Kudos to the team

[BBG]

First disclaimer: This thread is meant to be positive. A loss sucks but in my opinion you build more off of the negative while being positive (sorry for the early morning headspin) and note the good things you do. Seems like it has a "trickle down effect" as it were and on top of that, I highly ... HIGHLY doubt that we will even come close to how hard the team is being on themselves right now.

Second disclaimer: If you intent is to come to this thread and troll (I'm looking at you Kessel) or just post nothing but negativity, then this thread is not for you. The same and predictable back-and-forth that goes on here is tired and isn't constructive.

Okay sorry.. wanted to get that out of the way. So below are just a few of the points I noticed last night and wanted to get your thoughts and additions to the good things that happened so they can be built on going forward:

• Biggie: Other than a couple silly fouls, I thought he played up to his billing. He has some work to do yet, but this was a really good test to see how he would do against top talent and I think he delivered.
• Haas: He needs to learn to play "clean" probably more than anyone. When the officials are calling you for every little foul since they don't know how to deal with someone your size, you have to be smarter. It will come as he is the focus in the paint and he has to get used to playing without AJH.
• Spike: Glad he is on our team. We will need him as the season progresses.
  
• PJ: Right now he is much more improved than I thought he would be. That half-court shot was amazing and I thought he played pretty well last night
• Vince: Really needs to work on defense. He got burned quite a bit last night that led right to Haas getting a foul. He has a potent offense, but has work to do.
• Carsen: He made some freshmen mistakes, but I think will be everything we hope he will be
• Basil: Welcome back. We missed you.
• Dakota: I think he was a tad intimidated by Nova. Just my impression but he almost looked like he was trying too hard as opposed to just playing within himself.
• Cline: I really hope he learned his lesson. He was needed last night in a big game and because of a poor decision, he wasn't available.

And finally CMP. As I posted in the game thread, I had a friend that was close to the bench and was texting me off and on about how CMP was working the refs more than he had ever seen him. That is a good sign. I also think considering who he had available and the speed of the game, he coached a pretty good game. As a coach I imagine the best you can hope for in a game like last night is to do what you can to ensure your team is in a position to win and that is exactly what happened.

As forum posters, it is going to be easy for us to second guess everything... simply because we had the advantage of seeing it on TV and not having to make decisions both on and off the court in the heat of the moment. And I am not trying to beat my chest over a "moral victory", but we took the defending national champs to the wire while short handed. That says something about our team and I truly think good things will happen this year.

 

[SIBoiler2]

Haas needs to learn to play clean early. CMP might even want to consider setting him for the first 5 minutes to let the refs get their whistles off. Once the flow of the game is established he is a force and late in the game you saw the effects on 'Nova of having Biggie and Haas muscling you for over half the game and he was getting good position and easy looks. The game was there for us to take but 'Nova didn't make a lot of mistakes and later in the season I'm betting we see a lot few passes fly high and out of bounds on breakaways or entry passes. Free throws and turnovers cost us dearly but they can both be fixed.

 

[Kesselschmiede]

First disclaimer: This thread is meant to be positive. A loss sucks but in my opinion you build more off of the negative while being positive (sorry for the early morning headspin) and note the good things you do. Seems like it has a "trickle down effect" as it were and on top of that, I highly ... HIGHLY doubt that we will even come close to how hard the team is being on themselves right now.

Second disclaimer: If you intent is to come to this thread and troll (I'm looking at you Kessel) or just post nothing but negativity, then this thread is not for you. The same and predictable back-and-forth that goes on here is tired and isn't constructive.

Okay sorry.. wanted to get that out of the way. So below are just a few of the points I noticed last night and wanted to get your thoughts and additions to the good things that happened so they can be built on going forward:

• Biggie: Other than a couple silly fouls, I thought he played up to his billing. He has some work to do yet, but this was a really good test to see how he would do against top talent and I think he delivered.
• Haas: He needs to learn to play "clean" probably more than anyone. When the officials are calling you for every little foul since they don't know how to deal with someone your size, you have to be smarter. It will come as he is the focus in the paint and he has to get used to playing without AJH.
• Spike: Glad he is on our team. We will need him as the season progresses.
  
• PJ: Right now he is much more improved than I thought he would be. That half-court shot was amazing and I thought he played pretty well last night
• Vince: Really needs to work on defense. He got burned quite a bit last night that led right to Haas getting a foul. He has a potent offense, but has work to do.
• Carsen: He made some freshmen mistakes, but I think will be everything we hope he will be
• Basil: Welcome back. We missed you.
• Dakota: I think he was a tad intimidated by Nova. Just my impression but he almost looked like he was trying too hard as opposed to just playing within himself.
• Cline: I really hope he learned his lesson. He was needed last night in a big game and because of a poor decision, he wasn't available.

And finally CMP. As I posted in the game thread, I had a friend that was close to the bench and was texting me off and on about how CMP was working the refs more than he had ever seen him. That is a good sign. I also think considering who he had available and the speed of the game, he coached a pretty good game. As a coach I imagine the best you can hope for in a game like last night is to do what you can to ensure your team is in a position to win and that is exactly what happened.

As forum posters, it is going to be easy for us to second guess everything... simply because we had the advantage of seeing it on TV and not having to make decisions both on and off the court in the heat of the moment. And I am not trying to beat my chest over a "moral victory", but we took the defending national champs to the wire while short handed. That says something about our team and I truly think good things will happen this year.

I agree with all of your points and will stick to the ask for this thread and not call out people like I normally do.

Solid post BBG.

 

[Boiler Buck]

I liked the fight the team had. I also like the energy that BS brought into this game. Our size was just too much for them and their quickness too much for us so it was an interesting game to watch. A Purdue correction on the multiple consecutive wasted trips in the middle of the second half and the game goes the other way with a Purdue win. I agree that DM looked overwhelmed by V for about 3/4th of the game, but got that corrected toward the end.

 

[DG10]

First disclaimer: This thread is meant to be positive. A loss sucks but in my opinion you build more off of the negative while being positive (sorry for the early morning headspin) and note the good things you do. Seems like it has a "trickle down effect" as it were and on top of that, I highly ... HIGHLY doubt that we will even come close to how hard the team is being on themselves right now.

While it was not an intense press last night by Villanova, it was nonetheless a press and attempt to apply it, and Purdue seemed to handle it well for the most part...and far better that at any point a year ago, which was another positive certainly in my mind at least.

On the other hand, the two biggest weaknesses (and a couple of others that have haunted Purdue in the past at times...turnovers and free throws) were on display and likely will be unfortunately (no depth inside and an inability to contain dribble drive).

There were a lot of things to be at least cautiously optimistic about, if not excited about, coming out of the game...but, the two biggest concerns remain the two biggest concerns as well.

 

[IndySouthsider]

Seems basketball is simple. Make your FT and don't turn it over!

Aggressive doesn't mean careless.

 

[Dryfly88]

Basil played exactly the way we needed him to play. Without him last night that could have gotten ugly.

 

[dwhitebash11]

What I really like about this team is that it seems Painter is emphasizing a more fast paced offense off the miss or turnover. Last year and years prior, we were primarily a half court offense, but with the talent on the wings and guards position, Painter isn't afraid to give the reigns to the guards and let them make decisions off a miss. It's just new to these guys and we are still shaking off the rust, but the only way to really get better is to do it against teams like Nova. A few turnovers by on some of the fast breaks we had, Basil, CE, but I'm glad those guys were aggressive and took good calculated chances on the break. They just have to make better passes, simple as that. As long as they don't start doubting themselves, we should be fine. You have to have amnesia on turnovers like that, and games like that, which I believe this team will.

 

[SIBoiler2]

I thought Painter did one of his best coaching jobs last night. Working with foul trouble and substituting to use what he had to work with had a lot to do with how well we played one of the best teams in the country.

 

[BBG]

I thought Painter did one of his best coaching jobs last night. Working with foul trouble and substituting to use what he had to work with had a lot to do with how well we played one of the best teams in the country.

Agree. I hope he keeps it up as only good things should come from it.

 

[cprh9u]

I thought Painter coached a pretty good game. A few questionable things, but there will always be some in a loss.

I still think we will struggle against top competition because we do not have elite guards. We have some guards that can (at times) make shots and good decisions, but we don't have guys that can create their own shot or stay in front of other elite guards on D. Time will tell on CE, but even if he becomes that guy, we need more. Shame we didn't have just one of those guys last night playing instead of (insert name here) because that would have been big.

 

[TopSecretBoiler]

i thought CMP did well to manage the foul situation. Also thought our starters were better than their starters...even though they only played the first 3 minutes together. But I was pleasantly surprised by the start of the game. We can play with anybody.

 

[Boiler Wolf]

Good comments. I was surprised and pleased at how well we did against the Nova zone given difficulties against the zone historically. Defense looked great at times and terrible at others. Sometimes we forced Nova to take some bad shots. We allow the dribble penetration but that mostly Hart doing what he does. I think our guard play can and will get better.

 

[FirstDownB]

Last night's game is a perfect example of why you play games against opponents like this early in the season. IMO we need to be playing as many top non conference teams as will schedule us. You don't grow as a team by beating up on Southeastern West Virginia State. You grow by sorting through your strengths and weaknesses against various forms of stiff competition. How we are going to handle lack of front court depth, foul trouble, who are 'go to' guys in clutch situations.. all on display last night. Experiences like this will only help come March.