Purdue looked slow, undertalented and not prepared this evening. The Ostrich and Smooge were both no-shows for about 3/4 of the contest and the surrounding cast, save Calasan seemed to be pretty ineffective. Painter's squad looks to be little more than a pretender, at this point...and reminds me of the team that lost to Wofford last December, not the one that made the impressive February run.I'm deflated, and I'm in the Northeast on business...can't imagine how I'd feel right now had I paid too much to watch the game in the friendly confines.
There's a lot of work to be done...and at this point, I'd pick against Purdue for a Big Ten title as aOSU looks impressive, MSU seems to be a typicall Izzo team, Minnesota is a solid young squad and Wisconsin is always in the mix. This game was reminiscent of the performances of Keady's last season in W. Laf...Hopefully this will be a sobering learning tool that Painter can use to motivate our Boilers...another one will be the fact that they'll barely be ranked in the top-25 come Monday.
As the old ad campaign said, "Big Stage, Tiny Result."
Duke and K can still suck it.
18 comments:
From Section 115, we clearly are not ready for a top ten team. Top 20, probably. The crowd was deflated early and often, which I think had a huge impact on our young team.
We were wayyy too timid on offense in a game where the refs were calling everything. If our guards had been more aggressive and taken it to the hoop we could've gotten a foul called nearly every time.
E'twaun's defense is especially troubling. Grant's defense and offense has struggled as of late. I feel we force shots too much. We need a few set plays to fall back to when nothing is being created from the motion.
Bottom line, the Oklahoma loss looks like a mini 'Fumble,' but I'm confident these guys can pull out of it. It just sucks we missed two huge opportunities.
BTFU, fuck Duke!
As shitty as we looked tonight, a lot of it can be attributed to Duke being a really good team. They shot very well, played solid D, rebounded aggressively, and didn't make mistakes. Flipping back and forth between our game and the Minnesota game and watching other Big Ten / ACC highlights, I could tell that our game was a great team beating a good team, while the rest of the games didn't really show anything impressive.
I think when the conference season rolls around we'll be alright and well tested. Don't give up on this Purdue team yet.
-We are good team, just not 'top 10 good.'
-Our shot selection is awful. Kramer, Calasan, and Johnson should not be shooting as much as they are. We need to pass the ball around and get open looks for Hummel, Moore, and Grant. That is when we are successful.
-Sure would be nice to have Zeller or Harangody inside.
-Singler is pretty good.
-Who knows what would have happened if Duke didn't take the crowd out of the game so early. That hurt.
The lack of presence of an inside game is hurting us in more ways than not. We are getting killed on the boards and when the shots aren't falling, a big man would be a nice option. We don't need a star in the paint, but we don't need our big men standing outside the 3 point line either. Teams can play tough premiter defense because these boilers don't threaten paint. Not with a big man or dribble penetration.
We may not shoot that bad the rest of the season, but we may not shoot as good as we did last year either.
Did anyone else watching this on ESPN get tired of Vitale dry-humping Coach K and the Duke Bball program?!
I toughed it out until midway through the second half, then I simply couldn't take anymore - I listened to the rest of the game on the radio.
Purdue had an unbelievably bad night shooting. What worries me is that shooting was an admitted concern early in the season.
Also, can we PLEASE spread the Paint Crew out along the floor ala the Izzone in Lansing? It must be discouraging to scream your lungs out from the rafters while the aging "John Purdue Club" crowd sits on their hands, or golf claps.
"Did anyone else watching this on ESPN get tired of Vitale dry-humping Coach K and the Duke Bball program?!"
Yes. I had to mute it several times. I noticed about halfway through the 2nd half that Vitale would talk ad nauseum about the virtues of Duke. Then they'd have a turnover, and I'd wait for the customary, "Looks like Paulus didn't know where he wanted to go with that pass." Nope. Just silence as the play-by-play guy gave him a chance and then they'd resume talking about what gift from God that Coach K is. Seriously, NBC's ND football coverage thinks Vitale should ease up.
Anyway, yeah, I don't know if I can chalk this up to being just a bad night. I thought the guys were timid and I think that could be a result of the foul & free throw disparity of the last game. Just one of those regulation free throws doesn't go down last Friday and Purdue wins. It had to be on their minds. Most troubling was how WIDE OPEN their shooters were.
And Kyle Singler, you played great, but you are truly an ugly, ugly person. Geico would like to contact you about some sponsorship opportunities.
Anyone else troubled by how our defense is a shell of last years?
Re: the comment about Kramer, Calasan and JJ shooting too much...
I think they were forced to last night, and that it was part of Duke's strategy. What I saw was that Duke realized that if they locked down on the other scoring options, we had no one else that could score effectively/consistently. On more than one occasion it was like Duke was just daring Kramer to try to score, and he just flat out won't/can't. I love the way he plays, but IMO he is one of the keys to our success the rest of the season - we have to keep opponents honest by having legit scoring threats outside of Hummel and Smooge.
Our poor shooting last night is mostly the product of the defense Duke played. When a team guards that well it throws you off your rhythm and also makes you expend so much energy advancing the ball or getting open that when you do get an open shot you just don't have your normal feel. We never got any "flow" offensively.
Dowd's opening comment is the key. We were much slower than Duke at both ends. They got easy dribble penetration and we got none or else got it but heavily contested in traffic. Everything else flows from that. They got to the basket (and made their layups) or dished for wide open threes which they hit. When they missed we were not in box out position too often because we we were helping out on the driver.
I am concerned with the nu8mber of players who are beating us off the dribble this year. That plagued us at the end of Keady's tenure but Painter's teams have improved until this year in this facet of the game.
I am also concerned with Grant's play. Poor shooting (he's rushing most of his threes) and very poor decisions with the ball. We need better out a junior point guard.
Calasan can stop taking threes although his play in these two losses is one of the bright spots.
Kramer looks like he is shot putting his pull up jumpers in the lane. He needs to get get the ball in shooting position and then flick his wrist like a jump shot.
Jury is out on how good this team is going to be. I think we can be good in conference but stronger and faster teams out of conference are going to be tough for us.
I watched the whole game - first one this year I've been able to see. Not so good. Even if the offense isn't there, this team should be able to play defense, and they weren't.
The start of the game saw Vitale heaping plenty of praise on both teams. At some point he started talking about his book, then he wouldn't shut up about it as Purdue made a few good plays. It was at that point that I put the TV on mute and just watched in silence as a flat team got beat by a team that has confidence streaming out of its arse.
I dislike Duke and Coach Krysitichryincshieski with a burning rage, but they were the better team last night.
I noticed three significant problems:
1. Offense could not produce
2. Defense was spotty
3. A lot of turnovers
I am convinced we were actually fielding the football team last night.
As was pointed out in the telecast, the Boilers had a terrible night and nothing was working and yet they were still in the game for most of it. An awful first half could have been even closer than the 8 point lead for Duke if only one or two bad breaks hadn't gone against the Boilers. And the second half, while the offense was anemic it appeared, the Boilers did create turnovers and ran in transition a number of times only to miss layups, etc. Just a few of those go down and the crowd is pumped and the team is in it.
All of that on a night when nothing was going right and the team didn't seem in sync at all. Sure, if this kind of stuff continues, it'll be a long, disappointing season... but if it's truly an off-night, things will improve. Painter will see to it.
I'll have my wrap later tonight, but this mostly sucked the phat one. It's a shame, the crowd was absolutely electric to start. It gave me that tingly feeling you get when something great is about to happen.
yes, we were collectively blue-balled last night
Travis, seriously, you need to discuss with your wife. ;-)
I'll also go ahead and disagree with B-dowd that they'll barely be in the top 25 on Monday. They were #10, so I see them dropping to maybe 18. A few solid rebound wins and it's back in the top 15 for conference season.
Frankly, though, who cares about ranking right now? Let's run through the Big Ten and make noise there.
Taking care of business against Davidson is also now paramount.
games like this are why preseason polls don't matter.
I honestly think Painter needs to shake up his starting lineup for a number of reasons.
A) Every game this year has had some lackluster opening stretch that allows Coppin St. to hang or Duke to run away.
B) Whatever JJ brings in size isn't translating into rebounds so why not try LewJack's speed or Calasan's inside-outside potential.
And C) we've got Arkansas: Pine-Bluff next. Why not experiment?
Another thought: I was at Mackey last night. If you're in the Paint Crew and know who threw that shit on the floor at the end of the game, kick his ass. If it was you, go fuck yourself. We may have been losers last night, but we are not trash.
These thoughts and more brought to you by BadIdeaBlueJeans.blogspot.com.
I like the idea of starting Calasan assuming we can get him to really work the low post. He seems to be able to play bigger more than JJ.
No matter who's playing, I think we need to make more of a conscious effort to work the ball inside. I understand that our motion offense utilizes a lot of off ball screens but it's hard to crash the boards when your tallest player is setting screens at the foul line. When JJ got position in the lane he managed to get some good looks. Even if the "big" guys don't get a clean look, it's usually enough to draw a double team and makes the kickout that much more dangerous.
Starting Lewjack against A-PB might be a good idea. I don't think the college game has slowed down enough for him. The more experience we can get him, the better he's going to be. My only concern is that he gets away with things against the Eastern Michigans of the world that Duke or even B10 teams will seize on.
All that said, it's only been 7 games. I think we're pretty fortunate. Our weaknesses were exposed in the first week of December. There's still plenty of time to tweak between now and March.
Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains.
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