A few final musings from Purdue's 67-60 win over No. 20 Ohio State tonight, because I know how you all like musings.
• Best thing about tonight for Purdue: It showed it can compete defensively. As Trevion Williams said, "The cat's out of the bag now." They have to build on it.
• Jaden Ivey was probably too eager tonight, but those two plays he made in transition, that was NBA stuff. That was a player who has been around and trained with professionals. The scoring element he can add to Purdue now that he's back is a big, big deal.
• Not sure anybody made more impact plays tonight than Brandon Newman. Can't say enough about how big he came up for Purdue when it needed someone to make a play tonight.
• Great job by Purdue tonight pushing the pace and turning defense into offense. Having all their guards sure helps.
• Zach Edey is definitely a freshman. Keep that in mind, as good as he's been this season.
• That first half passing by Trevion Williams was his skill set really coming out. Mason Gillis was Grady Eifert at Marquette a few years back, where Marquette just kept doubling Isaac Haas and Haas just kept smacking them in the face by hitting Eifert for layups. Haas was so mechanical though. Williams is such a natural making those plays. He pulled some Larry Bird/Magic Johnson stuff tonight.
• Back to back solid games for Aaron Wheeler. Gotta start somewhere. Good for him.
• Purdue missed its fans tonights. My eardrums didn't.
• Purdue was 11-of-11 at the foul line tonight — ideal — before missing back-to-back one-and-ones in the final minute or so — not ideal. Still, if Trevion Williams can be solid (4-4 tonight), Purdue has the makings of a decent foul shooting team, which would be a very good thing considering that Williams and Zach Edey may grease its path to the bonus some nights.
By the way, Sasha Stefanovic has already shot nearly half as many free throws through seven games as he did all of last season in 31. I don't know if him attacking off the dribble is necessarily your strength as an offense, but he is attacking closeouts and getting cheap points and did enough tonight to keep Ohio State honest.
He's quietly having a really nice season, IMO.
• Purdue was fortunate Ohio State was too far back in the final minutes to flip this game with offensive rebounding. They were relentless and Purdue had no answer for it. You might recall there being a notable Buckeye offensive rebound in Mackey Arena one time.
• In a world where we only talk to each other on Zoom, don't forget headphones! Thank you to CVS for having a store within a halftime jaunt from my media seat.
Thanks everybody for reading and have a good night.
• Best thing about tonight for Purdue: It showed it can compete defensively. As Trevion Williams said, "The cat's out of the bag now." They have to build on it.
• Jaden Ivey was probably too eager tonight, but those two plays he made in transition, that was NBA stuff. That was a player who has been around and trained with professionals. The scoring element he can add to Purdue now that he's back is a big, big deal.
• Not sure anybody made more impact plays tonight than Brandon Newman. Can't say enough about how big he came up for Purdue when it needed someone to make a play tonight.
• Great job by Purdue tonight pushing the pace and turning defense into offense. Having all their guards sure helps.
• Zach Edey is definitely a freshman. Keep that in mind, as good as he's been this season.
• That first half passing by Trevion Williams was his skill set really coming out. Mason Gillis was Grady Eifert at Marquette a few years back, where Marquette just kept doubling Isaac Haas and Haas just kept smacking them in the face by hitting Eifert for layups. Haas was so mechanical though. Williams is such a natural making those plays. He pulled some Larry Bird/Magic Johnson stuff tonight.
• Back to back solid games for Aaron Wheeler. Gotta start somewhere. Good for him.
• Purdue missed its fans tonights. My eardrums didn't.
• Purdue was 11-of-11 at the foul line tonight — ideal — before missing back-to-back one-and-ones in the final minute or so — not ideal. Still, if Trevion Williams can be solid (4-4 tonight), Purdue has the makings of a decent foul shooting team, which would be a very good thing considering that Williams and Zach Edey may grease its path to the bonus some nights.
By the way, Sasha Stefanovic has already shot nearly half as many free throws through seven games as he did all of last season in 31. I don't know if him attacking off the dribble is necessarily your strength as an offense, but he is attacking closeouts and getting cheap points and did enough tonight to keep Ohio State honest.
He's quietly having a really nice season, IMO.
• Purdue was fortunate Ohio State was too far back in the final minutes to flip this game with offensive rebounding. They were relentless and Purdue had no answer for it. You might recall there being a notable Buckeye offensive rebound in Mackey Arena one time.
• In a world where we only talk to each other on Zoom, don't forget headphones! Thank you to CVS for having a store within a halftime jaunt from my media seat.
Thanks everybody for reading and have a good night.
