Purdue is a more talented basketball team than it was last season.
It is, however, no better a basketball team.
It showed that much in its embarrassing meltdown against Washington State Friday here in Florida. Washington State is so very eh, but was made to look like the Showtime Lakers in the second half as it rallied from 10 down at half to beat listless Purdue over the head with a stick and run off with its victory.
Prior to this game, this game was so obviously more important for the Boilermakers than your typical early Decemberish game against an irrelevant opponent.
Not just because of the harm a loss would inflict - much more so than the benefit a win would bring - but because Purdue's stood in this position before lately and failed.
Dealing with both adversity and prosperity - pretty much anything really, I guess - were issues for last season's very mediocre team.
This year is supposed to be different and here was Purdue's first real chance to prove it.
Instead …
I'm trying to wrack my brain for Purdue losses under Matt Painter that were worse or more untimely than this one. I'm sure there have been one or two, but they're escaping me right now.
Wofford felt like the end of the world at the time, but that was a team playing all underclassmen that was due some leeway. There was that Northwestern loss at home that one year, too.
Friday's loss instantly turned the Old Spice Classic into a wash for Purdue, the same way last year's 2K Sports Classic was a wash, one that in hindsight derailed Purdue's season before it had even started.
No one's writing off the rest of this season after one loss, not by a long shot, but it's more how Purdue lost than that it lost.
This is supposed to be a more mature team, yet all the same cracks, all the same petulance as afflicted Purdue last season have come to bear in Central Florida the past 36 hours, whether it was Jay Simpson and Ronnie Johnson being lost to foolish hot-headedness against Oklahoma State or Purdue simply spazzing out at halftime today.
Coaches can't summarily be given a pass here, because their messages seem to fall on deaf ears too often. The right things are being taught, or at least they were Friday. If they weren't, Purdue wouldn't have ridden its game plan to such a good first half before reversing course inexplicably after halftime.
You figure it out.
What I do know is that for a couple years now the return Matt Painter's gotten on the huge investment (i.e. practice emphasis) he has put into defense has been minimal. Right now, this is not even a solid defensive team, far from it.
Purdue does not have tremendous quickness on the perimeter. But neither do a lot of teams that defend better than the Boilermakers are right now, or did last season, or did the season before last.
Purdue just really struggles to keep people in front of it, and when beat, more often than not, it's beat.
And a team that needs to outscore people to win given its other deficiencies holds itself back with stubborn, selfish guard play and a talented big man who's not always there for one reason or another.
Again, is anyone listening?
A.J. Hammons is a mystery.
What I have dreaded all along has been this season in the court of public opinion turning into a game-by-game review of the center's NBA prospects after we've brought that up often, rightly so. It's real.
Right now, though, he's not close. No, he's not getting the ball. But when he does get it, he's getting hit with paralysis by analysis, fumbling the ball and just not being the same presence on offense he is on defense. He's not progressed from last season as an offensive player in any readily apparent way, or so it looks so far.
Hammons is part of a sophomore class Purdue's needed to loom very large this season, he, Ronnie Johnson and Rapheal Davis, all of them not showing much in the way of progress or maturity so far.
Painter is clearly upset with Ronnie Johnson.
"Ronnie's very talented, but we need him to lead. At this point, I don't know if he quite understands that sometimes he's going to score for us and sometimes he's not and he needs to get other people involved in what we're doing," Painter said in the public version of his thoughts on the matter. "… When he has a balance between his scoring and getting the ball where it needs to be, that really helps us. And defensively, just like any other person on our team, he needs to do a better job."
Rapheal Davis isn't producing coming off the bench and giving the look sometimes of a guy who's too eager to score just because he's coming off the bench and eager to do something, whatever it may be. He is forcing things, but so are a lot of other guys. Maybe I'm wrong there.
Bryson Scott is the eye-catcher out there for Purdue right now, because he flat-out makes plays, but it goes both ways. His tunnel vision sometimes makes plays for the opponent and often, his hell-or-high-water will to get to the basket compounds Purdue's issues with playing as five on offense. He is young.
Purdue had nearly twice as many turnovers as assists against Washington State. That is a damn good reflection of what's ailed it on offense, with the Cougars' 66-percent shooting after halftime in the second half obviously telling the defensive story for the Boilermakers.
One can only hope for Purdue's sake that these guys have some self-awareness to them and some things sink tomorrow, when they'll have a full day to sit in this brutal loss, one that highlight one very obvious fact: Purdue is a more talented basketball team than last season, but no better a basketball team.
At least right now.
There was no asterisk here today, people. No foul trouble, no refs to hate on.
Purdue was to find out about itself today.
What it saw, it couldn't have liked.
Copyright, Boilers, Inc. 2013. 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.
This post was edited on 11/29 5:40 PM by Alan_GoldandBlack.com
It is, however, no better a basketball team.
It showed that much in its embarrassing meltdown against Washington State Friday here in Florida. Washington State is so very eh, but was made to look like the Showtime Lakers in the second half as it rallied from 10 down at half to beat listless Purdue over the head with a stick and run off with its victory.
Prior to this game, this game was so obviously more important for the Boilermakers than your typical early Decemberish game against an irrelevant opponent.
Not just because of the harm a loss would inflict - much more so than the benefit a win would bring - but because Purdue's stood in this position before lately and failed.
Dealing with both adversity and prosperity - pretty much anything really, I guess - were issues for last season's very mediocre team.
This year is supposed to be different and here was Purdue's first real chance to prove it.
Instead …
I'm trying to wrack my brain for Purdue losses under Matt Painter that were worse or more untimely than this one. I'm sure there have been one or two, but they're escaping me right now.
Wofford felt like the end of the world at the time, but that was a team playing all underclassmen that was due some leeway. There was that Northwestern loss at home that one year, too.
Friday's loss instantly turned the Old Spice Classic into a wash for Purdue, the same way last year's 2K Sports Classic was a wash, one that in hindsight derailed Purdue's season before it had even started.
No one's writing off the rest of this season after one loss, not by a long shot, but it's more how Purdue lost than that it lost.
This is supposed to be a more mature team, yet all the same cracks, all the same petulance as afflicted Purdue last season have come to bear in Central Florida the past 36 hours, whether it was Jay Simpson and Ronnie Johnson being lost to foolish hot-headedness against Oklahoma State or Purdue simply spazzing out at halftime today.
Coaches can't summarily be given a pass here, because their messages seem to fall on deaf ears too often. The right things are being taught, or at least they were Friday. If they weren't, Purdue wouldn't have ridden its game plan to such a good first half before reversing course inexplicably after halftime.
You figure it out.
What I do know is that for a couple years now the return Matt Painter's gotten on the huge investment (i.e. practice emphasis) he has put into defense has been minimal. Right now, this is not even a solid defensive team, far from it.
Purdue does not have tremendous quickness on the perimeter. But neither do a lot of teams that defend better than the Boilermakers are right now, or did last season, or did the season before last.
Purdue just really struggles to keep people in front of it, and when beat, more often than not, it's beat.
And a team that needs to outscore people to win given its other deficiencies holds itself back with stubborn, selfish guard play and a talented big man who's not always there for one reason or another.
Again, is anyone listening?
A.J. Hammons is a mystery.
What I have dreaded all along has been this season in the court of public opinion turning into a game-by-game review of the center's NBA prospects after we've brought that up often, rightly so. It's real.
Right now, though, he's not close. No, he's not getting the ball. But when he does get it, he's getting hit with paralysis by analysis, fumbling the ball and just not being the same presence on offense he is on defense. He's not progressed from last season as an offensive player in any readily apparent way, or so it looks so far.
Hammons is part of a sophomore class Purdue's needed to loom very large this season, he, Ronnie Johnson and Rapheal Davis, all of them not showing much in the way of progress or maturity so far.
Painter is clearly upset with Ronnie Johnson.
"Ronnie's very talented, but we need him to lead. At this point, I don't know if he quite understands that sometimes he's going to score for us and sometimes he's not and he needs to get other people involved in what we're doing," Painter said in the public version of his thoughts on the matter. "… When he has a balance between his scoring and getting the ball where it needs to be, that really helps us. And defensively, just like any other person on our team, he needs to do a better job."
Rapheal Davis isn't producing coming off the bench and giving the look sometimes of a guy who's too eager to score just because he's coming off the bench and eager to do something, whatever it may be. He is forcing things, but so are a lot of other guys. Maybe I'm wrong there.
Bryson Scott is the eye-catcher out there for Purdue right now, because he flat-out makes plays, but it goes both ways. His tunnel vision sometimes makes plays for the opponent and often, his hell-or-high-water will to get to the basket compounds Purdue's issues with playing as five on offense. He is young.
Purdue had nearly twice as many turnovers as assists against Washington State. That is a damn good reflection of what's ailed it on offense, with the Cougars' 66-percent shooting after halftime in the second half obviously telling the defensive story for the Boilermakers.
One can only hope for Purdue's sake that these guys have some self-awareness to them and some things sink tomorrow, when they'll have a full day to sit in this brutal loss, one that highlight one very obvious fact: Purdue is a more talented basketball team than last season, but no better a basketball team.
At least right now.
There was no asterisk here today, people. No foul trouble, no refs to hate on.
Purdue was to find out about itself today.
What it saw, it couldn't have liked.
Copyright, Boilers, Inc. 2013. 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.
This post was edited on 11/29 5:40 PM by Alan_GoldandBlack.com
