A Beautiful Body Catches the Committee's Eye (and notes)

Leading up to the selection of this year's NCAA tournament, we heard that the last ten games of the season wasn't as important as the entire body of work. But, as a Purdue fan, you couldn't help but wonder how important the last two games would be in the minds and hearts of those who decided our Boilers fate.

I've tried to think about what happened in Iowa City and then Indianapolis...I've looked at it passionately and in a completely-biased manner and tried to separate myself and view as an outsider might. The latter led me to ask one main question:

-Does a team that plays dominant defense simply forget how to play that part of the game?

The answer of course is no. And I believe the committee thought the same way. As a result, JJ, Smooge and Co. take one more step forward and land Purdue at a 3 seed just two hours North of West La La in Chicago. In my mind, it couldn't be much better the way Purdue finished.

I've heard it said that instead of being overwhelmed by the scope of the entire tournament, it's best to break it down to a few smaller weekend tourneys. So here's Purdue's first tournament this coming weekend in Chicago:

This mini-tourney looks pretty winnable to me. Obviously, Georgetown jumps off the page right away as the team in the way of getting out of the weekend, but before the second round, Purdue will play a team that I have never seen play a game. If you're like me, you want to get a little educated before Friday...so here goes.

Knows nothing about Purdue

St. Peter's College comes to the big dance by way of the MAAC, like Purdue's first round opponent in last year's tourne, Sienna (they miss Coach Fran, by the way). They've been to the NCAA tournament twice ('91 v. Texas, '95 v. UMAss) but have never won a game in the tourney. They finished in the upper middle of the conference, but obviously won the conference tourney (they upset Iona in the Championship). As little as I know about them, their coach, Jon Dunne, might know about the same about Purdue.

"Hopefully the staff has started watching film already, because we know nothing about Purdue"

That sounds like a good start for Purdue. Dunne's team thought they'd be a 15 seed and that they'd be playing UConn, UNC or another team that they had actually watched on TV...but instead, they end up playing some small school that no one knows about from Indiana (where is that anyway??).

St. Peter's Wesley Jenkins

They started off the season 0-3 as their leading scorer, Wesley Jenkins, couldn't play due to injury for nearly two months of this season. They don't have a win versus an RPI top-50 team and their best win of the season was their final game of the MAAC tourney as they beat the 70th-ranked Iona Gaels.

Their starting line-up has a pair of 6'7" forwards, one of them, Ryan Bacon, leads the team with 7.5 reb/gm. Their PG, Nick Leon, leads them in assists (3.1/gm). The guy who might create the most problems for Purdue is the 6'2" Wesley Jenkins who is a four years starter. Along with Jenkins, the Peacocks start two other Seniors and a pair of Sophomores. Their rotation is typically 8-deep and their Seniors play more than anybody.

They consider themselves a "scrappy" team that isn't fun to watch...something we Purdue fans can appreciate since Matty's squad has looked like that from time-to-time. They're a stout defensive team as they allow only 59.9 pts/gm (12th)...but at the same time, they struggle offensively scoring only 61.4 (315th).

We'll give our opinion on the match-up as the week progresses...you can draw your own conclusions for now.

Purdue ended the season with a CCR of 9.7.

Other Notes

Purdue is 11-5 versus the 9 teams they played during the season that made the tourney. And judging by MSU's seeding (10), they needed the throttling they gave to Purdue on Friday to get into the dance. The highest-seeded tourney opponent Purdue played is of course the number one overall aOSU Buckeyes. The lowest seeded is the 14th seeded Sycamores from ISU.

The most-surprising snub of this year's bracket to me is St. Mary's. They had wins over St. John's and Gonzaga, and were ranked for big chunks of the season. But a low RPI (45) and a ton of teams in that range probably forced them out.

From the Purdue family, Kevin Stallings Vandy squad got a 5 seed, Lavin's St. John's Red Storm landed at 6, Weber's Illini got a 9 seed. Cuonzo Martin's Missouri State team will be hosting Murray State in the NIT.

My favorite matchup of the entire first round is Kentucky v. Princeton. I love it when the tourney committee gets creative in their matchups. Go Tigers.

Join the BS Bracket Extravaganza!!

Boilers, As Always, Make It Interesting

As you know if you read this site, your Boilermakers held off a brick-throwing rally by the Northern Iowa Panthers yesterday to win their 11th straight first round NCAA game, 61-56 in Portland.

I spent the game doing a "liveblog" for Deadspin which, I have to tell you, is a little nerve-wracking, even for a handsome, James Bond lookalike such as myself.

At first, I couldn't get the stuff to publish as I was allowed access in the morning to test it out. And then, as gametime approached, my MMOD feed kept buffering, like, every 15 seconds. Not good. And then when I finally got the Purdue-UNI game up in front of me, the audio was from.... the Tampa Bay Rays preseason baseball game. Seriously, CBS? How does that happen? It was back when you'd sometimes get crossed phone lines (the readers under 30 are saying, "wait, crossed what now?")

The rest of the feed came in decently until, predictably, I lost the feed with 46 seconds to go in the game and when it came back all jumbled, the score had changed. Awesome when you're literally providing the game action for people who can't watch. The good news is there were 3500 view of the post and so if you're here because you linked over from Deadspin, welcome. We're a little nicer here. But not much.

As for the Boilermakers, when they came out of the gate playing well, with JJ and E'Twaun looking sharp, I -- like all of you, I'm sure -- felt good. And taking a 32-20 halftime lead when Robbie was doing almost nothing was also a nice feeling. But for as much as Dan Bonner and Kevin Harlan of CBS were talking about how badly UNI was getting outplayed, they'd had it a single-digit game until just before the half. And so yeah, they weren't playing well, but it wasn't a blowout. And that worried me.

I spoke to Boilerdowd at the half and he said I had nothing to be worried about. UNI looked slow and unable to run with the Boilers. They were also having every shot contested and were being pressured starting 25 feet from the basket -- something they did not look accustomed to. I was openly wondering why they weren't just tossing it down low to their 7'1" 290 lb tree, Jordan Eglseder. 'Dowd pointed out, astutely, that JJ's arms are too long to allow that. But JJ was outweighed by 75 lbs. Still, I will admit, I did feel that even though we weren't blowing them out, there was no way a defense-minded team like the Boilermakers should lose a game when leading by 12 with 20 minutes to go.

And then our streakiness came back. The cold shooting in the second half was jarring. Purdue could hit nothing, and it was made more jarring by the fact that the Boilermakers continued to outrebound UNI and caused quite a few turnovers. Converting those into no points is a bad, bad trend. It gives the opponent hope and allows them to relax a little.

In the end, UNI really wasn't a very good team but Purdue did what they've done too often this season and played to their level, seeming to lack that killer instinct to crush a team that is wobbling on the ropes. This will not do against a team like Washington.

More to come...

The New Season

Today at 2:30, the Rose Garden will host my favorite basketball team versus the Northern Iowa Panthers...If you're reading, you probably already know that Chris Kramer needs to stay out of foul trouble...The Ostrich needs to get into his rhythm and attack the glass...LewJack needs to play under control...KG needs to continue shooting a la KG of 2008...JJ & Smooge need to exert their will...and Nemmy needs to not do so behind the arc!

All joking aside, in spite of NI playing in the less-respected MVC, anyone can beat anyone in this tournament...Matty knows that- the question is, has he conveyed that effectively to the team? Hopefully, they're still hungry and humble in spite of EsPN's complimentary tone toward them...and the fact that around 90% of those filling out their own brackets think Purdue will win.

This time of year is the most-enjoyable one for me...and probably the players as well. But, nothing is less-enjoyable than being the top-story on all of the sports outlets because you were upset and helped create a Cinderella story.

Who to watch
Kwadzo Ahelegbe (#11), like Purdue's Sophomores, is counted on for a lot of output. He averages almost 12 points and over 3 assists...Ali Farokhmanesh (#5), a slightly shorter guard, has been one of the main offensive threats for the Panthers all season. He's a JuCo transfer who averages just under 10 points/gm and makes the team go (and he is the best three-point shooter on the team). Adam Koch (#34), a 6'8" forward, will probably draw the attention of Robbie Hummel. He's a 6'8" Junior who averages over 12 points, and 5 assists. But, their most noteworthy, and maybe most capable player is their quite large big man named Jordan Eglseder (#53). He's significantly larger than JJ, both in height and weight at 7'1" and nearly 300lbs. He averages over 10 points a game and 6.5 rebounds.

As you can see, this team's a lot like Purdue in that they're well-balanced and have multiple weapons capable of filling it up. And like Purdue, this team dominated their post-season all-confernce tournament team and had a lot of guys win awards for the reglar season accolades as well. And their coach, Jacobson was COTY for the MVC. They're also similar to Purdue in the fact that they rely heavily on the three point shot to help their offense

But, they haven't been successful versus the Big Ten. NIU is 8-36 versus opponents out of Purdue's conference...most of those games (38) were played versus Iowa. And speaking of those Lichlighter-coached Hawks, they beat NIU by 19 points at Iowa earlier this season. They also lost to fellow opponent Indiana State by one point at ISU. In the meat of their season, they won 12-straight conference games. But, they ended their season much like our Boilers, losing 4 of their last 7 regular season games before winning their conference tourney.

While I hope Purdue hasn't been reading their own press clippings, I definitely hope the Panthers have been reading about Purdue. Purdue is a good team who, hopefully, continues to get better...and unlike most of NIU's players, most of Purdue's guys have been here before...Here's to that being made obvious later today.

BTN Weighs in on Purdue's chances...

Funny, Jim Jackson picked Purdue to lose each round of the BT tourney...now he's on board, I guess. Hey Jim, there's no room, you can't jump on the bandwagon.

Know Thine Opponent: Baylor Bears

I don't know if I feel real great about Purdue's initial match-up in the tourney...Hopefully, I'll get a gut feeling in the coming days. But, here's what I know, so far:

Purdue will be playing in DC...a good thing for the Boilers. Why? Well, first off, they're in closer proximity to the venue than is Baylor. But second, DC has a killer Purdue alumni association, one of the biggest in the nation. I know the president of the group...I'm pretty sure he'll get 'em energized and hopefully have the Purdue faithful there in force.

Baylor's Coach, Scott Drew, is a son-of-a-coach...a pretty good one. He grew up around the game, and like his Dad, has fundamentally-sound players. This team is solid...and they have something that causes Purdue fits: Skilled and legitimately big centers. Two seven-footers split time for the Bears. On top of that, they've got five players averaging about 10 points each. One is an ex-McDonald's All-American (Carter, Soph.), another is a former top 25 recruit (Dunn, Soph.) and their leading scorer, who averages 15/gm. is a Junior who has been receiving Big 12 accolades since arriving on campus. They can also shoot from behind the arc, three players shoot over 40% from 19.9. And they do the little things...like hit free throws. Nearly the whole team shoots over 70% from the free throw line...And finally, they can score. They've reached the century mark five times in '07/'08.

All but one of their losses came against NCAA tournament teams...and they have no Wofford-like games on their schedule. In other words, they're a pretty good, consistant team. To tell you the truth, it may seem like Purdue got absolutely screwed playing a team this good in the first round...But, like I've been saying all weekend, Purdue can only blame itself for the position it's in.

What's your take on the 10-seed Bears?

Addendum:
Purdue finishes season 18th