PISCATAWAY, N.J. — Greetings from college basketball's most delicious venue, Jersey Mike's Arena at Rutgers, where Purdue takes the floor for the first time ever as the No. 1 team in the country and plays the first real road game of most of its team's career.
This is not the Rutgers you're used to seeing the past few years, as they lost a ton with the losses of Myles Johnson, Jacob Young and Montez Mathis. Those guys were such a big part of Rutgers' attitude, which was part of what made them good.
Rutgers is in a world of hurt right now, too. Geo Baker probably isn't playing, and even if he did I'm not sure the law of averages wouldn't have assured that he'd shoot the Knights right out of this game. For such a streaky player to have made so many big shots against Purdue, he was probably bound for a 5-of-27.
And a bunch of the rest of the team has the flu, so keep your distance.
To me, this is all about the avoidance of self-inflicted wounds by Purdue. If they don't beat themselves, they should win, maybe comfortably.
Three things ...
• Purdue simply has to take greater care with the ball. Everyone talks about the backcourt trap, but that was a fraction of Purdue's turnover problem against Iowa. If that problem is just a Iittle better off through the first 30 minutes, then the final 10 never get interesting.
Purdue's too good an offensive team to deny itself opportunities and not a good enough defensive team to compromise itself with offensive casualness.
Trevion Williams has to pick his battles wisely with some of his needle-threading, the guards have to be stronger with the ball, Zach Edey has to cut down the non-defensive fouls, etc. This team's turnover cushion should lie with feeding the post and with Jaden Ivey's aggressiveness. Everything needs to be minimized.
Tonight's more about Purdue in that regard than Rutgers.
• Ron Harper Jr. He is Rutgers' 4 man, making him sort of an even more skilled Ja'Sean Tate sort of player. That will be a lot to ask of Caleb Furst man to man, so it'll be interesting to see if Purdue switches things up from a defensive matchups perspective. Rutgers has a bunch of guys who can't shoot, so the potential option to hide someone on defense might be there, if that makes sense.
Watch Harper on the offensive glass, too. That in itself might be reason to keep Furst on him, because you know he'll keep a body on the guy.
• Get them in foul trouble. Rutgers has Clifford Omoruyi at center and that's pretty much it. If they can get into Rutgers' bench, this could be a long night for the, uh, Knights.
That's what I've got.
Thanks for reading, folks, and you can follow along in this thread or on Twitter at @brianneubert.
Full coverage to come tonight.
This is not the Rutgers you're used to seeing the past few years, as they lost a ton with the losses of Myles Johnson, Jacob Young and Montez Mathis. Those guys were such a big part of Rutgers' attitude, which was part of what made them good.
Rutgers is in a world of hurt right now, too. Geo Baker probably isn't playing, and even if he did I'm not sure the law of averages wouldn't have assured that he'd shoot the Knights right out of this game. For such a streaky player to have made so many big shots against Purdue, he was probably bound for a 5-of-27.
And a bunch of the rest of the team has the flu, so keep your distance.
To me, this is all about the avoidance of self-inflicted wounds by Purdue. If they don't beat themselves, they should win, maybe comfortably.
Three things ...
• Purdue simply has to take greater care with the ball. Everyone talks about the backcourt trap, but that was a fraction of Purdue's turnover problem against Iowa. If that problem is just a Iittle better off through the first 30 minutes, then the final 10 never get interesting.
Purdue's too good an offensive team to deny itself opportunities and not a good enough defensive team to compromise itself with offensive casualness.
Trevion Williams has to pick his battles wisely with some of his needle-threading, the guards have to be stronger with the ball, Zach Edey has to cut down the non-defensive fouls, etc. This team's turnover cushion should lie with feeding the post and with Jaden Ivey's aggressiveness. Everything needs to be minimized.
Tonight's more about Purdue in that regard than Rutgers.
• Ron Harper Jr. He is Rutgers' 4 man, making him sort of an even more skilled Ja'Sean Tate sort of player. That will be a lot to ask of Caleb Furst man to man, so it'll be interesting to see if Purdue switches things up from a defensive matchups perspective. Rutgers has a bunch of guys who can't shoot, so the potential option to hide someone on defense might be there, if that makes sense.
Watch Harper on the offensive glass, too. That in itself might be reason to keep Furst on him, because you know he'll keep a body on the guy.
• Get them in foul trouble. Rutgers has Clifford Omoruyi at center and that's pretty much it. If they can get into Rutgers' bench, this could be a long night for the, uh, Knights.
That's what I've got.
Thanks for reading, folks, and you can follow along in this thread or on Twitter at @brianneubert.
Full coverage to come tonight.
