Purdue Matches Feat Accomplished By NU and Iowa; Sweeps IU

The Boilers took yet another step tonight, demonstrating how focused and prepared they are able to be following the biggest win of the season. Purdue allowed no semblance of a letdown tonight, taking care of business at the lovely Ass Hall and winning by 11, 72-61.

This is the kind of game that would trip up many teams, including many Purdue teams over the years. For as much as we mock it, playing in Bloomington is not easy for Purdue and the record shows it. However, tonight the Boilers won even more easily than last year in B-town. I'm sure it's all part of Crean's master plan, though.

Nobody had an amazing night, but that's been part of the beauty of this team. It's not necessary for that to happen. Everybody pitches in and they get the job done, play strong defense and you look up and it's 72-58 before a meaningless three makes it look slightly closer. And if the Boilers hit more than 58% of their free throws, it would have been over even sooner. As it was it was a ten point halftime lead which, let's be honest, IU isn't overcoming against the Boilers.

JJ had a solid 20 and 9 tonight, despite getting into foul trouble for one of the few times this year. (And also being guarded some of the night by the always formidable Tom Pritchard.) Smooge followed up his career night against OSU with just 17 points, but he did have five assists and six rebounds. So a much more solid game than you might think at first glance.

Terone Johnson his three big threes in the first half that stymied IU rallies and DJ Byrd came to play as well, hitting three of seven from trey land and finishing with 11 points. Lew had his now-typically solid game also, scoring 8 points, dishing six assists, grabbing four boards and getting two steals. The guy puts up top notch efforts almost every night now and he's still got his senior season ahead of him. Almost makes you giddy about next year already, right?

Kelsey Barlow did not look afraid of the disjointed, possibly drunk, potentially stoned IU student section, which mustered a couple of unimaginative chants and then quickly grew tired of the work involved. They did manage to put together some profane chants and apparently even chanted "overrated" at E'Twaun Moore. Really?

5-1 in their careers vs IU.

Smooge and JJ seemed to get a little mad a few times, as the Hoosiers appeared to get the directive to make them pay for going to the basket. JJ was even fouled from behind on a wide-open dunk -- a stupid foul, to be sure. Smooge went in for a dunk at one point and was shoved to the floor where he landed fairly hard... but then bounced up looking pissed. We like these two when they're mad. So get mad and stay mad, fellas.

As we mentioned on the Handsome Hour tonight, we continue to be amazed at the amount of vitriol and smack talk coming from Hoosier fans via Twitter and other mediums. We keep hearing the wait till next year crap, the banner crap and the you're just jealous of us crap. And that last one might be the silliest of all. Let me clear something up....

You're a doormat, IU! A conference bottom-feeder! You're a joke! Other schools and fans actually laugh at IU. They look forward to playing IU because it's a sure win for good teams and a good potential for a win for marginal teams.... and bad teams! You lost at home to Northwestern....and Iowa! You have absolutely nothing to chirp at Purdue fans/alums about. Nothing. Your program is heading in the wrong direction.

Aw, cheer up Jeremiah. At least your 5-7 football team has the Bucket!

We will now resume ignoring IU basketball -- like the rest of the country -- and focus on the next test, yet another significant one. Winning at Breslin is never easy and for those who get pissy because of the whistle that blows at Purdue football games, well, give a listen to the Mack truck horn they blast at the Breslin Center. It makes me want to punch kittens.

Ho-Hum...Boilers Beat Who-Who-Hoosiers 67-53.

Crean attempts to push...his team toward victory in Mackey

J pointed this out earlier today- this was a game that Purdue's expected to win...a game that the media expects to be easy for Purdue. Honestly, it was a must-win for Purdue as the schedule gets tougher in the coming week. And the Boilers handled their business by keeping the pesky Hoosiers at an arm's length.

To illustrate the point- Prior to the game, Purdue's radio affiliate had Brent Mussberger talk about his thoughts on the game. The host said something along the lines of 'throw the records out...rivalry game...blah blah'. Ole Brent came back quickly saying that he didn't think IU really had much of a shot because of the talent and depth disparity. So like we said, it's a lose-lose situation.

Make no mistake, this isn't the mid-90s. You can't throw the records out. In the 90s it might have been the first place team versus the 5th place team. Now, it's the number two team in the conference v. the last place team. Purdue should win games like this and they did it...in unexciting fashion.

Moore played well, but still is not himself. The more I watch him, the more I think there's a nagging injury he's struggling through. He shot below 50%, yet again and had a few shots that were way off. His on-ball defense was very good, as usual. But on the other side of the court, he still struggles selling the idea that he's being fouled when he drives. I think much of that comes from the way he finishes- he tends to fade away instead of going strong to the defender. He ended the day with 25 points 8 rebounds and two blocks.

Happy Birthday, 25!

And speaking of blocks, Purdue ended the day with eight. Not surprisingly, four of those came from JJ. Johnson, like Smooge, had some awful looking shots though. Plus, he took a few that were a bit forced as he tried to establish his perimeter game in the second half instead of taking it at Pritchard (who is pretty awful). JJ finished with 15 points, 8 rebounds, 4 blocks and shot well from the stripe as usual (7/8).

LewJack was one of the four players that guarded Hulls on the evening. Coming in, Hulls was shooting just under 50% from behind the arc. Tonight, Purdue took that away from him as he went 1-5. Atop of using his quickness on the defensive side, Jackson shredded IU on secondary fast breaks a few times and had some nifty finishes while avoiding contact. He finished with 15 points, 4 rebounds...but his pace really kept IU on its collective heels for chunks of the game.

Ryne Smith didn't shoot too much, but played a solid 26 minutes, had 3 assists and 2 steals and took a couple of big charges. I like what I saw from both Byrd and Bade. Byrd doesn't hesitate to shoot the ball when given space, he's fearless when battling larger bodies on the glass and sees the court well. Bade only had two points, but added three rebounds and set high screens well and was active without the ball in his seven minutes of playing time.

Barlow and Johnson were two of my favorite players tonight, because they both seem to play with a chip on their shoulder and tend to like sticking their noses into the middle of trouble. Neither scored a bunch, but Barlow's eight rebounds, four assists and three steals were integral in frustrating IU and keeping the lead at an uninteresting 6-9 points for much of the second half.

Granted, there were a couple noteworthy moments of the game...both involved Barlow:

-Jordy (what adult would go by Jordy) Hulls throwing a high elbow during a dead ball after Barlow had frustrated him. While no technical foul was called, the official did give Hulls a good talking-to...so hats off, BT officiating!

-Barlow had one of the best passes of the season as he fired a breaking ball between two IU defenders to Smooge, who finished with an easy dunk.

Other than that, it was kinda business-like.

ENERGY!!!!

Tom Crean was Tom Crean. He paced, he clapped, he drank, he turned around and clapped to his team, he was on the court, he paced some more. I've watched IU quite a few times and I can't get over how annoying his sideline mannerisms are. And in his defense, he finally has IU playing with some energy on defense. But without Watford for a few games, Crean turns to one of the worst D1 big men for significant minutes.

I'm always impressed with Verdell Jones, and he was once again solid versus Purdue. But, Barlow matches up with him better than a season ago, so he was wrangled a bit. Hulls is a consummate IU player- sure, he has the shooting mechanics of a girl, but his girl shot is effective. He's Steve Alford, Dane Fife, Neil Reid and any number of other scrappy (read as white) IU guards all rolled into one. But that's kinda where it stops with tradition. IU has some very good athletes- Oladipo, Rivers, Watford (injured) and Sheehy are uber-talented. And Elston, while he is used as little more than a goon at this point, was a 4-star guy out of high school.

What's my point? My point is IU should be better than they are. The excuse of attrition is tired and old. While IU's fan base is OK with Clapping-Crean rah-rah-ing his way to sub-.500 in-conference records, I'm not buying it. There are plenty of tools in Bloomington (not just in the stands) at The Forehead's disposal. If used correctly, IU would be NCAA tourney-bound this season. Let's remember, Matty led a team to the NCAA tournament in which he needed Bobby Riddell to play significant minutes. No matter. My point is I'm not really surprised IU has beaten a few respectable teams...I'm more surprised that they're a sub-.500 team overall this late in the season.

The game in Bloomington will be a lot different than that in Mackey. They won't be fighting for a post-season birth, in my opinion after falling back off the tracks. Instead, they'll be playing in their own one-team invitation for all the marbles (in their opinion). Hopefully, Matty and Co. are ready for that atmosphere.

Looking Ahead

But, in the meantime, the most-brutal three-game stretch of the season is ahead of our Boilers. The very beatable Illini host The Forces of Good on Saint Valentine's Day Eve at 1:00pm on CBS. Historically, this is a tough contest for Matty...but, Smooge plays well in Champaign, and JJ is probably due for a good game and Tisdale won't be able to do much about it.

While March isn't in sight just yet, it's not too far off...and Purdue's March, in my opinion, will be defined by their performance in February. It's time for this team to win a couple more big games.

Letdown Game.

Coming off of a big victory versus a highly-ranked opponent, you're typically going to see a letdown. J was worried there would be one, and there was...We saw it this afternoon in Mackey, but timing was on Purdue's side as IU was the opponent. This game sure didn't feel like a rivalry game to me...with the exception of Dumas throwing a cheap shot after the play at Kramer, and bumping into Buckets at the free throw line between shots, there wasn't too much to write home about. Granted, I didn't see Hummel's concussion (I was in the little boys' room), but my brother said it didn't look cheap to him. Other opinions vary on the message boards...if only the BTN had some fancy editing equipment, maybe I would have been able to see the replay. Maybe they'll be able to afford some next season.

Here are my thoughts on IU's players today- I was impressed with Verdell Jones ability to create scoring opportunities...and Malik Story looks like a handful because of his larger-than-average build and strength. Pritchard looked alright, and Roth is just like Rick Mount (wink, wink). Kyle Taber's play was a thing of beauty, as usual. Dude is a sexy beast.

On the good guys' side, Smooge was a monster. He nearly reached his career high and hardly shot in the second half. He had a great shooting night (71% from the floor), but still turns the ball over a bit too much, for my liking. Johnson had another big game- 14pts. 10 reb. 5 blk...but he had four turnovers like Moore. Kramer's stat line was good, and probably should have been better. He had at least one block shot stolen by the officials and ended up with 7 points on 3-3 shooting, 5 steals and 4ast., but was in foul trouble for most of the game. LewJack had a quiet game (like much of the line-up), didn't play a ton of minutes, but showed his speed and quickness on a few plays as he accelerated past the IU defense...that said, he missed a couple easy shots- missing layups is something that should happen at this point in the season. KG regressed back to the form we saw earlier this season going 0-3 from the field, at least he had three assists. With the exception of Moore's shooting it was really kind of a meh game.

Paint Crew giving it to the Hoosiers

The real story of the game is the fact that Purdue left 15 points on the floor. Smartly, IU fouled Purdue a lot in the last 5:00 to try to lengthen the game, and Purdue responded by missing the front end of a few 1-and-1s and missing at least half of the two-shot opportunities. If Purdue would have shot their average (70%) from the stripe, they might have had a bit more breathing room in the end. Regardless, they didn't...they let a horrible team hang around and stay within a 10-point margin for most of the game. The lethargic effort almost seemed as if Purdue would only push itself when the game got around a 7 pt. margin...then, they'd build the lead to 12 or 13, and let it fall back to 7...repeat. You can see how Purdue kept IU at an arm's length ad nauseaum:

Stats by StatSheet.com

Two things were noteworthy about this game, to me- First, Purdue allowed IU to score over 64 points...and won. Our Boilers are now 1-6 when they allow teams to score more than 64 points. I think it's actually a psychological positive to win a game like that; it's going to have to happen in the tournament. The second thing that was noteworthy was how the forehead makes me nervous- not because I think his teams will dominate, but because he's almost twitchy he's moving so often...and clapping, and sweating, and making unusual faces. Granted, Painter's lip-licking tick is unusual, but dude, Tom, just take a break for 10 or 15 seconds per game...I'm just saying.

We also learned that Burr, Valentine, Hillary and Hightower aren't the only lousy refs in the Big Ten. A new crappy official has joined their ranks- Congrats Brian O'Connell for missing a wide array of violations. You're in horrible company now, as you know.

Next up, UM in AA on 2/26 @ 9:00pm...This one is the most bothersome game remaining on the regular season schedule, for me.