I wouldn't even say we were very "smash mouth". We were more victims of it in the back court, particularly. In November and December our guards and forwards were getting to the basket in space. Eventually, teams adjusted to Edey and packed the lane which shut down any drives to the basket. From there, the weakness in outside shooting became apparent and never really went away. Eventually, teams also started getting physical with our young guards and finally just let everyone have whatever they wanted from the outside. Gillis had a game with 9 threes but otherwise, it was pretty paltry from the outside. Dealing with the press also became an issue as Smith, the freshman guard, is the only true ball handler on the team. It was concerning but I didn't think it would quite lead to the disaster of tonight.Has to be frustrating watching your team bow out early in the tourney every year. The high points have yielded nothing for the team. I have watched your team do well in the B1G for several years, but fail on the big stage. How much of this is on the style of play? It seems the B1G rewards those teams playing smash mouth, but when it comes to the tourney this all goes out the window and the teams playing that way fail.
Interested to see what the PU fans think…
...and Edey is so good, the team was still good enough to finish out the Big Ten title and tournament. I don't care if he was double-teamed all night, Edey vs. 2 is better odds than our 5-26 supporting cast from 3. I don't know what the players or coaches were thinking tonight.
Ironically, several years back when Purdue had a 2 or 3 seed I remember feeling relieved because I just knew we would be the first 1 to lose to a 16. We're lucky Virginia beat us to the punch.