Feature image from @Boilerball

What Happened?

Unexpected stress, anxiety, annoyance, frustration, and ultimately that throwing-your-hands-up-in-disbelief brand of laughter.

With the Hurricanes missing standout All-ACC senior guard Chris Lykes after a sprained ankle in practice, what was projected by KenPom as a high-scoring 1-point Miami win dissolved into a little bit of Coral Gables chaos.

Brandon Newman opened the game with 7 straight points, behemoth Zach Edey followed with 6 quick points and Purdue all of a sudden found themselves with a 15-1 lead just five minutes into the game.

But in what would become the canary in the coal mine, the Boilers would follow-up with a 5-minute scoreless stretch, a symphony of 9-straight missed shots (none of them terrible, similar to the Valpo game last week). Miami wouldn’t take advantage, making that stretch easy to ignore…but we’d see it again, don’t you worry.

Eric Hunter returned to the lineup, and sparked the offense back to life, surging Purdue to a 20-point lead with 2 minutes to go in the first half.

Twenty-point lead. And then…

Despite two more 5+ minute scoreless stretches, Purdue led by 15 with 10 minutes left and, according to ESPN, had a 98% win probability. As flawed as those instantaneous win probabilities sometimes are…it was pretty clear that in no way should Purdue have been at risk of blowing this game.

I wrote this during the Valpo win last week, when Purdue had no business winning: Young dumb teams play young dumb games. This one, though, was its mirror image. Versus Valpo, Purdue started poorly, chipped away at their lead, and stole the game away at the free-throw line. Tonight, Purdue’s poor second half fumbled away a surefire (and resume-worthy) win, with Miami attempting 29 free throws to Purdue’s 10.

As these four freshman (plus Jaden Ivey, when he returns) work through their inexperience and provide depth behind Isaiah Thompson, Sasha Stefanovic, and Aaron Wheeler, they’ll win some games they shouldn’t and let games like tonight slip away. The good news – when things are clicking, this team looks great together and has a bunch of dudes who are easy to root for.

Miami is a good team, and by the year’s end it might not look like a terrible loss (especially as memory of the missing Lykes fades). But, in the moment…this one stings.

The Good

• Brandon Newman’s hot start.  Newman put last week’s dud of a game versus Valparaiso instantly in the rear-view mirror. He scored Purdue’s first 7 points of the game in 90 seconds of gameplay, three straight perfect possessions run through the redshirt freshman. (And…that was the end of his scoring for the night.)

• Zach Edey posting up strong and sealing his defender into a different dimension every single time he touches the ball must be demoralizing to play against, but it sure is fun to watch. (The refs, who struggled to referee the similarly-huge Isaac Haas, would punish this strength.)

• Eric Hunter back in the lineup adds both another scoring and slashing thread around the perimeter, and another steady experienced vet who can direct the offense anytime he’s on the floor. (This would not, unfortunately, last deep into the second half.) Hunter finished with 11 points on 4/10 shooting.

• Mason Gillis continues to put up great hustling minutes at the power forward position. 9 points, 6 rebounds, and 3 steals from the freshman, and in the second half looked to be the only player playing without, as Bomani Jones eloquently puts, lemonbooty. Gillis, I think, has done enough to slide in as the starting power forward alongside Trevion Williams.

• Purdue’s first half defense. Without Chris Lykes, Miami was out of sorts – and Purdue took advantage of the apparent confusion. With Hunter in the lineup reading passing lanes, Edey and Williams holding strong in the paint, and wings staying active, Purdue was able to trap every drive in that free throw line area no-man’s-land and clog Miami’s offense to only 14 first half points.

The Bad

• Purdue’s second half defense. Again, Purdue was up by 20 just before half time. Twenty. When young teams get comfortable leads early in games, the pressure tends to ease up. Slowly, one blown switch or open backdoor pass at a time, Miami chipped away at the lead and got Purdue sweating. And when Purdue sweats, they get stagnant and pray for bail-out buckets from the post.

• Three-point shooting, on both sides of the ball. Miami shot just under 6% from three, Purdue 16%. Yes, Purdue somehow lost a game to a team who failed to hit 6% of their threes. As Purdue usually shoots 46% from three. In 2020. Sigh.

• Aaron Wheeler. I hate putting players in “The Bad” category, because usually there are bright spots…but wow, did Purdue’s potential 3-and-D wing struggle. I really want to see Wheeler do well, but when the game is defined by scoreless stretches, we unfortunately can’t afford more minutes to ineffective offensive players. Ivey and Gillis should take these minutes, if things continue like this for Wheeler.

• Every time Edey is called for high elbow fouls. The dude is like 9’6”, he shouldn’t have to bend down to normal mortal levels every time. It seems like Purdue should resubmit their exact “Isaac Haas Foul Protests” file, except scratch out and replace the name with the freshman Edey.

• Long stretches where Purdue doesn’t do that scoring points thing. This has become frustratingly common to in-flux Purdue rosters. Take a look below – three 5+ minute stretches without a single point. Combine that with only 10 points scored in the last 13 minutes of play, and you get a demoralizing loss.

The Ugly

• Trevion Williams’ played a strong solid first half, showing all of the tricks we came to expect after next year. Strong rebounding position worthy of that #50 jersey, lightning quick up-and-unders at the rim, solid defensive effort – after a couple of early misses at the rim, Tre rounded into the form we got used to last year. In the second half…well, check the link below to see how he fouled out. 8 points, 7 rebounds, 2 steals are fine, but Tre’s inability to put together a complete game has been the takeaway thus far.

• The foul disparity. Listen, Purdue made a ton of mistakes. So I don’t want this to be an easy scapegoat. But 23 Purdue fouls to Miami’s 14. Purdue’s 10 free throw attempts to Miami’s 29. This clip below. I dunno man, it’s just enough to be very very frustrating at all times.

• My blood pressure