Examining the Box: Eastern Illinois

Everyone still panicking about the way Purdue is handling their early-season cupcakes? Or are we beginning to all understand that really young teams are sometimes less than consistent in how they defeat lesser opponents?

The Boilermakers make quick work of the Eastern Illinois Panthers this evening, smoking to an 83-55 win. EIU was never really in this one, as the Boilermakers came out and did what they needed to do while EIU was pretty cold from the opening. It's never good to get down by double digits early, especially when you're a heavy underdog on the road against a much more talented squad.

The Boilers executed their game plan tonight with methodical, ruthless efficiency. And when a game is a laugher like this, I tend to like to look at the box score to see what we can see. What I'm usually curious about is distribution -- was the blowout the result of one player going off? Because if so, that actually tells you a lot less about things, because a good player against an overmatched opponent can fill it up almost at will sometimes. But when we look at tonight's box, we see that Purdue emptied the bench again, with ten guys getting double-figure minutes. That's actually kind of hard to do unless it's an all-star game.

Of those ten, nobody had less than 14 minutes and nobody had more than 24. In addition, scoring was tremendously well-spread. The team scored 83 points and had four guys in double figures, but nobody scored more than Bryson Scott's team-leading 14. Kid Stephens was next with 11, followed by Basil and Ronnie with ten each. Ronnie Johnson also had eight dimes to complete a great game for him, and AJ Hammons played a tidy 18 minutes, finishing with 9 points, two steals, three blocks and five rebounds, while going 3/3 from the floor and 3/4 from the line. As I said....tidy.

Next up for the Boilers will be Siena at Mackey as the Old Spice Classic begins. BTN must not have any curling to show, so the Purdue game will be on. Hooray!