(Photo credit: Mark Wallheiser, AP)

Purdue played a weirdly sloppy game tonight in the “semi-final” of the Emerald Coast Classic against a ranked VCU team….

The game was painful from the start for a number of reasons. One was Steve Lappas doing color and sounding like a Bayonne loan shark (“Puhh-deww”), but the on-court reasons were just how awful both teams looked for a quarter of this game. It was literally 5-5 halfway through the first half of play. Yikes.

Things actually improved from there after the teams were on a pace for a record number of turnovers and by halftime, Purdue somehow had a six point lead.

The second half was more of the sloppy same, like Boilerdowd after a couple of vodka cranberries… just all over the place.

But they held on for a “burn the tape” 59-56 victory, their first scoring that few points since… *checks notes*…. February of this year, when they beat Indiana 48-46. Holy hell, I have blocked that one out.

The less said about this one, the better. Both Matt Haarms and Trevion Williams fouled out. Before he did, though, Tre was having one of the better games for the Boilermakers. He was one of three Boilers in double figures, with ten points on 5/5 shooting from the field. Haarms had only six points in his time in the game. The other double figure scorers for Purdue were Eric Hunter with 12 and Jahaad Proctor, also with 12. Proctor seemed to be the leader they leaned on tonight, though he only went 2/9 from the floor. His 8/10 from the line was fortunate, since he had far more attempts than anyone else on Purdue, who shot 65% from the line for the game.

Speaking of shooting, this wasn’t a clinic on either side. Purdue shot 41% from the field and 25% from three. Yeesh. But VCU was 44% from the field and…gulp…17.6% from trey-land. Yikes. Good thing they couldn’t shoot in that Northwest Florida State gym.

Nojel handled the ball fine tonight but he was a non-factor on the offensive end, winding up with zero points. This included 0/2 from the line and one which not only missed the rim entirely, but looked to be a foot or so to the right. I know he’s not necessarily here for his offense, but this has got to improve or teams are going to learn to just foul him in any late-game situation.

This was not a good-looking game from really any aspect other than the final score being in Purdue’s favor. The other game earlier in the night featured an upset of Tennessee by Florida State, meaning Purdue can win the Emerald Coast Classic with a win over FSU tomorrow night.