MORGANTOWN, W. Va. - Not sure anyone around Purdue last week really wanted to go so far as to say it outright, but in the grand scheme of what the Boilermakers aspire to do this season, Sunday's win at West Virginia was a must.
If Purdue's able to go on to have the sort of reason where there will be anything for the St. Peters at the gate of the NCAA Tournament to judge, Matt Painter's team simply couldn't turn over a resume with a non-conference schedule built for, um, early success without a single decent win on it.
Obviously we do not know what sort of season West Virginia will go on to have, nor do we know how Boston College will fare from here on out, but even if the Mountaineers finish as just an average team, they're still a credible name. And it was a road game, Purdue's only chance for one of those. Those are always valuable.
I wouldn't call this a "resume" win - and sorry I can't properly use the accents in that word, due to text-transfer issues online - but it's a win that saved Purdue's resume in that sense.
It's at least something on a list of a whole lot of nothing.
And it was a hell of a pleasant surprise.
This was a setting tailor-made for Purdue's demons to this point to come back to haunt it. You have to have some measure at least of poise to win road games against teams that are decent. West Virginia is decent and even though it's break and the Mountaineer students have gone back to their mountains - I kid, I kid - for Christmas, that place got loud a couple times.
When it did, Purdue made plays.
I'm just assuming that even in victory that Terone Johnson is being made into a scarecrow for some reason on our message board, but in this total team win, he was the central figure.
Don't look at stats, even though he had 20 points.
Look at moments.
Purdue leads at half and needs a solid start to the second: Johnson makes a three.
West Virginia gets within one inside six minutes and the decibel level hits its in-game peak: Johnson makes a three.
Those couple other occasions, Purdue runs decent offense - or doesn't - and misses: Johnson gets a putback.
Two-plus minutes left and Purdue's in a situation where the game's on the line with every possession: Johnson draws the defense and passes to Basil Smotherman for a layup.
Those two buckets by the rookie, the second assisted by Ronnie Johnson, were beautiful for Purdue, vomit-inducing for West Virginia.
This was a game that in so many ways Purdue's most prominent senior led his team to a crucial win. Hope everyone who's seething over who-knows-what right now can take a deep breath and recognize that.
The senior was key, but so were the kids.
In their first-ever road game, all three freshmen helped Purdue win, especially Smotherman and Kendall Stephens, whose driving and-one with less than five minutes to play might have been this game's 'WTF' moment, but a much welcomed one for the Boilermakers.
By the way, in his first road game, and a game Purdue won, Smotherman played 33 minutes. No Boilermaker played more. Could not have seen that coming prior to the season. He's been a revelation.
A.J. Hammons loomed over the defensive boards like Godzilla over Tokyo, the central figure in Purdue's rebounding dominance and an especially important piece given Jay Simpson's illness and the drop from A to B being much more significant in this game. Purdue owned the rim area on defense with Hammons in; West Virginia owned it with Travis Carroll in.
Today was kind of the model for Purdue, aside of course from the masonry at the foul line.
? It dominated the boards.
? It was patient on offense. There were some bad shots but not nearly as many as there have been.
? It didn't turn the ball over all that much. Eleven isn't great, but not horrible, either, and the impact of those turnovers wasn't all that profound.
? Purdue played good D.
West Virginia came in averaging 82 against a good schedule and only got 70 against what's been a bad defensive team. The Mountaineers were just 3-of-18 from three-point range, from which they've been terrific this year.
? So many guys contributed, from Hammons to the Johnsons and the big plays they made down the stretch, to Smotherman, to Stephens and Sterling Carter, the duo's four total threes being very significant when all was said and done. In Purdue's first road game, it was 7-of-18 from three.
You'll take that any day of the week if you ask me.
This was a great win for Purdue, but will only be as significant as the Boilermakers go on to make it.
If they are so fortunate to win double-digit Big Ten games - a tall, tall order, starting Dec
31 with Ohio State - and can get in that NCAA mix, you might say the road started Sunday in Morgantown.
But as we have talked about so much the past couple weeks, consistency has been just as difficult to grasp for Purdue as composure.
It found one at West Virginia; now can it find the other?
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 12/27 3:07 PM by Alan_GoldandBlack.com
If Purdue's able to go on to have the sort of reason where there will be anything for the St. Peters at the gate of the NCAA Tournament to judge, Matt Painter's team simply couldn't turn over a resume with a non-conference schedule built for, um, early success without a single decent win on it.
Obviously we do not know what sort of season West Virginia will go on to have, nor do we know how Boston College will fare from here on out, but even if the Mountaineers finish as just an average team, they're still a credible name. And it was a road game, Purdue's only chance for one of those. Those are always valuable.
I wouldn't call this a "resume" win - and sorry I can't properly use the accents in that word, due to text-transfer issues online - but it's a win that saved Purdue's resume in that sense.
It's at least something on a list of a whole lot of nothing.
And it was a hell of a pleasant surprise.
This was a setting tailor-made for Purdue's demons to this point to come back to haunt it. You have to have some measure at least of poise to win road games against teams that are decent. West Virginia is decent and even though it's break and the Mountaineer students have gone back to their mountains - I kid, I kid - for Christmas, that place got loud a couple times.
When it did, Purdue made plays.
I'm just assuming that even in victory that Terone Johnson is being made into a scarecrow for some reason on our message board, but in this total team win, he was the central figure.
Don't look at stats, even though he had 20 points.
Look at moments.
Purdue leads at half and needs a solid start to the second: Johnson makes a three.
West Virginia gets within one inside six minutes and the decibel level hits its in-game peak: Johnson makes a three.
Those couple other occasions, Purdue runs decent offense - or doesn't - and misses: Johnson gets a putback.
Two-plus minutes left and Purdue's in a situation where the game's on the line with every possession: Johnson draws the defense and passes to Basil Smotherman for a layup.
Those two buckets by the rookie, the second assisted by Ronnie Johnson, were beautiful for Purdue, vomit-inducing for West Virginia.
This was a game that in so many ways Purdue's most prominent senior led his team to a crucial win. Hope everyone who's seething over who-knows-what right now can take a deep breath and recognize that.
The senior was key, but so were the kids.
In their first-ever road game, all three freshmen helped Purdue win, especially Smotherman and Kendall Stephens, whose driving and-one with less than five minutes to play might have been this game's 'WTF' moment, but a much welcomed one for the Boilermakers.
By the way, in his first road game, and a game Purdue won, Smotherman played 33 minutes. No Boilermaker played more. Could not have seen that coming prior to the season. He's been a revelation.
A.J. Hammons loomed over the defensive boards like Godzilla over Tokyo, the central figure in Purdue's rebounding dominance and an especially important piece given Jay Simpson's illness and the drop from A to B being much more significant in this game. Purdue owned the rim area on defense with Hammons in; West Virginia owned it with Travis Carroll in.
Today was kind of the model for Purdue, aside of course from the masonry at the foul line.
? It dominated the boards.
? It was patient on offense. There were some bad shots but not nearly as many as there have been.
? It didn't turn the ball over all that much. Eleven isn't great, but not horrible, either, and the impact of those turnovers wasn't all that profound.
? Purdue played good D.
West Virginia came in averaging 82 against a good schedule and only got 70 against what's been a bad defensive team. The Mountaineers were just 3-of-18 from three-point range, from which they've been terrific this year.
? So many guys contributed, from Hammons to the Johnsons and the big plays they made down the stretch, to Smotherman, to Stephens and Sterling Carter, the duo's four total threes being very significant when all was said and done. In Purdue's first road game, it was 7-of-18 from three.
You'll take that any day of the week if you ask me.
This was a great win for Purdue, but will only be as significant as the Boilermakers go on to make it.
If they are so fortunate to win double-digit Big Ten games - a tall, tall order, starting Dec
31 with Ohio State - and can get in that NCAA mix, you might say the road started Sunday in Morgantown.
But as we have talked about so much the past couple weeks, consistency has been just as difficult to grasp for Purdue as composure.
It found one at West Virginia; now can it find the other?
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 12/27 3:07 PM by Alan_GoldandBlack.com
