Purdue tried to play small at the 5 last year. They gave up 98 points to Kansas. Having a traditional big offers rim protection. That's why NBA teams use bigs who are virtually useless on offense. Haas is dominant on offense. He'll start and play close to 30 minutes per game unless Haarms or Jacquil exceed expectations.
I think the biggest decision is for Painter to finally use a zone defense.
Not the zone defense topic again...
Guys, we are NOT playing some. This group of seniors have played man their whole career at Purdue, Painter is not changing that in their senior year. We have some of the better man defenders in the conference, on our team, starting with Dakota.
Besides, idk if you watch some of the games with Haas at the 5 last year against a 5 who could somewhat shoot the 3, but he basically played an interior zone against those guys anyway while the rest of our team manned up. Painter won't have Haas on the perimeter, he'd rather lose a game because a below average big man 3pt shooter was going off behind the arc, than get eaten up inside because Haas is on the perimeter.