Purdue moves to 5-0 in the Big Ten.
Today’s postgame video post is a little late today, as I scalped a couple tickets and took my son up at the last minute this morning. It marked the first time in probably more than a decade that I have been to Mackey solely as a fan instead of sitting with the media, and it was a damn lot of fun.
On to my LIVE thoughts after driving back to Indy:
- What an afternoon for Braden Smith, who almost certainly locked up another Big Ten Player of the Week award. His scoring kept Purdue afloat as the offense struggled somewhat in the first half. In the second it was like he decided to assault the assists record. The 14 dimes today gives him 914 total on the year and moved him to 14th on the all-time Division I list. It also tied his season high.
- Thanks, Wisconsin! The people sitting around us in section 111 appreciated the final minutes of that one on my phone.
- It has to be nice to be CJ Cox, who gets to shoot wide open corner threes all the time in this offense.
- A very gritty 23 point game today from Oscar Cluff, who did a lot of great work on the offensive glass. With TKR having a down scoring day that was big.
- Penn State, with one of its top players out, played about as well as they possibly good. Purdue’s defense wasn’t great, but the Nittany Lions were shooting north of 60% for most of the day and if not for some late steals and runouts this could have been really different.
- The bench was kind of light today, scoring just four points and two on a steal and score from Gicarri Harris. Four starters in double figures helps a lot there.
- I am usually not one for advanced stats, but a 14:1 assist-to-turnover ratio for Braden might be good. In fact, Purdue had just three turnovers. It’s a testament to how well Penn State was playing that this did not become a blowout, because the Purdue offense got enough open looks to score well over 100.
- Purdue was outrebounded 28-27. That’s concerning, but the Nittany Lions do have some size.
- We’re at the quarter pole in the Big Ten race and we’re one of two teams on top at 5-0. Even better, Michigan took a bad loss at home. The only way the day would have been better is if Indiana could have held on agaisnt Nebraska, but you can’t expect football schools to hang on against top 10 teams.
- That last sentence is really, really weird.
Matt Painter
Oscar Cluff, Fletcher Loyer, Braden Smith
Category: General Sports
