A few final musings — yes, musings – from Purdue's 71-63 loss to Michigan.
• A few days ago, after one of the games — they've all run together at this point — I had a small back and forth with one of our readers (@ThreeTwaunMoore) in which my point that talent is not Purdue's issue might have come across as something other than me saying talent is not Purdue's biggest issue. Of course Purdue could have better players, but importantly, it could also stand to have older, more experienced players and more offensively gifted players. Of course they can. Most teams can.
But Purdue's talent is good enough to win with. That's my firm belief anyway, and I'll cite Virginia, Michigan State, Wisconsin and Iowa as Examples A through D, and games Purdue should have won over Marquette and Florida State forever ago as E and F.
Purdue's biggest issue to me isn't talent. It's that certain something, and that certain something was put on trial today, and the results not so good.
Again, nice kids, good people, all of them. Few killers, competitively I mean. That's a big part of what's held this team back, because it's competitiveness that drives effort and attention to detail and all that subcategories that have led this team to where it is.
• Attention to detail, to me, is the single biggest albatross for this group right now, because Purdue has lapsed on D, and that has denied it its best chance to win. "Concentration" has been an issue all season long. Why it's worsened at the worst time is beyond explanation, but Matt Painter has talked all season about his team handling adversity poorly. This started after Purdue's biggest win away from Mackey Arena of the season, at Indiana. Perhaps handling prosperity is an issue, too.
• Purdue's guard play just needs to be better than this. I thought Eric Hunter's play during the winning streak was really a driving force behind Purdue's success. He's been real quiet the past few games, and Jahaad Proctor's late-season surge has cooled off, as has Aaron Wheeler's little two-game blaze of glory and to a lesser extent Evan Boudreaux's three-point shooting.
The Boilermakers' decision-making has fallen off considerably, it seems like, today not being Its finest showing in that sense. Nojel Eastern is better when he's aggressive, but he has to make better decisions than he has lately, but he's also not alone.
• Matt Haarms is 6-of-20 from the floor during the four-game losing streak, which is difficult to make sense of for a player who's historically been a 60-percent sort of guy, albeit one who's shooting more threes now. But he's missing at the basket.
• Purdue spent much of the game with Sasha Stefanovic (and believe Jahaad Proctor on at least one possession) on Isaiah Livers and Evan Boudreaux on Franz Wagner. Tough matchups on both fronts, and after asking everyone involved about it, it sounded to me like it was about getting a more mobile guy on the more skilled Livers and playing to the inconsistencies of Wagner this season. He's only now a 28.4-percent three-point shooter this season.
I'll go back and watch tomorrow to detail it further, but to open the game, Purdue really struggled to get out to the 4 man as the ball screen indirect (the player coming in behind the screening action basically, and the shot Grady Eifert and Aaron Wheeler lived off last season) and that got Livers a three and driving lanes for both he and Brandon Johns that they scored off.
That said, Livers was a tough cover for Stefanovic and Wagner went off for a career-best game.
In an alternate set of circumstances, maybe Purdue would have put Eastern on Livers, and I do think that next season Purdue takes a long, hard look at Eastern as its de facto 4 man, but Boudreaux's team-best effort and rebounding were sort of essential here.
Another of Purdue's damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't personnel quandaries this season.
Thanks for reading, everybody.
• A few days ago, after one of the games — they've all run together at this point — I had a small back and forth with one of our readers (@ThreeTwaunMoore) in which my point that talent is not Purdue's issue might have come across as something other than me saying talent is not Purdue's biggest issue. Of course Purdue could have better players, but importantly, it could also stand to have older, more experienced players and more offensively gifted players. Of course they can. Most teams can.
But Purdue's talent is good enough to win with. That's my firm belief anyway, and I'll cite Virginia, Michigan State, Wisconsin and Iowa as Examples A through D, and games Purdue should have won over Marquette and Florida State forever ago as E and F.
Purdue's biggest issue to me isn't talent. It's that certain something, and that certain something was put on trial today, and the results not so good.
Again, nice kids, good people, all of them. Few killers, competitively I mean. That's a big part of what's held this team back, because it's competitiveness that drives effort and attention to detail and all that subcategories that have led this team to where it is.
• Attention to detail, to me, is the single biggest albatross for this group right now, because Purdue has lapsed on D, and that has denied it its best chance to win. "Concentration" has been an issue all season long. Why it's worsened at the worst time is beyond explanation, but Matt Painter has talked all season about his team handling adversity poorly. This started after Purdue's biggest win away from Mackey Arena of the season, at Indiana. Perhaps handling prosperity is an issue, too.
• Purdue's guard play just needs to be better than this. I thought Eric Hunter's play during the winning streak was really a driving force behind Purdue's success. He's been real quiet the past few games, and Jahaad Proctor's late-season surge has cooled off, as has Aaron Wheeler's little two-game blaze of glory and to a lesser extent Evan Boudreaux's three-point shooting.
The Boilermakers' decision-making has fallen off considerably, it seems like, today not being Its finest showing in that sense. Nojel Eastern is better when he's aggressive, but he has to make better decisions than he has lately, but he's also not alone.
• Matt Haarms is 6-of-20 from the floor during the four-game losing streak, which is difficult to make sense of for a player who's historically been a 60-percent sort of guy, albeit one who's shooting more threes now. But he's missing at the basket.
• Purdue spent much of the game with Sasha Stefanovic (and believe Jahaad Proctor on at least one possession) on Isaiah Livers and Evan Boudreaux on Franz Wagner. Tough matchups on both fronts, and after asking everyone involved about it, it sounded to me like it was about getting a more mobile guy on the more skilled Livers and playing to the inconsistencies of Wagner this season. He's only now a 28.4-percent three-point shooter this season.
I'll go back and watch tomorrow to detail it further, but to open the game, Purdue really struggled to get out to the 4 man as the ball screen indirect (the player coming in behind the screening action basically, and the shot Grady Eifert and Aaron Wheeler lived off last season) and that got Livers a three and driving lanes for both he and Brandon Johns that they scored off.
That said, Livers was a tough cover for Stefanovic and Wagner went off for a career-best game.
In an alternate set of circumstances, maybe Purdue would have put Eastern on Livers, and I do think that next season Purdue takes a long, hard look at Eastern as its de facto 4 man, but Boudreaux's team-best effort and rebounding were sort of essential here.
Another of Purdue's damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't personnel quandaries this season.
Thanks for reading, everybody.
