There's definitely some areas Purdue could get better in.
-Turnovers is a big question mark. Purdue definitely improved on this, but had some lapses. And obviously the PG spot is one of potentially 2 question marks going into next year personnel wise. One interesting thing about Octeus is that he really wasn't that great of an assist guy. He only had 89 assists on the season (2.6/game), while Davis had 88 and Edwards had 90.
One thing about this Purdue team that's slightly different than previous years is that we played very good defense, but did not force a lot of turnovers. But I'd also point out that it's probably better overall defense. I think as players continue to develop their defense, they can learn how they can force more turnovers. I think a guy like Kendall Stephens has great potential with this - he's improved so much defensively and his length is a huge advantage for him.
As for shooting percentage, I think there's a few factors and things to point out. First off, Purdue had 3 players in the top 15 in the Big Ten in shooting percentage.
-Obviously Raphael went from a guy that people said couldn't score to draining 3s and being the leading scorer multiple games. Raphael ended up shooting 45.5% from the floor, not bad.
-We all know that Stephens/Mathias have tremendous potential from 3. Stephens had an injury he was battling for a lot of the season. Mathias was adjusting to the college game. We saw with Ryne Smith how at first he didn't seem like that good of a 3 point shooter, but by the time he started to get comfortable (with him it took much longer than Mathias), he was much more consistent later on. Stephens ended up shooting 38% from 3 (quite good) and the weird stat for him is that his 2 point FG percentage was lower than his 3. But it was nice to see him work on non-3 point shots and he'll continue to do so.
-Vince is a guy who just did not get the recognition he deserved. He shot 48% on the season, 79% free throw shooter and shot 33% from 3. Obviously the 3 point line is where he could get more consistent. And he is a guy who needs to flat out be shooting more. As a freshman, he was 12th in the Big Ten in FG %. There's only 1 other freshman in the top 15 (Tate).
-AJ shot 54% from the floor - which is not that great for an "under the basket" offensive player. Haas had nearly the same percentage. This would probably be one of his "knocks" with NBA scouts - Kaminsky has a better FG percentage and Kaminsky took 90+ threes. If AJ returns, his goal should be to be one of the top 3 in the Big Ten in FG percentage.
