Last summer many had high expectations for this team based primarily on the fact that we had our entire "young" overachieving team back (13-6, 4th in B10) and we had two top 50 freshmen coming in.
Fast forward to today. We finished slightly better than last year at 14-6 and 3rd in the B10. Should this have been a surprise?
A few red flags early on for me:
Fast forward to today. We finished slightly better than last year at 14-6 and 3rd in the B10. Should this have been a surprise?
A few red flags early on for me:
- Painter came out this summer and said that Williams and Edey couldn't play together. Obviously not good that two of our best three players can't be on the floor more than 40 minutes.
- TKR redshirt. Obviously we weren't getting a boost here.
- IT starting at the beginning of the year. Had IT improved that much? Turns out, not really.
- Furst unable to hold on to starting job and actually lost minutes to Morton at the 4.. Gillis is good but his per 40's are only slightly better than last year so we didn't end up with a significant upgrade at the 4 which was perceived to be one of Purdue's weaknesses last year.
- Newman not able to challenge Sasha for starting position. This didn't just develop the second half of the season. Newman only played 10 and 12 minutes vs UNC and Villanova.
- Morton is Morton. He plays good defense and doesn't make a lot of mistakes but his lack of offensive productivity wasn't solely the result of mono.