Cougars Go Down Easy in West Lafayette
This Chicago State team had a rough weekend.
They were beaten by 33 in Iowa City, late Friday night...and that was their feel-good game of the weekend. This evening in Mackey Arena, Purdue's faithful witnessed a thrashing for the ages. Chicago State was overmatched from the jump...and it showed.
Just 2:30 in, one of CSU's 'bigs' gave BIG Drago a cheap flagrant foul...it didn't intimidate him...it didn't really seem to anger the Boilers either. They just kinda went about their bidness...
And before you knew it, two and one-half minutes of game time later, Purdue was up by ten points. At the ten minute mark, Boogie had 12 points. And the manner by which he scored was pretty awesome. He was super-efficient, didn't force shots. And get this- he even made the extra pass to his pal Dakota a few times.
EsPN's game predictor dipped Purdue down to around 98% with 37 minutes left in the game...it didn't get any closer from there as it hovered at 99.999999999999999% for the majority of the game.
Never seen anything like this...but I've never seen a game like tonight either, honestly.
It was UGLY...unless you were clad in gold and black. It may even have been scary for some fan bases. Purdue dominated the glass tonight, after an incomplete effort on the way 31 point win waaaaaaaay back on Friday night.
This Senior class seemed hell bent on just playing solid basketball at every turn; effort was good, shot selection was excellent, hustle was plentiful and the defense contested every shot. In fact, Haarms, Haas, Edwards and Taylor combined for a whopping nine blocks as these Boilers stole the ball six times. To say this was a bit lopsided was akin to saying I'm a bit handsome, or or Matty likes to yell "MOVE" a bit, or Blough's injury was a bit tough to watch. These Boilers hit over 60% of their shots, had 29 more rebounds than their guests from the North and completed it by connecting on 17 more assists than the Cougs.
The final score of 111-42 DOES NOT TELL YOU HOW DOMINANT PURDUE WAS. And I'm not kidding around. All starters were pulled by the 11 minute mark in the second half...but Haas, Mathias and Edwards' evenings were over at the 14:30 mark.
Thompson in new Nike uni concept.
Peeeeeej followed up a quiet Friday night, with a warm and cozy Sunday, as he finished with 16 points, 3 rebounds, 2 assists and 2 steals in 23 minutes. Workmanlike.
Sure, Vince was oh-fer from three...no matter. He was easy like Sunday evening. 15 points, 12 rebounds, three assists, a steal and a block for good maaaayzure, in 24 minutes of practice. Solid.
The Midwest Cowboy benefited from a defense struggling to guard Purdue's mammoth gentlemen in the middle. He was given some open looks, and he took advantage of them. At one point, he hit three-straight, unanswered threes, then a fourth rimmed out. He finished with 18 points (6/8 shooting), 6 assists, and three rebounds...in 20 minutes of light work. Silly.
Boogie led all scorers with 25 points, 3 assists, 4 rebounds...in a mere 19 minutes. He was 10 of 13 from the field. 😍😍 (did you read about that shot percentage?!?!)
FUN STAT: The last time a Purdue team scored 100+ points in back-to-back games, I wasn't even born. 1974. Sure, these last two teams were pretty bad at basketball...But the Boiled Sports Analytics Desk backed this up with numbers research- Scoring 100 points in a game is good for a team.
A Luce-to-Eifert dribble drive, then dish, made it 102-40...And Luce made every Purdue student's night magical when he joined all other Boilers with a bucket at the 1:10 mark. Mercifully, Purdue wouldn't score again.
Purdue was stuck on 92 points for FOUR minutes after all of the first team guys left the game. The Taylor, Haarms, Eifert, Luce, Ewing line-up acted as if they hadn't played together for a bit, before finding a bit of offensive rhythm. Of that group, Haarm caught my attention- nine points, seven rebounds and four blocks.
It was fun to be in Mackey for this one...but missing Hummel's courtside debut as color man for BTN was kinda lousy. I'm looking forward to watching Rob in his next chapter, from my couch in the near future.
It gets a lot harder in two days at Marquette for the Boilers. It'll be an 8:30 tip-off (God's Country time) on FS1.
