Don't think this team will look past them at all
I'm actually glad it's NC State
- Thread starter BBG
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Completely agree. From the SS on any team left in the tournament was capable of beating Purdue under the right set of circumstances. I suspect that the pumpkin comes out on Saturday but this Purdue team has done a great job of worrying about themselves and taking care of business.
Pack fan here, He played 42 minutes vs Oakland.
That was pretty wild. He looked like he felt fine in OT too.
In what I've seen, he does seem like he "conserves energy" on the defensive end at times. But dude can play.
For anyone who wants a solid scouting report ahead of Saturday's game
Already had agreement with this earlier, but he said NCS played one on one all year in the post D. Was that a figure of speech or does he actually watch all those games? Does he do this for other schools to see what they have done all year or just Purdue games generally? I can't imagine all the time he must spend
Not sure I know the answer but Joe has been doing breakdowns of Purdue games since last season. He graduated last spring I believe and works on a podcast now.
I don’t know if he watched every NC State game or just looked at statistics and data to figure it out. Maybe he reached out to another blogger who covers NC State to get info? Who knows, not me for sure.
He is fun to follow as he has expanded to covering more teams than just Purdue. Did a lot of previews for other Big Ten teams in the tourney as well.
I am amazed that he knows the different names of the sets and plays we run. It is like a foreign language to me…
I can’t answer how much time Joe spends, but I can say that he does a great job! I enjoy his scouting reports and post game breakdowns.
Stand corrected, it seems he does if he has to, once this year. I am sure he will be willing to go 40 if needed, but I wonder if he will be tired after all the media interviews this week. Instant national star! Seems like a good kid.
This team is full of heart and grit. Each player has fully bought into doing whatever it takes. The Team reaps the rewards. We don’t have the greatest talent, but the result is much greater than the sum of the parts.
It is a VERY OLD mature team that seems to have a couple of players that can get into the mid range and make it...a very good passing big that is crafty and skilled and a very good rebounder. Horne is good. It is one game...if it were several I think Purdue wins most. I think Purdue wins this, but when you have very mature ball players on their last hurrah...I've seen this scenario before. Purdue has a lot of offensive weapons, but the team overall is young and individual D sometimes is lacking and NCS which has about 2/3 the assists Purdue has says that NCS gets a decent share on individual play. Guessing that Lance on Horne is possibly more important than the Zach/Burns issue since Zach is pretty predictable. If Lance does a good job on Horne that will be huge. I'm sure the best perimeter D player (Moresell?) is on Braden or who usually guards the PG?
Morsell is our best on ball defender. But we switch a lot. We have several guys that are great defenders. Taylor, O’Connell and Horne have the lateral quickness to play great defense. Thats been the biggest change. We are dialed in on d. We’ve held teams way below their shooting percentages during this run. That’s not just luck, as the Marquette fans cried.
You are probably switching a lot because you 1) don't want to place Burn's defending all the time by helping out 2) just to stay in front of players. Purdue switches a lot as well for similar reasons. Marquette depends on the 3 much more than Purdue. Purdue has the capability to be as effective behind the arc as Marquette due to "mostly" Zach kicking it out, but could still be comparable due to Braden or another perimeter player penetrating and kicking, but the Zach feeds either have the perimeter D looking to see what Zach is doing after the pass or having the eyes totally on the perimeter players they are defending. Purdue does not have to shoot a lot of 3s to win, but is capable of making them. Both teams never got here by smoke and mirrors and so both teams are good or at least playing well right now.
Excited to see how this game shakes out. I think (hope) that NC State is a better matchup for Purdue than UT was, but anyone who thinks that NC State isn't at least as good as Gonzaga, who gave Purdue trouble, or that they can't beat Purdue, isn't paying attention.
I think Purdue wins but they're going to have to play very well to do so.
Tend to agree northside100.....can understand Purdue being the favorite, and it probably is a better match-up than others - but not all. Boilers definitely have their work cut out for them to refocus and play a darn good team playing well and with confidence. No easy task on Saturday.....and that's not even getting into the venue issues and the potential crowd effect.
The last of the three two-game tournaments starts Saturday - uncharted waters for many......
We shall see....
The problem with Burns on Edey is if Burns fronts Edey the Alley oop from Smith is a given. If he plays behind him than the option is as usual. Double Edey and kick it out.
One on one and Edey will feast over Burns.
Defensively Burns can give Edey trouble, IMO.
NC State fan here.
A lot of people are just looking at the results, seeing that the Wolfpack lost 14 games this year and saying that it's commensurate with a #11 seeding. However, I watched all of those games, and I can tell you that the Wolfpack had a double-digit lead in quite a few of those losses. The biggest difference is that throughout this run, the players are not making the same poor decisions during crucial moments that they did during the regular season. The talent was always there, but they were beating themselves in a lot of those games.
With that being said, I don't think we have much of a chance against this great Purdue team, who will clearly be the best opponent we've played this year. We do have a "puncher's chance", and if our perimeter players can hit a high percentage of their shots it might be possible to pull the upset, although unlikely.
You won't find any (rational) Purdue fan that doesn't think you guys can win. You wouldn't be this far if you couldn't seeding be damned.
It will be interesting to see how our coach Painter plays you on defense to avoid getting fouls called on Zach. Zach has experience playing with someone like Burns already so his spin moves won't be a surprise, but it has been a bit since then.
The key for us will be limiting turnovers and hitting 3s. We aren't currently showing the best 3 point percentage in the country right now, but the ability is most certainly there. But if those aren't falling and Zach gets a quick foul or two.. then the landscape of the game changes .. a lot.
There is no way that anyone is going to stop Zach, or even slow him down to any degree. He is a great player who is going to score 30 or 40 points in this game. I think that Kevin Keatts recognizes this, and he is going to stay focused on instructing his team to continue to play the suffocating defense that has resulted in every team shooting well below their season average throughout this tournament. Make life extremely difficult for the other 4 players on the court with Zach, and do the best you can against him. That's the only way we have a prayer in this game, and our players will have to shoot at a high percentage also for this to happen.
Don't think he is quick enough to front and Zach will push him up high and get fed along the baseline...which will allow Diarra to help and then is it Mason in the corner or Trey....or Purdue feeds Trey with Burns fronting Zach with great board position which would be fine. Need someone quicker to front in my mind. Zach will score with no challenge unless Burns really pushes Zach and the refs let it go. If Zach has Burns he just has to be smart and not take a chance at a foul. He starts out 7 inches taller with his hands straight up adding more length leaving the left handed jump hook. Burn's affect should be at least 10 points less than Zachs...now what about Horne who may be the bigger need to stop
I'm more concerned about NCS mid range game than the 3 ball. I may be wrong, but suspect Purdue tries to run NCS off the 3 ball which has them going into the lane where Zach may or may not be. It appears that NCS wants to defend the 3 ball more so than the 2. NCS will not get overlooked by Purdue. Purdue is fully aware that if they don't bring it, they go home. What NCS has that Purdue doesn't is a very OLD team with more mature bodies should the refs allow more physical play overall.
I think that NC St indeed has a chance but Purdue when things are firing on cylinders will be pretty difficult to beat. I think they present some challenges for us and our D is going to be very important in getting a win
Agree on the last point. Making shots to set up defense always helps. Tennessee shot 70% from three early on set up their great defense and they were up 12. The law of averages on shooting clicked in and the lead was down to two in a matter of minutes. What folks don’t know is that despite Edey being so big, Purdue will run off a miss if the maestro Braden Smith sees the opportunity to get up court and get it to the right player for a layup or wide open three. Also, speedster Lance Jones will sometimes go coast to coast off a miss.
It's certainly possible and I'd say that NCST has better than a puncher's chance.
There's a reason that Purdue is favored. Aside from UNC and UT, you haven't played anyone the quality of Purdue. Duke is talented but seriously flawed and Marquette didn't play its best basketball after the Kolek injury. Purdue is beatable if you turn them over, particularly if the TO's lead to points the other way, and shoot well. NCST is capable of doing those things.
On a normal day Purdue is the best shooting team behind the arc. NCS knows that and so like Tenn will want to put pressure on Purdue perimeter AND trying to push Zach out when low and perhaps in drop (or huge sag) when Zach is setting screens. This is where Trey or Mason having a really good game is enough difference by its self as well as Braden hitting his mid range game. I think their guards are similar size to Purdue and Zach may wall up for a couple of drives by Braden. There are so many ways can win this if they don't turn it over and play D well. The effort will be there...and I expect the focus as well. AS long as both teams play typical Purdue should get out with a W, but not get out with a bad game. Bring the D and boards...you can always have effort
Yep. I heard one of the talking heads the other day say that Purdue has yet to lose a game when Purdue played well. One of Painter's favorite talking points this year to his team is the only people than beat Purdue on that day are in this room (meaning the Purdue locker room).
If Purdue takes care of the ball, plays with max effort (and therefore dominates the glass), I think UConn is the only team in the country that can match up. It doesn't mean we can't lose to a hot shooting team or if we are ice cold but it's unlikely. I'm not really concerned about the effort so turnovers are far and away the biggest key IMO.
Yup, you can always give max effort. Our effort on D is what kept us in the game against Duke in the first half. Earlier in the year, that’s a 15 point loss.
NCST gave up a bunch of midrange stuff against Duke. Braden should have a good game.
One other thing to keep in mind is the officials, if the guessing is right and we have Anderson AND Green along with Ayers, that will heavily favor NC State.
I think NCST is very much like Gonzaga. I think the results will be similar. A tough close game, but eventually foul trouble on a team that only runs 7 guys meaningful time will cause them problems just like Gonzaga.
Any word on if Dennis Parker might be available? Looks like you just go 7 deep without him. That could be problematic if we get you in foul trouble.
We've only gone 7.5 deep in the tournament as it's less of an issue with long timeouts but helps knowing we've got another 3 guys who have played important minutes and had success if we need them.
Didn't notice that until you said it. It is a little easier to play more minutes in the tournament because of the longer timeouts. Even CMP has alluded to that. I saw that Diarra and Middlebrooks BOTH fouled out of that game but I don't remember when.
Diarra fouled out with about 3 minutes left in regulation and Middlebrooks fouled out with about 4 minutes left in OT.
The biggest difference there is Oakland's post player was 6'9, 220 and not much of a scoring threat. So Burns will have to work harder against Purdue.
And the extra minutes were probably based on them getting their 2nd foul....then their 3rd....then their 4th.
The three bigs (Burns/Diarra/Middlebrook) will be under more stress in this game than any they have encountered in their playing career I expect. Today, most teams just don't have to defend the post like they do against Purdue.
NC State is on a great run, no doubt about that. But I think we tend to give so much credence to this recent run versus who they have been the whole season. These are the same players and coaches that were on their way to the NIT (maybe) and their coach on the verge of being fired. Could they win Saturday? Of course, it's a one game scenario, anything is possible.
But this is the type game that we need to simply play to our averages. We don't need any super human game by Zach and we don't need to hit 50% from 3. We just need to do what we do at the level that we normally do them at and we win this game.
Being a 9.5 point favorite in the FF, tells you how much this is true. Upsets happen, but I don't see this as a game that we need to do anything other than execute what we do and we win.
I'm guilty of oversimplifying things (lord knows my wife tells me that enough) but I see this game as simple as this: Keep Zach out of foul trouble and limit TO's to 10 or less. If those 2 things happen, I think we win. Our offense is so efficient, if we don't turn it over, I don't think they can score with us.
Not cocky, but confident.
But this is the type game that we need to simply play to our averages. We don't need any super human game by Zach and we don't need to hit 50% from 3. We just need to do what we do at the level that we normally do them at and we win this game.
Being a 9.5 point favorite in the FF, tells you how much this is true. Upsets happen, but I don't see this as a game that we need to do anything other than execute what we do and we win.
I'm guilty of oversimplifying things (lord knows my wife tells me that enough) but I see this game as simple as this: Keep Zach out of foul trouble and limit TO's to 10 or less. If those 2 things happen, I think we win. Our offense is so efficient, if we don't turn it over, I don't think they can score with us.
Not cocky, but confident.
That was against Virginia, and our neighbors just down the road in Chapel Hill have been pointing that out relentlessly. I guess sitting at home with a lot of free time on their hands affords them that opportunity.
The irony is, we can do the same thing with their beloved Dean Smith's two national championships. In 1982, if Georgetown's Fred Brown doesn't pass the ball to UNC's James Worthy at the end of the game, there's a very good chance that Dean Smith doesn't get his first national championship. And in 1993, if Michigan's Chris Webber doesn't call a timeout near the end of the game (when they don't have any remaining) and gets a technical foul called, there's a very good chance that Dean Smith doesn't get his second national championship.
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I feel the opposite. I give much more credence to how teams are playing down the stretch. It can take guys time to gel together. Guys can come back from injury (or be knocked out by injury). What happened in November and December matter, but not as much as what happened in February and March IMO.
Every team is good that reaches the Final 4. But I agree even if Purdue were to lose. Purdue is in a much better situation playing NC State than Duke or Houston. If Houston had not lost their star early in the DUKE game. The likely opponent would have been Houston. Purdue would not be favored by 8.5 pts with the high ken pom win favorability right now versus Houston or Duke.
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