdue, he scored twice that in a row with the game on the line.
But, Purdue won, somehow, in many ways in spite of itself. This is its second Big Ten win now we have said this about.
It's great for Purdue that Purdue got this win, but Purdue has to better, much better, starting Wednesday.
Copyright, Boilers, Inc. 2015. 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.
