Boilers Keep NCAA Hopes Alive, Sweep Iowa 77-68
After dropping a pair of home games to NCAA-bound teams, the Good Guys looked all but out - in fact, I wrote them off in my recap of the loss to Michigan - and there wasn’t much time left to repair their resume. They needed to start by beating Iowa in Iowa City on Senior Night during a season where Big Tenteen teams are winning about two-thirds of conference games ($), down a bit from the pace they set earlier in the season, and it wouldn’t hurt if the Boilers took command of the game early, as opposed to squeaking out a narrow win.
Iowa led for 29 seconds Tuesday night: one fast break basket, two of only 10 points Iowa would get on Purdue turnovers. The Boilers retook the lead on the next possession, with an offensive rebound by Evan Boudreaux leading to an Eric Hunter Jr. two, and that was that. Once again, Iowa’s aversion to defense burned them, as the Hawkeyes dug a big hole in the first half and never really climbed out of it in the second. When you’re at home and your kenpom win probability graph looks like a Wile E. Coyote cliff, you didn’t play well.
Wile E. Coyote ramps up his performance, preparing to win the game in overtime. Narrator: there was no overtime. | Warner Bros
The Good Guys did find the carnival rims they’d been shooting at on the road this year, but for a change it wasn’t all at once. They hit just 3 of 13 (.231) outside the arc in the first half, but raised that to .357 in the second to offset a horrid second-half performance from two (3 for 18, .167) … and not even the carnival could stop them at the line, as they hit 19 of 22, including 7 of 8 in the last two-ish minutes.
And this time, all the other pieces came together in a road game. Purdue outrebounded Iowa by 14, including +11 on the offensive glass … add one more of those and the Boilers would have rebounded half of their own misses, but it was still the worst showing Iowa’s had on the glass this year - four times, they’ve allowed teams to rebound 40% or more of their misses, and all four have been Hawkeye losses (Indiana, Michigan, and both Purdue games).
Iowa helped out by giving up a ton of points after turnovers: the Boilers got 25 points, nearly a third of their total, from just 15 Hawkeye turnovers. That’s not the worst performance in Iowa City this year - oddly, Iowa had 18 turnovers in their 18-point win over Maryland in January, in a game where the Terrapins shot .433/.182/.550 - but it sure didn’t help them. The worst thing you can do for a team that struggles on the road is give them easy baskets, and Iowa did that and then some. In case you were wondering how a team can shoot .373 overall and hold a double-digit lead for most of the game, that’s how - Purdue took 11 more shots than Iowa did. Give any team enough extra plays and they’ll beat you.
Shall we talk about individual performances? Let’s do it.
If you could place a trifecta bet on a team’s leading scorers, you’d have lost this game. Anyone have Hunter, Boudreaux and Jahaad Proctor? I didn’t think so. A career-high 19 from Hunter led the Boilers, and if they had stopped playing Ohio it would have topped the career mark he would have just set against IU (17; he had 18 against the Bobcats this year, and his career high last season was 13, also against Ohio).
Boudreaux posted his second double-double as a Boiler, a solid 14-14 that included game highs in total and offensive rebounds, which is a big deal when there’s a conference Player of the Year candidate on the other team doing the things you’re doing. He added 3 assists to just 1 turnover, and more importantly, somehow got called for only one foul in 33 minutes in a road game. I’m assuming ACC refs were calling this game, and not just because I don’t recognize the usual suspects from the box score. (Not that Evan plays a foul-plagued game, more that Purdue has been … let’s just say they’ve not been favored at all by officials.)
Proctor was the only guy on either team’s bench to hit double figures (and the only Boiler reserve to hit a three), hitting two threes and a pair of late free throws as part of his 12.
Nojel Eastern continues to do the things he does well, with a game-high 6 assists and 4 rebounds, plus the kind of defense that keeps him on the floor when his shot isn’t falling - 2 steals and the usual “you won’t see this in the box score” stuff that I don’t see in the box score.
The win plus other results from last night now has Torvik projecting the Boilers as an 11 seed. If that were to hold, they’d be in a play-in game; win that and a potential 6-11 matchup would be … Iowa. Just kidding, Iowa fans! You can’t meet a team in the first two rounds if you’ve played them twice prior to NCAA play. (Play them once, you can meet in the second round; twice, you can play in the Sweet 16; three times, not before the regional finals.) Anyway, Butler, West Virginia or Colorado would all be better than an NIT opponent, right?
Up next: regular-season finale against Rutger, a team that’s dropped three of their last four and has still clinched at least a .500 conference record and all but assured themselves of an NCAA berth. Weird stuff, this season. Analytics have Purdue as a 4-point favorite or so, but if you can figure out in advance how this team will actually play, there’s a Mr. Painter on line two who wants to talk to you.
After that, it’s Indianapolis and a Thursday game. The Boilers obviously can’t climb higher than 7th since there are 6 teams with 11+ wins, and they can’t drop below 10th because they hold head-to-head tiebreakers with both Indiana and Minnesota, so any combination of those ties goes to the Good Guys. I tried to dig into possible outcomes, but there are so many possible tied teams that it’s out of my reach for now. We can, however, look at how things are likely to play out:
Penn State wins at Northwestern and is 12-8
Iowa loses at Illinois and is 11-9
OSU beats Illinois, loses at MSU and is 11-9
Rutger loses at Purdue and is 10-10
Michigan beats Nebraska, loses at Maryland and is 10-10
Purdue beats Rutger and is 10-10
Indiana beats Minnesota, loses to Wisconsin and is 9-11
The Rutger-Michigan-Purdue tie would be for 8th-9th-10th. In head-to-head play, Michigan was 4-0, Purdue 1-2, and Rutger 0-3, so the Boilers would finish 9th and get the noon game on Thursday against Michigan, with Maryland, Michigan State, Wisconsin or Illinois waiting on Friday. (Yep, the top four positions are all a mess right now.) Good news: tournament-caliber opponents that would help Purdue’s resume if BTT games still matter. Bad news: this year, the 8/9 path is one game harder than it usually is, since Michigan obviously presents big problems for the Boilers, and every team after that would be a challenge on a neutral court.
First things first: get the Senior Day W. We’ll see what happens from there.
All pictures not of Warner Bros cartoon characters are courtesy of Purdue Athletics and were taken by Charles Jischke, Paul Sadler and David Wegiel during or after the latest win over Indiana. No, the home win, not the road win. No, the one this year. I know there’s a lot of them, stay with me here.
