Dick Weiss on College Basketball
PHILADELPHIA– Purdue looks like a monster while winning the best ever Maui Invitational field ever assembled.
The then-second-ranked Boilermakers defeated Gonzaga (11), Tennessee (7) and Marquette (4), which had defeated AP top-ranked Kansas in the semi-finals at Honolulu.
In the process, the Boilermakers’ giant 7-4 senior center Zack Edey, set himself up as the early favorite to repeat at the national Player of the Year with a dominant MVP performance in the islands.
Other than a conference upset road loss to Northwestern, nothing has changed.
Purdue is now 10-1 and have jumped from 3 to the top of weekly AP poll following a 92-84 victory over previously unbeaten, top ranked Arizona in Indianapolis.
And unlike last March, when the Boilermakers were vulnerable and lost to 16th seed FDU in the first round of the tournament when their perimeter shooting went off the rails, this time Purdue showed.
it was much more of a complete team.
Sophomore guards Fletcher Loyer and Braden Smith, who are playing like the best backcourt in the country, combined to score 53 points with nine threes as the Boilers foiled Tommy Lloyd’s strategy of attempting to
double team Edey with 7-0 Oumar Ballo and 6-7 Keshad Johnson in an effort to slow him down.
Edey, who is averaging 24.8 points and rebounds, simply became a facilitator, taking advantage in the holes in the Cats’ defense to find open shooters who buried the Cats under an avalanche of threes.
“They don’t really double, and it’s kind of what coach (Matt Painter) always says, “When your team doesn’t work on it, you can’t be that good at it,”’ Edey said. “They went to the double
today and they would double really hard, but their rotations were off because they didn’t really at it, so I was able to split that a few times.”
Edey scored 22 points on 8 of 15 shooting and 9 rebounds and although he didn’t get to the line as often as he usually does, he wound up with a career high five assists.
Edey is used to being in a double team, and he’s got a lot of shooters around him,” Johnson said. “We tried to make it as tough as possible on him, but he made a lot of good plays out of that double team.”
This game was about the improvement in Purdue’s guard play.
The Boilermakers have been the B1G’s best regular season team for the past three years, especially in the non-league.
And this year, provided Michigan State’s blowout of Baylor wasn’t a fluke, they may be the only two conference teams capable to advancing to a second weekend.
When the top seeded Boilermakers went into the tank last March, Smith struggled down the stretch, capping off his worst performance of the year with seven turnovers and 2 for 10 shooting in the Boilers’ early NCAA tournament exit. Loyer also went silent, scoring four or less points in four of his final five games.
But Smith has been playing like the best guard in the B1G and Loyer has stepped up with big performances in the Boiler’s biggest games. The two set the tone in the first half. Loyer scored on consecutive threes to put the Boilers up six late in the half, then Smith scored eight consecutive points to extend the lead to13.’
“I think just being aggressive,” Loyer said. “Going in with the different mindset that we’re going to need a little more, no matter who it came from.”
Loyer and Smith was so hot, Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd was forced to go zone. The Cats turned Purdue over enough and limited Edey to one field goal in 10 minutes during the second half, cutting a 15-point lead to four of five points. on multiple occasions, but the Cats never got any closer. but a Smith three with 421 to play and a pair of free throws 90 seconds later gave Purdue a 12-point cushion that held up during one of the early season games of the year.
Loyer finished with 27 points on 11 for 18 shooting. Smith had 25 points on 9 of 15 from the field. “I think just both our desires to win has really sparked this team,” Loyer said.
The win polished the Boilers’ resume in a year where Purdue, Kansas, UConn, and Arizona and possibly Houston all look like national championship contenders. The Boilermakers have four victories over top 10 KenPom teams–Arzona (4), Marquette (6), Tennessee (7) and Alabama (9), plus wins over Gonzaga and Xavier, giving them a total of six Top 50 KenPom wins.
